You instantly feel giddy and happy no matter how sad and miserable you are whenever you see, feel, hear, taste or experience them. I call them mood swingers because for one, I experience a mood swing into a state of euphoria every time they show up. Here are things that will never fail to lighten up my doldrums.

• Cinnamon rolls - Or rather, the smell of freshly baked rolls are a kiss of an angel. A bite of these = just like heaven!

                                     

• A Beatles song - My spirit instantly goes high when the Fab Four rocks the scene. Just play my favorites: I Want to Hold Your Hand and Come Together or just any of their songs and I’ll surely sing along at the top of my lungs.

                    

• Rainy Days - If you know me well then you know how much I hate sunny days and the warm, irritating feeling they make me suffer. So when it starts to cool down, get a little gloomy and the raindrops fall from the clouds above, that calls for a celebration!

                              

• Anything free - Food, gifts or something on the house is a thing of joy for a kuripot and matipid person like me. Imagine getting something and not even paying a single centavo, how lucky can I get?

         

• Little acts of kindness - Smiles, a simple “thank you” or just helping me out on class goes a long way. For a world that can be harsh and unfair to everyone, these acts make my life worth living.

          

• Compliments - Sincere words of admiration from people are blessings in disguise for me. They are my instant confidence booster. And it’s always a plus if people say these two magic words: “Pumayat ka!” :)

                     

• Corny jokes - I admit it. I am corny. Sometimes people laugh not at my jokes but at the fact that they are so cheesy. So when someone fires a joke at me, no matter how corny it will sound, I will laugh my heart out. And don’t worry if after a month I still laugh at that joke.

                        

• Random whatever from a crush - Whether it’s just a millisecond eye-to-eye (that I swear happened), two-word exchanges or accidentally holding my crush’s hand at the elevator, I will be in Cloud 9 for the next three days.

                          

• “I Miss You” texts or calls - I have this friend which I have a little “tampo” on because apparently, she’s busy with her love life that she forgot she still has friends. Well she texted me last week and boom! All my ill feelings towards her aregone in a snap and my heart is filled with cheer.

                

• Answered prayers - These are living-proof that there really is some kind of higher entity listening to our prayers and looking over the universe. They are pieces of good fortune sent from above to make our lives worth breathing and fighting for. And I am thankful for that!                                                                 

How about you, what are your so-called mood swingers?

(In Response to Charles Warnke’s You Should Date An Illiterate Girl.)

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent.  Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

How I wish every boy would read this… So they would date me. Hahaha. But really, boys should read this and think about it.

The only television show that I still perpetually watch this days is How I Met Your Mother (Who can ever get away from Barney Stinson’s awesomeness? And I’m sure Ted Mosby is every girl’s dream). I think I’ve outgrown Gossip Girl (the complicated plot of friends banging friends and family controversies is too much for me, although I’ll always love Blair and Chuck) and Glee (which I later on realized focused on depressing social issues). But sometimes there are TV shows I wished I watched when I was younger when I had the time or was basically in high school and not worrying too much about my college life. Although I can still watch them now (thanks to torrent and pirated DVDs), I don’t think I will enjoy them as much as if I’d watched them from way back.

1. Friends

There are only 3 things I know about this show: (a) Every girl wanted Jennifer Aniston’s hair in the past because of this sitcom, (b) they lived in an apartment in Manhattan and (c) the theme song which my Tita Nanette would always sing along to whenever she heard it.

2. Lost

One of my favorite male blogger loves this show so much he still blogs about it until now even if it ended a few years ago. Makes me think about how good this show is whenever I read or see his posts!

3. Grey’s Anatomy

I’ve always wanted to watch this show but whenever I think about how late I am (specifically eight seasons late), I back out and just stick to HIMYM.

4. Monk

Seleena, one of my best friends, would always recount episodes she has watched whenever we ran out of things to talk about back in high school. I was so confident with her mad narration skills that I just did not have the motivation to watch this show.

5. The OC

I was so fascinated with Gossipl Girl in high school that one blogger encouraged me to watch this TV show which according to her I will definitely love because it’s like Gossip Girl minus the complex story line. I was so preoccupied with Blair and Chuck that I didn’t find the time to do so. But I’m still curious about people’s devotion of Seth and Summer’s love story.