You can’t make the Stars Dance

Dear Selena Gomez,

I am supposed to have the best January of my life. But you cancelled your concert—and announced it five days before Christmas.

How dare you.

I booked plane tickets just for your concert—international plane tickets at that.

Hanoi-Manila-Saigon plane tickets that cannot be refunded or rescheduled. This renders me aimless in Manila. I have nothing to do there, really.

Or more aptly, I don’t know what to do there.

But that’s not my point.

I was really looking forward to your concert.

I had countlessly imagined myself taking a train from a friend’s condo unit to the Smart Araneta Coliseum. I had pictured out what to wear, and how to dance to Slow Down.

Heck, I had even taken the extra mile to keep myself healthy so that I won’t be sick or whatever on January fucking 29.

While I was in Hanoi, anticipating for your concert, I would opt for taxi and bus rides for work because I wanted to make sure that I will be alive with limbs intact on January 29. I skipped bicycle and motorbike rides and deprived myself of their convenience just so I can veer from whatever road accidents that they could possibly bring me (God forbid).

I was really crazy for you and for your concert.

I talked about it endlessly to my Filipino, Vietnamese, and European friends. Everyone though I was weird because you’re all I ever talked about at work and in theater practice.

I defied logic and geography just to see you.

You see, when you announced the Stars Dance world tour, I dealt with sadness when I didn’t see my country in the list. I seriously considered going to the USA just to see your concert.

I’m glad I didn’t because when you announced the Asia-Australia tour, my heart skipped a beat. Manila was on the list and I swore to myself: this concert is going to change the way I experience your music. Stars Dance in Manila was going to be a once in a lifetime shit and I was excited for it.

Very.

But you never came.

And I will never know what it will be like to watch your concert, dancing with the crowd like here

You are so unfair. You broke my heart and the promise that I will see you in this lifetime.

Fly to Manila. I command you!

You’re all probably wondering why I will be flying to Manila on the 26th. Wait. What? You’re not?

I planned on something ridiculously life-changing last year but some things went out of control so now I’m screwed.

Well, not really. And my plan wasn’t really life-changing.

Unless you consider watching a Selena Gomez concert to be life-changing. Because to me it is.

I wanted to see Selena so badly that I, in the words of my friend Karla, defied logic and booked plane flights to Manila just to see her.

The shitty thing is that Selena cancelled her concert because whatever.

So now I only have plane tickets to Manila without an itinerary. That’s great right? Surprise surprise in wherever I will end up. (actually I will be staying with my friend Merci).

So yeah.

I don’t really want to leave Hanoi again (for the fourth time now during my entire journalism fellowship) because that means I’ll be saying a (temporary) goodbye to the cold weather, which I have really come to like.

The good thing is that I get to push through my Saigon trip with Lorie.

Yay!

Life would still be so much better if I can watch Selena, though.

Can I sing a Selena Gomez?

“Yes, you can!” a in the cafe told me during our first visit.

Acoustic Cafe in Nguyen Sieu Street in the Old Quarter seemed empty. But that was because we went there too early; we ended up there because Toby had a thing for good music ( he was looking for a good place to hang out with acoustic in the background) and I like to walk around like a dork.

“Music starts at half past eight,” she said while I mapped out what “half past eight” meant in my head.

“Oh, 8:30,” I thought to myself. I can never get used to telling time the way the Vietnamese do.

We ordered some drinks and waited for 8:30. True enough, music started playing at that time.

The girl whom we earlier talked to was a singer! Gasp! I must have seemed like a dork to her, dreaming of singing a teeny bopper Selena Gomez.

Clearly, my taste in music is a universe apart from the world’s.

I wasn’t able to sing Selena Gomez that night, though. We had to go home because Pam and OA were bound to curfew.

It took us a week or so to come back to Acoustic Cafe. This time, I had to make sure I could sing a Selena. But the universe was against me.

“The guitarist doesn’t know Selena Gomez,” this singer guy told me. I replied that it’s okay. But he insisted that I sing. “What music do you like?”

I mumbled genres that I wish he hadn’t heard. The truth is that I like pop and dance. The rest of my preferred music are uncategorized.

“I’ll sing any English song you have,” I told him, referring to their song sheets.

And that’s how I ended up singing She Will Be Loved and If You’re Not The One.

That’s me being delusional and high on Coke. I had two cans that night; that’s enough sugar rush for me to ride a bicycle back home from Toby’s place!

Gipamaol gud ko.