As far as I can tell this is the most consistent that I have ever been here in my own little corner of the Internet. I have been updating here since January and clearly that needs applauding because for now I don't have the urge to abandon this concept yet. So welcome to Best of: March edition. If I can describe this, I would say it's the amalgamation of all the things that I was obsessing over of the featured month. It could be songs, or a movie, or an Instagram post, or articles online. Basically ANYTHING. As long as I like it. That's my only prerogative. 

Deep dive along, you guys! 

1. Natasha Bedingfield X The Background Singers aka Christopher Hall and Elizabeth Hall. Follow their Tiktok. It's a hoot! 

2. Gavin de Graw's Not Over You

3. Nymphia Wind on RuPaul's Drag Race Season 16. 

4. Scanned version of my prized journals

5. Annie Lennox's No More I Love You's

6. Taylor Swift is my February's Top Artist, Kacey Musgrave's Deeper Well my Top Song and, Midnights (The Till Dawn Edition) my Top Album according to Apple Music's Replay. 

7. Kenny Loggin's Return to Pooh Corner

8. The poster for Inside Out 2 featuring a bevy of other 'feelings' and idiosyncrasies

9. Ariana Grande's Album eternal sunshine

10. My sister's crocheting was featured in ABS-CBN News! 

11. Marina Summers herstoric run in Drag Race: UK Vs. The World

12. Michelle Branch's One of These Days

13. @simply_katy dainty illustrations

14. The Boy and the Heron winning Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. 

15. Billie Eilish's What Was I Made For

16. Anna Nalick's Breathe (2 AM)

17. Kacey Musgrave's album Deeper Well

18. The quote ' The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more' by Patricia A. Mckillip from The Bell at Sealey Head (@goodreads)

19. BINI's Salamin Salamin

20. Agnes' Release Me

21. Sara Bareilles' She Used to be Mine from Waitress The Musical

22. Taylor Swift's Bigger Than The Whole Sky

23. A teaser trailer for Heartstopper 3

24. Lenka's Trouble is a Friend

25. #BrightWin forever

26. Celine Dion's Et Je T'aime Encore

27. Ariana Grande's We Can't Be Friends

28. Beyonce's Album Cowboy Carter

29. @jordanboltondesign Instragram posts

30. The app mymind

31. Remember Video City? I recently dug out from a memory box my membership card. It was all the rage during the days before Netflix. 

32. The 6th Year Anniversary of Kacey Musgraves album Golden Hour

33. Tristan Prettyman's Say Anything

Well that was a lot. I can't wait for all the April goodness! I know it's gotta be good! 

Credits: archive screenshot (instagram)

Xoxo, 

Hey. 

I know. This is not the end-of- March whatnots you are used to where I occasionally peek here to roundup my monthly obsessions but here I am introducing a new update which I know eventually will just be a one-time thing, lol. I'm supposed to write this through a new Substack newsletter but then I remember that I already have one which I am slowly and surely abandoning. Don't get me wrong please. I will never run out of ideas with the newsletter because I always have journal entries every month. But suddenly I kind of lose the energy and the enthusiasm to continue with the project. So here I am attempting a new one. Lol. 

So what is LitMus you ask?

The premise is quite simple. You are reading a potential favourite book and then suddenly you turn to the next page and there you see a playlist of songs that the author/s recommended for you to play along during your main character era. Think of it as a mixtape or when you 'burn' songs in a rewritable disc. Remember those? Oh the nostalgia! That is the idea behind LitMus. Not the most original I know. But ANYTHING to keep this going especially now that some of my co-teachers are using my website for their lessons about hyperlinks. (Shoutout to you Ubegail, ILYSM).

So I will be putting here all the music videos and a Spotify playlist at the end so you can blast these songs whenever you need a quick pick-me-up or when stress is overwhelming and you need to chill a bit. Music is cathartic, in case you didn't know. 

And so we begin with The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky which I haven't revisited since the last time I read this 10 years ago.

If you are a reader of this space, you know that this update is bound to happen. This, I believe, is the only way to keep this website from complete stagnation. 

Using the ever efficient Instagram's Archive, here is a list of everything that made my February one for the books- at least for all the media (and one Seventeen member)  that I swore of enjoying. 

