Planet Panic

by Pam Pastor

  It is because of my shady bridesmaid history that it always comes as a surprise to me when people ask me to become part of their wedding entourage. It’s an even bigger surprise because these are friends, not relatives, people who aren’t obligated by DNA to ask me to be a part of their special day.

  For Kathy and Bernard’s wedding a few years ago, I didn’t wait to be asked. I volunteered to be a flower girl, a thirty-one-year-old flower girl. To my surprise, they said yes.

  Our other college friends got grown-up jobs as secondary sponsors, but Sunshine and I were given the task of flinging petals in the air.

  When the wedding invitations arrived, I beamed when I saw that my name had really been listed under Flower Girls. I felt no shame.

  Shame only started to creep in weeks later at the church as we lined up with the age-appropriate flower girls who were a third my size. They looked up at me and at Sunshine, their eyes round with wonder. I could almost read their minds. “Who are they?” “Why are they so big?”

  But all traces of shame disappeared when one of the wedding coordinators placed a wreath of flowers on my head, transforming me into the World’s Oldest and possibly, Most Enthusiastic Flower Girl. I relished that role, even as we posed for portraits with the tiny ring and coin bearers.

  By the end of the night, I’m pretty sure I set the world record for Most Shots of Tequila Downed By A Flower Girl.

  I was relieved when Patricia and Ross asked me to be a cord sponsor and not a candle sponsor at their wedding. Anyone who hands me matches on the day of their wedding should be declared insane. I am sure, given my propensity for klutziness, that I will end up setting the bride’s gown on fire, turning the solemn ceremony into a scene from a Wayans brothers’ movie.

  I was a bridesmaid at Melay and Mike’s wedding and while I had my gown on the right way, I had a different kind of wardrobe malfunction.

  My bridesmaid’s gown was a peach infinity dress, the kind that would look exponentially better if you had Spanx on. I did not and still do not own a single piece of Spanx. I am unwilling to surrender that much money for that much discomfort.

  I looked for a cheaper substitute and found a number of options in Uniqlo the night before the wedding. There were regular-priced beige and black ones and ube-colored ones that were on sale. Naturally, I grabbed the ube pair, crossing my fingers that the purple couldn’t be seen through my dress.

  I paid just around two hundred pesos for the body-shaping shorts, thinking, “God, these are so cheap. Would they even work?”

  Oh yes, they worked. They worked so well, taking inches off my hips and waist, that as I walked down the aisle, the floor-length slip that I was wearing under my gown started to slip to the floor. By the time I was a few feet away from my assigned pew, my slip was a jumble of fabric around my ankles.

  Horrified, I had two possibilities playing in my head. One, I would trip on the slip, fall flat on my face, and flash my purple girdle for everyone to see. Two, I would end up leaving the slip in the aisle like a snake shedding her skin.

  I couldn’t let any of those things happen so I tried walking without lifting my feet, sliding instead, making sure I was taking the slip with me with each movement. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  I prayed that no one would notice the bridesmaid who was trying to reverse-moonwalk her way to her seat.

  I grabbed my spot and momentarily forgot about my problem as the beautiful bride made her way to the altar.

  When we were asked to sit, I tried, as inconspicuously as possible, to pull the slip up, gathering it just above my knees. And when we were asked to stand, I pulled it all the way up to my waist in what I hoped was one smooth move.

  At the reception, I ripped off my Uniqlo girdle as fast as I could in the ladies’ room and, after heaving a huge sigh of relief, set out in search of a well-deserved bottle of beer.

  At Ruth and Patrick’s wedding, I had two roles: bridesmaid and manicurist. I think I did both roles well—as a manicurist, I gave her pretty newspaper nails that matched her wedding’s theme, and, as a bridesmaid, I managed to keep my skirt on.

  I may be the world’s most delinquent bridesmaid, I may not go to fittings, I may arrive late, I may scare the flower girls, I may even drop my skirt but my friends can be sure that on their wedding day, I am filled with so much happiness for them that I could just burst out of my ube-colored fake Spanx.

