First Love is the Shallowest

"They don't believe our love is real,
Cause they don't know how real love feels"

Baby, It's Fact by Hellogoodbye (2006)

I really like line up there. It (and the entire song, really) reminds me so strongly of my first ever relationship with a girl back when I was 14, and how I had to keep it a secret from my parents because they thought that I was still too young and stupid to have a girlfriend. You've been there before, I expect.

I can't recall much about her, though - and for the life of me, I can't even remember where or when I had my first kiss. I thought I would, back then - it is one of the biggest events in a person life, after all. But now, I groped about for it in my memory bank and kept drawing blanks. Why does things never seem quite as important now as they used to be?

I do remember two things, however, both of which apparently random and insignificant. One was when my ex-girlfriend made a call to my house one evening, and my Mom was the one who picked up the receiver. I still remember my Mom's face when the girl on the line asked for me - her lips were pursed and her expression became completely unreadable; blank, stony and supernaturally calm - the sort of face you see on Easter Island. She said only one line to me when she passed the phone to me;

"Your name is pronounced Sen Wai - not Seng Wai."

The other thing I remember (which is actually relevant to the quote up there) was when I paid a visit to my ex-girlfriend's place accompanied by the Smartest Bloke in School, who I used to be rather close to. I met up with her for a few short minutes at the nearby 7-11 store near her condo - she came down on the pretext of wanting to get some junk or other there, because she didn't tell her mother about me either (teenage rebellion, yay!).

I don't remember at all what we talked about that day in front of the 7-11 with the Smartest Bloke in School looking on and waiting some distance away for me - but what I do remember was just how painfully awkward it was to talk to her face to face. And it had nothing to do with my friend being there and all. I've always been awkward around her. It's like we have never truly got to the stage where she is close enough to me for me to feel entirely comfortable in her presence.

So after I said bye to Regina, I found the Smartest Bloke in School laughing himself sick in the face and when I asked him what was so funny - he told me,

"You're like two little kids dating. So cute."

That line didn't quite register properly, and it had been hovering just above my mind for the past six years - right until a couple of nights ago when I heard that Hellogoodbye song.

You know, when I have kids of my own next time, I'd let them date if they want to. In fact, I might even encourage it myself. I know that childhood sweethearts barely ever works out (and the only childhood sweethearts I know which worked out till their end were Adam and Eve, and I'm not even sure if they have a childhood). I know that children will make mistakes and have their hearts broken, lives rendered meaningless, souls disintegrated, yada yada... I'm just not someone who'd begrudge them that fate. And I'm also not someone who consider that lessons are best learned the hardest way.

Another sort of person I'm not, in all seriousness, is someone who think puppy love shallow. No one love quite so hard as they did when they did so in all their youthful follies. Sure, their love won't mean much when they are older when it all seemed like a big fat waste of time and tears - but back at the time it happened, from the moment it lives till the moment it dies, it was the strongest force in the world. It won't last but then again, since when have anything good ever endured? They should know it - they have the right of it, every single fleeting second of its sweet, sweet misery.

Ironic isn't it? The only time we can love unconditionally, without sense, reason or restrain is when we are too young and too stupid to love.

Anyway, here's the reason for my recently resurrected interest in music,

I'm too cool to own an iPod.

I bought a Sony because - well, let's face it, Apple polishers - Sony beats the crap, bejabbers and panini out of iPods when it comes to sound quality. That and the absolutely ridiculous length of battery life the Sony Walkman boasts (it hovers above 30 hours). Freaking stellar, I think.

I still got about 100 megabytes of parking space left in my Sony baby so people, I'll appreciate it if you can recommend some songs to me. I like fun, sunny songs regardless of genre, and I have a preference of style over substance. Style with substance is best, of course, but I rather listen to some shallow shit that sounds awesome, than some song with which pretends to be deep and angsty so dumb teenagers will listen to them to be cool (I've been there, kid).

Oh fuck that, just tell me what's your current favourite songs (and no, bevE, I don't want that Grinch song). I'm about 4 years behind in my ken of the music industry. And if you own an iPod, don't bother telling me what songs are worth listening to because I already know that you have awful tastes (I kid! I kid!).

And before I forget, here's the pictures of Charlie you wanted, Phoebe!

Lounging in my anteroom looking for a tummy rub.

Charlie is the new pup in the neighborhood though we are not quite sure which stray is its mom. It just appeared one day, already quite matured for a pup. It's most probably Fifi's, since she's nursing it but I find it hard to believe that that skinny bitch can actually produce such a robust and healthy offspring. It's a she, by the way, and Charlie is short for Charcoal. She's also known as Bibi. And Milo. It depends on who you ask, really, but I still think mine's the most original.

She's really good at doing that cute head-tilt thing, by the way,

"Ruh?"


Left side tilt...


And right side too!

On a one day holiday,
k0k s3n w4i