The other day was pretty hectic. I had to attend a friend's kids' birthday party, guest on RockEd on NU and go to a company Christmas party afterwards.

Honestly, the most tiring for me was the children's party. I wasn't a big fan of children's parties when I was a child. I relished the idea of growing up so that I wouldn't have to attend them ever again, only to find out that once your friends have kids, it's children's partiesville all over. But this time, you don't even get a loot bag.

One of the hardest things about being a single person and going to a children's party is enduring the conversations about children. It's like once you become a mother, your brain's conversation center is automatically set to 'children' so that you feel compelled to tell the world about every little thing that's happened to little Tommy, from his eating habits to what his poo looks like in the morning. I'm taking note of this so that when little Tommy hits 17, I'm going to take revenge on him for taking away half an hour of my life by repeating everything his mom told me when he was two.

Children's parties force single people to clump together in the mistaken belief that there is strength in numbers. Wrong. That just makes it easy for the married people to stare at you. At least you're all in one group now instead of scattered around the yard like a bunch of confused house pets just after little Timmy has set them loose in the wild with the words "You're free! Fly my pretties!". And what do us single people talk about? We talk about how annoying it is that at our age, the first thing people -- even complete strangers -- ask us is "Are you married?" They don't even ask if you're attached. They go straight to "Are you married?"

I know I'm at the age where the pressure to go forth and multiply is strong, but neither I nor my boyfriend are going to tie the knot just so we can make the people I meet shut up about it already (for some reason, he doesn't seem to have this problem. Must be a Chinese thing). I don't understand the extreme importance people put on their friend's love lives. I have friends who I haven't seen in ages and when we meet, the first thing they ask me is "How's your love life?" As if my point of existence depended on my having a +1. Thanks for setting feminism back a hundred years, girls. My first impulse is to answer "better than yours," but these are also the friends who don't understand the concept of sarcasm, so all that's going to happen is that I'm going to get shunned for making someone cry. As if I didn't have enough problems already. But the "Are you married?" question, girl or boy, as long as you're Chinese and of a certain age, that's what you're going to get asked, no fail.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the party. I love the host to bits and it's always nice to see old friends. It's just not as nice to hear about poo while you're downing sweet spaghetti.

Next up, I guested on RockEd Radio with film director Rahyan Carlos, Penny Daza-Tuviera who has been involved in the production of many horror films and has written one of the episodes of Shake Rattle ad Roll X, and Gani Simpliciano of grindcore band Loss of Control and whose art depicts the macabre. The topic: The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one bummed by the season. I was so psyched that I completely forgot to plug my book, Waking the Dead, which will be coming out early next year under Anvil. Good thing Luis was there to remind me. The whole thing was lots of fun, and I heard from someone that she actually learned stuff. Yay!

After that, we were off to Cubao X for the Furball party, by far the best company party I have ever been to bar none. Furball, by the way, according to their website, is a "production and multi-media outfit that weaves vision and creativity in a seamless process to create a broad range of communication platforms including advertising, corporate video production, 3D computer animation, production management and events management." I got to work with them this year on a certain TV show about college kids in the pursuit of the rock and roll lifestyle, if said lifestyle included zombies, ninjas and feral table-tennis players. And Sven. Anyway, this one party made up for all the horrible company parties I've been forced to attend over the years. This company party makes other company parties cry themselves to sleep at night for lack of fun. Perhaps my not being required to attend immediately makes it all the more fun. But it's more than that. It's a combination of the people, their laid back but terribly efficient attitudes towards work and other people, the good food (unlimited booze and fishballs, among others), the wonderful music and did I mention the people? Thanks for a wonderful night, guys!

In other news, Up dharma Down has finally, finally, finally (did I say finally, finally?) come out with their much-awaited second album, Bipolar. UdD recently launched their sophomore album with a jam-packed gig at RCBC, followed up with a smaller, more intimate one in 70's Bistro. Judging by the crowd's reactions, the foursome's awesomely smooth music is still very popular. The songs in their second album are poppier than the ones in the first, but still have that UdD groove that drew fans to the band in the first place.

