narnia aside

Joys That Sting
by C.S. Lewis, presumably after the early death of his wife.


"Oh doe not die," says Donne, "for I shall hate
All women so." How false this sentence rings.
Women? But in a life made desolate
It is the joys once shared that have the stings.

To take the old walks alone, or not at all,
To order one pint where I ordered two,
To think of, and then not make, the small
Time-honoured joke (senseless to all but you);

To laugh (oh, one'll laugh), to talk upon
Themes that we talked upon when you were there,
To make some poor pretence of going on,
Be kind to one's old friends, and seem to care,

While no one (O God) through the years will say
The simplest, common word in just your way.


-got this from little-bunny's.

sigh. even my dad has joined the fray.

what would you do if your dad introduced you this way:

"this is tina. my youngest daughter. she's a lawyer. she's single. so if you have any friends who are as beautiful as she is..."

suffice it to say that i walked out that time.

everybody's out to get me attached. why?

swung by little-bunny's

Sat on your rooftop?
uh-huh. every chance i get.

Kissed someone in the rain?
ummm.yep. :)

Danced in a public place?
groceries, sidewalks, restaurants... any place with enough space.

Smiled for no reason?
most definitely.

Laughed so hard you cried?
yes yes yes.

Written a song?
do lyrics count?

Sang to someone for no reason?
yep.

Performed on a stage?
back when i was still cross-eyed and stupid.

Talked to someone you don't know?
yep.

Made out in a theater?
yeth.

Gone roller skating since 8th grade?
yep.

Been in love?
yeth yeth yeth!

WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON TO...

Say HI to you?
ate kay.

Tell you, I love you?
secret. :)

Kissed you?
him. the one.

Hug you?
anna b. before she left for the beach.

Tell you BYE?
him. the one. go figure.

Write you a note?
does "return call to HR" count?

Take your photo?
our in-house super photographer tom. (see below)

Call your cell phone?
mags

Buy you something?
him.

Go with you to the movies?
tibibord. king kong.

Sing to you?
hahaha.

Write a poem about you?
him.

Text message you?
reyna. she's going back to sleep.

WHATS THE LAST...

Time you laughed?
last night before bed.

Time you cried?
this morning.

Movie you watched?
king kong

Joke you told?
too long to type. i'm lazy. something about pugad baboy.

Song you've sang?
supercalifragelisticexpialidocious.

Time you've looked at the clock?
8:51 am

Drink you've had?
hot chocolate.

Number you've dialed?
abigail's number

Book you've read?
the curious incident of the dog in the night time

Food you've eaten?
mechado!

Flavor of gum chewed?
mint

Shoes you've worn?
kedsport sneakers

Store you've been in?
i don't remember. the past days have been hazy.

Thing you've said?
please dial again

CAN YOU...

Write with both hands?
yeah.

Whistle?
like a pro.

Blow a bubble?
yeth

Roll your tounge in a circle?
yep.

Cross your eyes?
who can't?

Touch your tounge to your nose?
no

Dance?
yes

Gleek?
wha?

Stay up a whole night without sleep?
yes. i'd be telling crazy jokes or crying by 5 am

Speak a different language?
do dialiects count?

Impersonate someone?
yeah. many someones.

Prank call people?
every now and then to keep my skills honed.

Make a card pyramid?
never tried

Cook anything?
absobloominlutely.

FINISH THE LINE...

If i were ...
any crazier, i'd be in the loony bin.

I wish ...
i were 2 inches taller. just 2.

So many people don't know that ...
i like musicals.

while waiting for christmas dinner...

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and then there were four.

i posted this earlier this year. like i said, it was the first time in 10 years that the six of us would be together again.


one sister is living in the US. currently there are five of us in the philippines.



and next year there will only be four.

i don't like you...