  March 30, 2015

  Fan-

  girling

  Confessions of a New Kids On The Block stalker

  I was in fifth grade when I fell in love with New Kids On The Block. Jordan Knight was my favorite. I thought his curly hair and crazy falsetto were sexy.

  I bought magazines, books and comic books, posters, tapes and trading cards. I had NKOTB watches—one with a flip cover and a set of five that you can mix and match.

  I was a hardcore fan. I knew the songs, I knew the dance steps, and I truly believed that one day, Jordan Knight would meet me and fall in love with me. My classmate, let’s call her K, tried to crush that dream by telling me that Jordan was calling her long-distance every night from his hot tub. I believed her for about five seconds until I realized that Jordan probably wouldn’t be wasting his time calling a scrawny fifth-grader. And what was she doing imagining a naked guy in a tub?

  My cousin Chrissie and I had matching NKOTB shorts printed with red hearts, the boys’ pictures and their autographs. We wore those shorts to the New Kids’ concert in Manila in 1992, pairing them with red shirts (tucked in, of course), red socks and white Tretorns. We we were 11 and 12, and we thought we looked so cool. Other fans thought we looked cool, too—teenage girls kept stopping us at the show to ask where we got our shorts.

  It was years later that I realized that they weren’t really shorts, they were boxers. Our parents unknowingly let us go to the concert wearing men’s underwear.

  Theirs was the first concert I ever went to. I stood on my chair, using my grandpa’s binoculars to really see them while my great-aunt sat on hers, eating Chippy and looking bored. She was our designated chaperone. At the end of the show, I felt like crying. I didn’t want them to go.

  Twenty years later, New Kids On The Block returned to Manila with the Backstreet Boys.

  Jill, who is also a hardcore NKOTB fan (she loves Joe and she still has her NKOTB books, comic books, scrapbooks, sleeping bag, shirt, towel, pins, ticket, drawings), and I were ready. We bought the most expensive tickets and pledged to stalk the boys.

  We hung out at EDSA Shangri-La Hotel and watched them arrive with brightly colored leis around their necks. I trembled when I first saw them but they quickly disappeared into the elevator.

  Members of the Backstreet Boys kept walking by, but the New Kids were nowhere to be seen. Jonathan reappeared; Jill asked him to sign her sketch from 1995 and I had my photo taken with him.

  The next day, at the concert, we wore newly made NKOTB shirts. We didn’t sit at all. We spent two and a half hours screaming and singing along. Most of them are dads now but they were still hot.

  Our stalking wasn’t over. After the show, we went straight to EDSA Shangri-La Hotel to see them one last time. Our timing was perfect; we spotted Jonathan by the side entrance. He signed our shirts and he hugged and kissed us goodbye. At that moment, he officially became my new favorite New Kid. (Sorry, Jordan, your brother has replaced you. You can go call K from your hot tub.)

  We saw Jonathan again at the Lobby Lounge where we decided to grab some post-concert drinks and snacks. He passed by our table to look at the game Jill was playing on her iPad.

  “Let’s wait until they leave for the airport,” one of us said.

  “Yeah, we waited twenty years for this. Let’s do it.”

  Jill played games and I managed to finish reading a book while we waited. It was worth it. Jill was able to get Donnie, Joe and Danny to sign her sketch before they boarded their bus to the airport.

  The following year, the boys were scheduled to have a co
ncert with Boyz II Men and 98 Degrees at Barclay Center while we were in New York. Naturally, we bought tickets.

  A few nights before the show, Donnie tweeted about the after-party he was hosting. Tickets to the after party were sold separately and were $150 each.

  “Are we buying?” Jill and I asked each other giddily. “Yes?”

  Sorry, Lion King, we spent our Broadway money on a boyband.

  On the day of the show, Jill, Peter, Anna, Maisa and I took the subway to Barclay Center. I was wearing New Kids pins on my dress. We had so much fun at the concert and even more fun watching two guys in front of us who were totally into NKOTB.

  After the show, we said our goodbyes, and Jill and I headed off to look for the after-party.