I'd also like to say congratulations to Tony Perez for winning the National Book Award's drama category for Tatlong Paglalakbay.

Also, in the spirit of Christmas, Jay-R, under his own label, has come out with Holiday of Love, his second Christmas album. The album has Jay-R crooning along to well-loved Christmas songs like "Winter Wonderland" and "The Christmas Song." It also includes Jay-R's own composition "Tito Reny" from last year's album. Merry Christmas!

Towards the end of November, I was invited to watch the Christopher Cross and Workshy concert held at the Araneta Coliseu. Luis had been given tickets by Universal Records (Thanks, Denise) for the event, and he asked me to come along. I'm not a big Christopher Cross fan, though I like him well enough. Having grown up in the 80's, where it seemed that every other song on the radio was either by Christopher Cross, Air Supply or Michael Jackson, with brief respites provided by Tears for Fears, like almost every Filipino, I was practically brainwashed into wanting to go.

Luis had a newfound interest in Chris Cross (spare me the "Jump" jokes, everyone), mainly because of Yatch Rock, a series about the make-believe, slightly based on reality, lives of the proprietors of "smooth music"-- people like Kenny Loggins, Toto, and yes, Christopher Cross. From the few episodes I've seen, Yatch Rock is strange and funny, enough to give one a newfound appreciation of all things smooth and musical.

Luis was worried that I wouldn't be familiar with Workshy, since theirs was basically 80's coño music. I think he was surprised when I told him that I was familiar with the duo, courtesy of a cousin whose musical tastes ran to SOS, Basia, Johnny Hates Jazz and at one (strange) point, Vanilla Ice.

We got there pretty early and proceeded to our seats, which were above the hard core spend-anything-for-my-idol seats but below the nosebleed section. We had a good view of the stage, and of the audience as well.

Only Crista Jones, 1/2 of Workshy came, and it was strange watching her because she seemed sort of drunk onstage -- probably driven to excessive drink by global warming or Manila traffic. There were a couple of Workshy fans in the audience, two big, muscular guys who looked like they would kill you first then ask questions later, swaying to Crista's now slightly throaty voice.

When Christopher Cross came on, the crowd let up a loud cheer. He immediately launched into "Never Be The Same," as well as hits like "I Really Don't Know Anymore," "Sailing" and "Arthur's Theme." He then did an acoustic set composed of "Swept Away," "Think of Laura," "In the Blink of an Eye" and "Open up My Window." The latter, along with "I Will (Take You Forever)," he sang in duet with Kiki Ebsen, his bedroom-voiced keyboardist. Their two voices blended beautifully, their emotion in "Open up My Window" practically reducing me to a gurgling puddle of Awwwww. The rest of his band, composed of bassist Jonathan Clark and drummer Dave Beyer was tight and fun to look at, as it seemed like everyone was having a good time. I was hoping that Cross would sing "Is There Something" (a fact which shows my embarrassing knowledge of Christopher Cross songs more than anything else) and was slightly disappointed when he didn't.

The one thing I learned from this concert is that Christopher Cross can shred like anything. A lot of his song numbers were punctuated by lengthy guitar solos worthy of the heaviest of heavy metal bands. Cross did, after all, play backup guitars for Led Zeppelin in his youth.

At one point or another, groups of two or three would get up and wave their arms as he sang though on the whole, Cross and Jones seemed slightly disturbed by the way most of the audience just sat back and stared at them. Someone should tell them that most of their audience grew up in the 80's, where quietly sitting in rapt attention at the performer in front of you is equivalent to today's jumping on your seat and screaming till your tonsils fall out.

It is an interesting experience to have songs that you've heard on the radio all your young life sung live in quick succession in front of you. It feels like aural deja vu -- you know you've hard it before, but it's the first time you've ever seen this guy perform. All in all, a fun, LLS (last song syndrome) inducing event. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and get "Sailing" out of my head.