.... you're ugsome!

new word. :D

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
obiter



sometimes, when all is said and done, it all boils down to ego.

my baby's married...

she's a couple of years older than i am but she's always been my baby. i was always considered the more responsible one, and i tried to be as responsible as possible... well most of the time.

yesterday she tied the knot and i felt a tiny twinge of sadness at the thought that she isn't my responsibility anymore. but looking at her so happy made me feel better. i was turning her over to better hands.

yesterday she confirmed what i have always known... she will be a beautiful bride. she was.

congratulations to you and dennis. love you. :)

it's 4 am, good lord!

phone rang at 4 am.

me: hello?
her: sino na nga yung witches sa "charmed"? (who are the witches in "charmed" again?)
me: pru... ah... piper... ummm...paige...hmmmm...phoebe..
her: yes! phoebe!
me: you woke me up for this?
her: yes. i couldn't sleep. goodnight.
me: (insert wailing emoticon here)

yes, ladies and gentlemen. woke up with my heart racing. 4 am phone calls bring to mind bad news.

couldn't sleep after that. sigh. pregnant sisters.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~
on the upside, it's a boy. :)

christmas gift to self

i fought it. i did. failed miserably tho.

last saturday i found myself in fullybooked gateway, looking for anansi boys.



well i found it and i thought about things like due dates, compounded interest, finance charges, late charges, 3.0, 3.25, 3.5... then i bought the book.

it comes with a reproduced letter from neil gaiman, about how last july he found himself reading chunks of anansi boys to a "very happy, very loud" crowd (that would be us), and how he hopes we enjoy this, etc.... i was buyer 581.

obiter: the letter says 581 of 1000 reproductions. imagine, at 1099 per book, that's a gross sale of P638,519.00. for fullybooked only. gas. must start writing erotic novels.

but i digress.

i bought the book, finished reading it last night. i like it. hmmm. next project - mirrormask.

untitled

3 am and the moon hung low
staring at me like a sleepy eye
chiding me.

whatever happened to promises made
beneath its borrowed light?
gone, it seems, with dawn.
kisses shared fade
seems not even a memory
is left behind.

330 and the moon hangs even lower
i stare at it, mulling over this constant reminder

dare i turn my back on the moon
and forget?
will i be free when it sinks below the horizon
leaving the sky in darkness for that brief moment
before the sun intrudes?

will i ever forget?
or will the moonrise and moonset plague me
night after night after night,
filling my head with vivid pictures
that leave me doubled up in pain imagined
yet real.

4 am and the sky turns black
i breathe easy
i feel drowsy
my last thought is a plea
for cloudy skies.

alang alang sa yo...

kakanta ako ng sharon cuneta.

eto ang background kay emman:

bertdey.

lab na lab ko yan eh. kasi nagsasabi sya ng totoo. pag sinabi niyang pangit ka, aba, pangit ka talaga. pero pag sinabi naman niyang ang ganda mo, lola ang haba ng herr mo! bihira ang ganitong tao. o siguro napapatay lang sila ng maaga, at talagang matindi ang survival instincts ni emman. hehehe. jok lang.

kaya ayan. isang taon na naman ang naidagdag. masaya pa rin, kahit unti-unti na kaming tumatanda.

sana maganda araw mo. kita tayo mayang gabi.

pero isang kanta lang ha? kasi yung totoong shawi eh nasa baguio.

hapi bertdey emman!

and all is right in the world

my inaanak yza.

decompressing

finally home after almost 3 months. it's a long long weekend and i'm taking this chance to get away from the hustle and bustle. well... half the manila population is probably here anyways. good thing i just stay home and we have our own bar, so rest and drinking covered, thank you very much.

it's going to be a hell of an effort convincing myself to go back to work after this. sigh.

hmmmm

i don't think there was ever a time when i could have passed the pencil test....

hmmmm. in grade school maybe.

beauty, brains, and blessings in the sky.

the other night my sister and i went out with e, ate k's stewardess friend. we got to talking about dispositions, and how as a general rule beautiful people have sunnier dispositions.

i don't really subscribe to this proposition, but i had to agree to some extent.

