partly enjoying a partly jazz night

Went out last night; Lala, Elaine, Jewel and I (with Lala's Karl and Elaine's work friends) watched a jazz gig in Saguijo. We loved Quail Quartet (well, I did, definitely, and the other girls said they did too) and watched the start of Sound; we spent the rest of the night outside talking, as talking in a giddy circle is something you can never stop us from, no matter what situation or occassion. We used to be big Sound fans back in the day, so I guess you can say we tried to watch their set. Okay, maybe not BIG fans, but we went out of our way to watch a couple of gigs a couple years ago and we don't do that for anybody.

We are very upfront about admitting that, back in the day, we found this band very cute. Musically, the most excited about them were Waya and Elaine; I remember thinking they were pretty good but I just wasn't into their genre to be as rabid about them as other people are. But on an aesthetic level, each of us girls had a crush on at least one of them, sometimes two. I thought the percussionist cute; I remember watching my first Sound gig (in Millennia! Talk about back in the day..) and saying so and having Doiks say to me, "Girlfriend niya the model of blah blah blah..." and I retort, "Well, boyfriend ko bassist ng blah blah blah, so sinong pinagyayabangan mo?" (That's how Doiks and I love each other, so very brutal with very little of the cariño.)

It was also at a Sound gig that Waya, Jewel and Elaine were trying to convince me to dump my bassist boyfriend because I may be in love with someone else (long backstory I'm not getting into). That night, said boyfriend was arriving in Manila and I had made myself unavailable to him because I was pissed at him for something. That night, under duress, I kept defending him to my friends, saying "Oh, he's not that bad..." And I didn't break up with him but I was mad at him still and felt vindicated that instead of waiting patiently at home for him to call me that he was in town, I was out making eyes at Sound's oblivious percussion player.

Strange then, that last night I discover something while Lala, Jewel and Elaine and I were discussing how we used to be so smitten by these boys only a couple of years ago: the percussion player kind of looks like said bassist ex-boyfriend. It's not a separated at birth thing, but there are just mannerisms and facial expressions and how deep-set the eyes are. It's uncanny.

I still don't think that it's because they're my type, exactly. Maybe I was transferring, to someone who looked exactly like my source of angst. Or something.

Elaine said something to me at this discovery last night: "You're in a better place, now."

You bet your sweet ass.

The highlight of the night (besides Quail Quartet, no I'm not being biased here) was the four of us hanging out and talking. We had once resolved that we should do things together more, instead of just going out for dinner or lunch or coffee and talking. Last time we tried that, we watched Peter Pan and giggled at how cute Peter Pan is, and found we wished we had more time to talk. And last night, we watch a gig together and end up outside, talking. I'm fine with just talking. Then again, it's not as if anyone can quite shut me up.