1. Howl's Moving Castle purse from Chuvaness. 

2. An announcement of a new Taylor Swift's album, The Tortured Poets Department (shaking, screaming, throwing up).

3. Midnights winning Album of the Year at the Grammys. 

4. Tracy Chapman's Fast Car (admittedly ushered by the Grammy performance). I bawled. 

5. A photo erasing app SwipeWipe that feels like Tinder.

6. The podcast Every Single Album: Taylor Swift (ep. The Tortured Poets Department Album Announcement).

7. Taylor Swift's Ivy.

8. Caroline Polachek's Welcome to my Island.

9. An announcement of a new Kacey Musgraves's album, Deeper Well (shaking, screaming, throwing up).

10. Maggie Roger's Don't Forget Me.

11. Past Lives written by Celine Song nominated for Writing (Original Screenplay) at the 96th Oscars. 

12. A poetry written by Agha Shahid Ali entitled Stationery.

13. Kacey Musgraves's Deeper Well.

14. Attempting to read One Day by David Nicholls (Just Chapter 1, I hate myself).

15. The new Wicked poster starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo dropped. 

16. Alexander Payne's The Holdovers.

17. Sarah Russel's poem, If I Had Three Lives. 

18. A heartbreaking scene from Fleabag.

19. Ariana Grande and Mariah Carey's yes, and?. 

20. Taylor Swift's You're Losing Me.

21. Mitski's album Puberty 2.

22. Cher Lloyd's Want U Back.

23. Beyonce's Texas Hold 'Em.

24. Cascada's Everytime We Touch.

25. Forebear's listed my surname as 126,741st most common surname in the world. 

26. Kelsea Ballerini is my Top Artist for January according to my Apple Music Replay 2024.

27. The book Your Inner Critic is a Big Jerk by Danielle Krysa

28. I'm Not A Girl Not Yet A Woman from & Juliet Musical.

29. Wilson Phillips' Hold On.

AND

30. Mingyu!!!!

It it my fervent hope that your February is just as good. See you next month for March roundup! 

Xoxo, 

I feel that this thing has been gathering dust and no one seems around, including myself WHO created this website in the first place, to clean up the mess by just mere updating. I have to admit that I have taken this space for granted and I am not proud of it. At all. In fact, every sentiment here since then bore the same apologies and my intention is to turn things around by at least writing something here every month. At least one teensy lil update and that's all about it. 

This post is brought to you by my favorite Instagram feature- the archive.

The idea here is every month, I am going to recap the media I consumed.  Or even anything that I featured in my archive. This is partly inspired by Todd Doughty's book, Little Pieces of Hope. As this is a revenge post lol, I will try linking everything so you, too, will also enjoy the very stuff that made each featured month a little bit bearable. So enjoy and hopefully this will not be the last of this kind (as I am fiercely notorious of doing, and that included my hapless Substack newsletter). 

1. My new Traveler's Notebook journal for 2024. 

2. Ann Patchett's State of Wonder (might DNF this huhu, my fault.)

3. KT Tunstall's Suddenly I See from The Devil Wears Prada. 

4. Dan Levy's first directorial debut Good Grief.

5. Hoku's Perfect Day from Legally Blonde.

6. Letterboxd awarded my favorite 2023 film Past Lives as Highest Rated Romance, Highest Rated Directorial Debut, and Highest Rated Narrative- Women Directors. The deservancy! 

7. Tapestry album by Carole King

8. Miki Matsubara's Mayonaka no Door/ Stay With Me.

9. 25 Best Films of the Year by David Ehrlich

10. My new Frankie Magazine from my cousin who lives in Perth, Aus. 

11. Lana del Rey's A&W

12. The 'Background Singers' Tiktok account by Christopher Hall.

13. Crocheted Airpods case by my sister.

14. Hayao Miyazaki's swan song film, The Boy and the Heron.

15. White Lotus's Simona Tabasco collaged Emmy outfit made up of cut out flowers. 

16. Julian Sewell's Every Best Actress Intro. Paloma Diamond is my forever robbed queen. 

17. Natalie Imbruglia's Torn. 

18. One pagers from @nowsparkscreativity

19. Sophie Ellis Bextor's Murder On the Dancefloor.

20. The great Filipino author Butch Dalisay on why offering a Taylor Swift course is not such a bad idea at all. 

21. Kelsea Ballerini's Muscle Memory. 

22. Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers. 