i have this theory that beautiful people have a more positive outlook in life because they don't have to deal with as much prejudice as those who were born not beautiful. e said that the world is kinder to beautiful people.

it's somewhat jaded but it's true. if you grow up with people around you telling you how cute you are, how wonderful you look, how beautiful...you don't have to develop a defensive skin around yourself. you just take it as it comes. the world is good to you, you're good to the world.

but if you're young and vulnerable, and people keep remarking that you don't look like this or that truly good-looking ancestor, or that your siblings are really beautiful (with undertones saying: what happened to YOU?), or if you have classmates in school who keep calling you pangit, you tend to develop a defensive attitude, to keep from getting hurt. yes, people can be mean.

so you put your chin up and you tell them to bugger off, and you don't care. and then it gets to a point where your defenses don't go down anymore, and having that attitude becomes default.

i'm not saying this is true in all cases. i have met people who are not beautiful. not ugly, just not beautiful in a conventional way i suppose. and they have the cheeriest of dispositions, that seeing them smile makes my day and i get the feeling that all is right in the world. wala silang galit sa mundo.

i think it's because most of these people were treated right -- equally. minahal sila nang husto. the way everybody should be treated.

on the other hand i have encountered marvelously beautiful people who have everything they could possibly want, yet they still think that the world sucks. what's up with that? again, it must be the environment they grew up in.

so i guess this world would be a better place if people treated everyone else in a good way. after all, it can't hurt to be nice. and each deed goes a long way.

