yearender

After winning the year end poker tourney with a bunch of high school buddies on new year’s eve (getting an ace-high straight on a no-look, all-in on the final hand, san ka pa?), I remarked that the game signified redemption from an otherwise bad year. It was a mere 400 pesos, but on a symbolic level, still very fulfilling nonetheless.

So, as I drove home past White Plains Drive where all the enterprising firecracker merchants peddled their wares, and with sample fireworks going off with their reflections glaring in other cars’ windshields, I began to think about the year that was.

The year started off with an air of certainty. Plans were in place, and things were looking up. I had something to look forward to and everything was great.

Unexpectedly though, things had to come down hard on me. I stopped listening to music with words; happy lyrics saddened me, and sad lyrics depressed me even further. Instead, I tripped out on jazz. Herbie Hancock and Sonny Rollins are great in their own right, but John Coltrane is a true demigod.

To people willing to listen, I always say that a bad breakup is something you always hear happen to people, but never in your wildest nightmares thought would happen to you. I haven’t disclosed my reasons yet, nor do I have any intention of doing so, for the sake of fairness to my ex. I’m sure she has her grounds against me as well, and I would appreciate it too if she kept things to herself. As is the ethic of reciprocity, fundamental across all religions.

So, I think I’ve recovered rather nicely now, as I once wrote, albeit vaguely. I rediscovered my love for current music, not easily being distraught by sad sentimental sap.

I also sought refuge in the company of old friends, who on the cusp seem to be shallow and childlike. Deep down though, there exists a presence of something remarkably profound amidst the silliness that I can’t put into words. It is just what it is.

Anyway, the new year.

I got back home from my poker game in time for family dinner, caught some zzzz’s, then chatted a friend up who was going emo over missing an ex during what is supposed to be a time of merry making, all before the stroke of midnight. January 1 came, but I was in the shower, so that was rather uneventful. Headed out around one-ish and had amazing conversations with friends at this half-laidback, half-earsplitting bar in Taguig. Got home barely before the sun came up, and slept with the TV ironically tuned to Umagang Kay Ganda (The irony lying with the Umaga part, not the Kay Ganda).

It was a good night and a fitting start to what seems like a better year than last. Musically alone, there are tons of stuff to look forward to. There’s the new Magnetic Fields album coming out this month, as well as the Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down album, which I’ve downloaded and enjoyed a couple of songs from. It also seems like the year of Ben Gibbard, who is in line for a new Death Cab record, as well as new stuff from the Postal Service. On films, Indiana Jones is going to be released this year, and that I’m sure will be epic. And oh, one of my favorite films of all time, Harold and Kumar, will be coming out with a sequel, so that should be something to look forward to.

On a personal note, I looked at my experience hanging with friends during the dawning of the new year and tried to come up with a metaphor to illustrate what my 2008 will be like. And the best that I can come up with, is this…

It’s that, this year will be filled with rekindling of old friendships.

I guess it wasn’t really happenstance that the last song I really tripped out before the year ended was LCD Soundsystem’s All My Friends. Yeah, the one that goes,

“You spent the first five years trying to get with the plan
And the next five years trying to be with your friends again.”

Perhaps, by some cosmological maneuvering, it is the universe’s way of reminding me that friends, both real and true, are still there, physical distance and length of time notwithstanding.

Damn, do I feel lucky now.

So thank you, not only to those that remained, but those that are and still are. In hindsight, it wasn’t such a bad year after all.

Happy New Year!