23. Ang Walang Kwentang Podcast episode with the film critic Richard Bolisay. 

24. Vatican declared Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage an international shrine. 

25. Paloma Diamond making it to Vulture. 

What have you been enjoying media-wise this January? 

Xoxo, 

I am a book whisperer. I strongly think I am. You might not believe this because you probably have read/ watched The Horse Whisperer and there is no way that I am gifted with such flair. I do not expect you to believe me of course because there is no reason to. Just come with me to a bookstore and I will show you firsthand. 

You see this gift conjures itself when I am crouch on all fours scanning all the titles as far as my eyes can see, or my hands can reach. Like magic, the best titles always come to me begging to be picked up which are eventually purchased because my reasoning involves telling myself over and over again that I will never ever be able to find the books again if I let them slip away. This gift does not come to me overnight of course. It is sustained through many years of practice, like a magician who ultimately mastered the gift after moments of failures and mishaps. 

Because of this, I am starting a series here in the website about all the books that have come to me in my outstretched hands that I have eventually bought without an iota of regret. First of all, the gift understands that I can ONLY afford books in their discounted prices. Talk about 80- 90 percent off. Books above 500 php even if they are 'whispered' to me are ignored. The sorry state of my finances trumped any guilt of not owning them. Overspending denotes the intention. The gift does not want me to go bankrupt. What's the point of me being a book whisperer if I can afford all of them in just a mighty swipe of my debit card? The purpose obvi disintegrates and there is no way in the world that I will allow this gift to die its natural death. Some feelings should die but not this. Never this because if I can be blunt about it, books are the longest relationship that I have ever had and although I would want someone sana to share all these books with, maybe this whispering would eventually take me there. 

So hey if you are single and you like books and you will accept me as I am SOGIE and all, then maybe hit me up. We'll write each other's chapters of the best book ever- our love story. Lol. 

So here's a roundup of the books that I whispered into purchasing with all important links and their original VS discounted prices: 

Form Letters by Laura Olin { Original Price: 295 php, after 80% off: 59 php }

I am a sucker for experimental book format and this is definitely right up my alley. You are to fill in the details of anything asked or wanted in the letters. Be it for someone who rejected you, or to a teacher who changed your life or even as absurdly to your tooth fairy. The letters are even perforated so you can send them to the right recipient! Oh what fun! 

Pop Art by Bradford R. Collins {Original Price: 675 php, after 80% off: 135 php}

Truth be told, Art scares me because this is one subject that I would really want to get acquainted with but I might make a total mess of myself doing so in the process. But as a pop culture junkie, I would want to dive into it because there is always beauty in the attempt. The excerpt says, this book establishes the origins of Pop art in the context of the social and political world. If you are familiar with the works of Andy Warhol and you are such a devotee, this book would inform you that he is not the end-all and be-all of Pop art although there is no denying his rippling influence. In fact this cover of Brillo soap pads is an art by Warhol himself. 

Being Creative by Michael Avatar {Original Price: 795 php, after 80% off:  159 php}

Pretty Paper Parties by Dana Chupp { Original Price, 295 php, after 80% off, 59 php}

If we are friends for the longest time, you would certainly know that pretty papers permeate my being and there is nothing that I wanted in the world so much than just be surrounded by them frail but whimsical papers. Most certainly not all of these will be used for parties because 1. I don't throw any and 2. These are perfect for my journal as accents, or backdrops or what have you! I can't wait to stick this to my Traveler's Notebook! 

If you read anything offline this year, make it this book {Original Price, 175, not discounted}

Collecting cards when I can now afford them is something that my tweensy, pre-pubescent self would thank me for. But this particular set is way tad different from my stash. First of all, this is nasty and snarky and surefire anyone without a sense of humour would find this downright offensive and that is the fun of it OMYGOD. If ever you are a friend and you receive one from me, just don't forget to remember that it will always be the thought that counts. You're welcome. 

I freakin cannot wait to add more to my growing collection. For the meantime, let me just take a deep breath and READ THEM. 

Xoxo,