  It was crazy. The room was packed with NKOTB-obsessed women. We stood in line for the official photographs and had a photo taken with Jordan, Danny and Donnie, and two women we had never seen before.

  Boyz II Men’s Shawn Stockman led a toast and called the New Kids “the coolest white boys we know.”

  A DJ was spinning as the boys started dancing onstage. Soon, Donnie was shirtless. His bare chest was met with deafening screams. I cheered for Jonathan who pulled his boyfriend Harley onstage and gave him a kiss.

  Donnie bravely danced his way to the center of the crowd. I watched, completely entertained, as women kept grinding against him. He didn’t seem to mind.

  We emerged from the party exhausted but exhilarated. As we walked to the subway, we ran into Harley who was headed there too with his friends. We said hi.

  As we waited for the train, a policeman on duty made small talk. “Where did you come from?”

  “The New Kids On The Block party.”

  He looked amused.

  Jill and I weren’t. We were thrilled. “Let’s go on the New Kids cruise next.”

  June 28, 2015

  Friday with Gillian Flynn

  I knew I was going to see Gillian Flynn even before I left Manila.

  I usually fly to New York armed with a wish list of things to do (and eat!) and Gillian’s Barnes & Noble event was in the Will Cry If I Miss It category.

  I knew there would be a discussion but I wasn’t sure if there would be a book signing. I have been to author events that did not allow it (see: Portia de Rossi at the Apple Store in Soho) or only allowed a select few who bought VIP tickets (see: Chuck Palahniuk at Cooper Union for Strand Books). I still planned to go either way—I wanted to hear Gillian talk about her work.

  Gone Girl was the first Gillian Flynn novel that I read. I devoured Sharp Objects and Dark Places immediately after. I love how Gillian always takes her readers on an intense ride, making us care about characters who also creep us out.

  The day before the event, I called Barnes & Noble’s Union Square branch and they told me that she will be signing books.

  The next day, even though the event would start at 7 p.m., I arrived at the bookstore at 5:30.

  Since my copies of Gillian’s books are all in Manila, I headed straight to the cash register to purchase Gone Girl. “Will she sign more than one copy?” I asked the girl behind the counter.

  “Sure,” was the reply. “Some people go up to five or six.”

  “Okay, three books please.” I knew I had to get copies signed for Tatin and Giff too because we’ve become a support group of sorts after freaking out over Gone Girl’s infuriating ending.

  When I went up to the fourth floor, I discovered that even though I was an hour and a half early, I wasn’t the first person there. Other Flynn fans had already grabbed seats.

  “You may sit anywhere except the first two rows,” I was told. There were still seats in the third and fourth row but I decided to take a center aisle seat in the fifth row, to make sure I had a good view and so I could take pictures. This turned out to be a very good choice.

  I had over an hour to kill so I whipped out BJ Novak’s One More Thing, a book that I’ve been enjoying tremendously.

  The place started to fill up. A person who had grabbed a center aisle seat on the fourth row left, leaving the seat empty. I considered moving to that spot but just seconds later, it had been taken by a really tall man with curly blonde hair. Not switching seats turned out to be a good decision, too.

  Beside me was a little old lady, her hair was pure white and her cardigan bright teal. She had a hardcover copy of Gone Girl with her. Her phone rang and she answered. “Hello? I almost didn’t hear you, there’s a lot of people here. Can you hear the noise here? Did you find the place okay? Okay. So later, when I’m done, I will call you, and I will meet you by the car, okay? Or you can call me. And if you call me and I don’t pick up, I probably didn’t hear it so just call again. Okay? Okay. I will call you. Or you call me. And we can meet at the car. Okay? Okay. We will connect later, okay.”

  Round and round they went. I thought she was adorable.

  Suddenly, a guy wielding a Sharpie and a thick pad of Post-It appeared in front of us. “Personalizations, anyone?”

  People started spelling out their names so he could write them on Post-Its that they could stick onto their books.

  I quickly typed our names in my iPhone and just showed them to him. It was easier that way—and I was sure Gillian wouldn’t be signing one of the books “To Gift.”

  Another girl appeared to help hand out Post-Its, and I noticed her shirt and thought, “I want that shirt.”

