Well she used to date another girl... ;)

Sabel

Gusto kong matikman ang buko pie ni Sabel. Lol.

Err.

This is a really shitty week for me. Gawd.

Plus, I'm Gay.

"i wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. not fuck, like in those movies. not even have sex. just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. but I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and i was gawky and she was gorgeous and i was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. so i walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, i was drizzle and she was a hurricane."

-john green, looking for alaska.

Slam Dunk

This anime is the reason why I got into basketball in the first place. I was a hyperactive kid back then, but I had nowhere to channel my energies. I tried Taekwondo for the summer vacation and a couple of months after classes resumed, but the gym where I took lessons was too far so I had to stop. I also played softball with the neighboring kids (I could throw a curve ball that nobody seemed to hit and I didn’t even know what it was called!) but somehow it stayed just that- a game I played with my childhood friends.

When I was a freshman in high school Channel 7 began airing Slam Dunk. Every afternoon after dismissal I would rush home to catch the anime, I would even skip my weekly cleaning assignment but not an episode of Slam Dunk. Suddenly I could understand my uncle when he would talk about the NBA (he used to sound gibberish). PBA games became bearable (it used to piss me off when my father would switch the channel to watch Ginebra’s games). I began tuning in to UAAP and NCAA (and not long after, the PBL, where college cagers would play before being drafted into PBA).

My classmates in high school forgot that I was fair-skinned because I became sunburned due to the hours I spent outside playing basketball. But what the heck, I got better and better, and could beat half the boys my age in our baranggay. Basketball became my passion, perhaps I loved it more than writing or even reading. The only frustration I have about the sport (other than my height) is the fact that I never got to play it for my school. We didn’t have a women’s varsity in high school, and in college, well, I got sidetracked and joined the track team instead, then got sidetracked again and just went on to enjoying my college life in utter bliss and freedom. Of course I would play for my org during sports fest, but I know it would be different to actually don your school colors with pride.

Once I joined the UST Women’s Basketball Team summer camp try-outs. I suppose I was doing fairly well, I kept up with the pace of the regular players, I showed some pretty darn moves, but due to personal reasons I lasted for only one week. (Oh I guess it’s different when it’s your heart that aches than your body.) That’s about the closest I can get to college hoops.

But no matter, I still love the sport.

Other anime about basketball popped up after Slam Dunk, but nothing could ever beat the original.

Where It All Started

I was in Grade I, and I had a seat mate named Jane. She was fair-skinned, her hair was blond against the sunlight, she had round black eyes, and a really cute smile. I had a very short attention span as a kid, and even now I still do, but back then I would steal glances at her and I knew, I liked her, not the way I liked my other classmates. It was different.  I felt different around her.

Once, upon the prodding of my other seat mate, I hid her clay dough. She told our teacher, and I received a lashing from our teacher's dos por dos stick. I guess it made me like her less.

One day she didn't show up in class. She didn't the next day either, and the next, and the next. From what I heard (now I'm not so sure anymore) she got sick, and her family moved to another place. 

Today whenever I remember my seat mate with fair skin and golden hair and round black eyes and a really cute smile I can't help but smile, and wonder where my puppy love is right now.