  “#TeamNick,” it read. Yes, Nick as in Nick Dunne, one of the characters in Gone Girl.

  I wondered if they were selling it in the bookstore. Probably not, I thought, telling myself that I should at least take a picture of it.

  The crowd stirred, and I heard someone say, “She’s here!” We all craned our necks and saw a visibly pregnant Gillian, posing for pictures in a pretty dress.

  Soon, she was onstage with author Laura Lippmann, the other participant in the discussion.

  Laura asked Gillian questions about writing and Gone Girl and they both talked about their careers as former journalists turned fiction writers. It was fascinating. Gillian’s voice was surprisingly deep and I was thrilled to see that she was funny and self-deprecating. She talked about writing the screenplay for Gone Girl, how she was fired from her Entertainment Weekly job, the bedtime stories she tells her son (he thinks Snow White is a superhero) and the inspiration behind Gone Girl—“being a newlywed.” That really made the audience laugh.

  The discussion was over in a little over twenty minutes, there was a quick Q&A and then it was time for the book signing.

  It was very organized. We were asked to remain in our seats while Barnes & Noble employees called us row by row to line up by the side of the stage.

  As we were waiting for our turn, the old lady beside me turned to me, “Have you read her book?”

  “Yes, I loved it. Have you read all her books?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must really like her.”

  “I do.”

  We smiled at each other.

  They asked the people in the fourth row to line up. It was going to be our turn next. “So nervous lol sweating,” I texted friends.

  The girl organizing the rows was wearing a #TeamAmy shirt. I was going to ask her if I could take a picture of her shirt when a guy on the second row called her. He was from Gillian’s publishing company. They talked for a bit and then he opened his leather messenger bag and handed her a bunch of shirts.

  More #TeamAmy and #TeamNick shirts!

  “Can I have one?” a girl a few seats away from me asked.

  “I’ll buy one!” I said, before I could stop myself.

  The girl hesitated. “Umm, there’s only a few of them.” Then she handed the girl a shirt and she handed me a shirt.

  “Thank you so much!” I said.

  That’s when I realized I had chosen the perfect spot. I was in the center aisle so talking to the shirt girl was easy. And if I had moved to the fourth row, I wouldn’t have been there when
she gave out the shirts—I would already be standing by the stage.

  I got a #TeamAmy shirt, which is funny because I hate hate hate Amy.

  Soon, we were asked to join the line. I took note of the process—the girl wearing the #TeamNick shirt would get the books and line them up for Gillian to sign while the guy with the Post-Its grabbed the fans’ phones or cameras so he could take photos of them with Gillian.

  I made a mental checklist of things I planned to do when I reached the stage. Hand girl books, ask girl if Gillian will sign my shirt too, take pic of girl’s #TeamNick shirt, hand phone to guy, talk to Gillian.

  There were a lot of things I wanted to say to Gillian. I wanted to tell her how much I enjoyed her books, that she should go to the Philippines because she has so many fans there. I wanted to ask her if Gone Girl’s Entertainment Weekly cover felt like sweet vengeance, I wanted to ask her if her husband wasn’t freaked out by her books.

  I went through the checklist again. Books, shirt, picture of shirt, phone, talk. Books, shirt, picture of shirt, phone, talk.

  There were just two people in front of me. Then, the little old lady touched my shoulder. Apparently, her car wasn’t coming for her. “Do you know what street that is?” she said, looking out the window.

  “East 17th,” I told her.

  “I need to get on the subway,” she said.

  “Oh that’s easy, you just walk to the park, it’s a three-minute walk,” I told her, motioning towards Union Square Park.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  But I wanted to make sure she’d reach her destination. “Where do you need to go?” I asked her, opening Google Maps on my phone. She gave me the address and I gave her directions.

  “That’s handy, having a map on your phone,” she said, before patting me on the shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Before I could go through my checklist again, I was onstage. I handed the books to the girl, asked if Gillian would sign my shirt (“Sure!”), asked her if I could take her picture (“Okay!”) and I handed my phone to Post-It guy.