hmmm. food for thought.


~~~~~~~~~

going back to e, she has this colleague who is really beautiful, sexy, and nice. but... um... she's a little like melanie marquez.

"you know what? that's a blessing in the sky."

guess we can't have it all. :)

musings.

been a little out of it for a while. haven't written anything even halfway decent for almost 3 weeks. okay, okay, over three weeks.

lately i've found myself taking stock of my life. it starts with: okay, i'm 30. i'm a lawyer. i have a job that pays the bills. i have friends. i have my family who are thankfully all healthy and love me to bits. i'm healthy. what now?

yeah, now what? is this all there is to it? you go to school for what? 20? 25 years? you find a job, get into relationships and mishaps (mostly concurrently), buy yourself stuff, most of which you don't need, see your friends, go out with your family, meet new people... lather, rinse, repeat.

and yet at the end of the day you find yourself wondering if all this is going somewhere. perhaps nowhere? you find yourself thinking that if you were going to be doing this for the next 30 years or so, you'd probably go mad. you wonder if your life is worthwhile, and if it's not, then why the hell not?

am i making sense?

maybe this is why people get married. what they call the logical next step-- to go forth and multipy. technically this is just to have children, but well... most of the time marriage comes with the territory.

maybe if you have children you realize that finally, your job is making sense -- to make money, to be able to nourish this tiny individual who may or may not have your looks, but will have your blood running in his or her veins. then you find yourself smiling this idiotic smile all the while thinking that this creature is truly a bundle of joy, and all yours.

maybe i should have kids so i wouldn't be wondering if my life is worthwhile. but therein lies the rub. no boyfriend on the horizon. my last sperm donor candidate is... taken.

maybe i'm just lonely.

okay, i'm 30. i'm a lawyer. i have a job that pays the bills. i have friends. i have my family who are thankfully all healthy and love me to bits. i'm healthy. i'm lonely.

what's wrong with this number?

"diez y cinco"

ah yeth.

You Are 50% Weird

Normal enough to know that you're weird... But too damn weird to do anything about it!

How Weird Are You?

aww.

Your Inner Child Is Sad

You're a very sensitive soul. You haven't grown that thick skin that most adults have. Easily hurt, you tend to retreat to your comfort zone. You don't let many people in - unless you've trusted them for a long time.

How Is Your Inner Child?

elevator blues

apparently the elevator incident is still bothering me. i dreamt that i was stuck in several different elevators.

one went straight to the basement, another fell apart around me, one just stayed where it was.

sigh.

careful what you ask

we were eating lanzones from bangkok the other day. my sister was wondering why the fruits from bangkok are more succulent and generally better than our fruits. she asked this question:

"what do they have that we don't?"

the answer was simple.

ELEPHANT SHIT.

:D she refused to eat after that. teehee.

the saga continues

yesterday was the third sunday of the bar. same as with the first 2 sundays, woke up at 430 to prepare breakfast and lunch, brought them to the gates at 7, slept till noon. i went out lunchtime to meet an old friend i haven’t seen in years. we talked for a while, then i headed back to the hotel.

tom brought a newspaper so we started reading and job-hunting. i was so disgusted with the lack of job prospects that had i been serious about looking for a new job i would have cried myself silly. anyways, ended up with the crossword puzzle.

when i was done with the puzzle i saw an insert in the papers about the opening of shopwise manila. we decided to go.

big mistake. since it was opening day, the place was packed. we just needed a few essentials so we mapped out our path. the music was lively and i was high on adrenaline. so i started dancing while walking, much to reyna’s eternal shame. she didn’t try to stop me though since i think she was enjoying it just as much as i was.

when we got back to la salle we waited for my sisters and my cousins to come out. i still had my grocery bags with me. they all looked shell-shocked.

we piled into the elevator, waited for the door to close, pressed the right floor and waited. the elevator moved. then stopped. yes, stopped. and all the lights on the door panel winked out.

tom counted the people. the elevator said 15. there were only about 10 of us. i told tom, gently, that i think it was the 1000 kilo limit we were supposed to be looking at, not the number of people. (insert evil grin here)

my sister was panicking. she actually screamed for help, and one stranger told her to not hyperventilate. heyng? as if it were a voluntary thing. they started fanning her. i remained calm, although the heat was making me sweat. i had 10 bottles of C2 iced tea and i knew we wouldn’t get dehydrated anytime soon, and i had water too.

then i had this brilliant idea of trying to open the door. it did. easily. and we faced a blank wall. oooops. i hurriedly closed the door. we were stuck in the express zone.

eventually help came and the elevator started going down. apparently the elevator was overloaded but the sensors closed the door anyways.

we took the elevators 4 at time to get to the 29th floor. we burst out laughing at the thought, although my other sister didn’t find it funny. we all breathed a collective sigh of relief when we made it upstairs.

thing about it is, they stopped being depressed about the exam and focused on their mortality instead. dinner never tasted that good.

we’re alive, and we live to see another bar sunday. it’s still something to be thankful for.

music and then some

last night borcee, fams, and myself ended up in conspiracy to watch cooky chua. the set started late since her bassist (uy karen) was missing in action. when he arrived they set up onstage.

several people jammed with the group, one was tots tolentino, the other was joey quirino (i think) who never blinked the whole time he was playing the keyboards. there were a lot of musicians in the place, and one of them was a stroke survivor. we watched him sing, which he did with much enthusiasm, despite initially saying that he was shy.

when they were about to sing "isn't she lovely" the lights went out because of the rains. the emergency lights switched on and this guy started singing a capella. at the top of his voice. we just had to applaud when he stood up and started stomping his feet to keep time with the song. everybody was in high spirits by this time, buoyed no doubt by this guys zest.

i sat there, singing along and thinking that this is what it must be like to have a second chance. he was so ... ALIVE.

imagine how the world will be like if we all lived life that way. man, we'd all be LIVING.

listening to this at the moment

some girls

some girls take hours to paint every perfect nail
fragrant as flowers, all powdered and prim and pale.
but you are as wild as that wind-blown tree,
as dark and as deep as the midnight sea.
while they're busy dressing, you lie here, warm and bold.
some girls you picture, some you hold.

some girls take courses at all the best schools in france
riding their horses and learning their modern dance.
they're clever and cultured and worldly wise.
but you see the world through a child's wide eyes.
their dreams are grand ones, you want what's just in reach.
some girls you learn from, some you teach.

you are not small talk or shiny cars
or mirrors or french cologne.
you are the river, the moon, the stars.
you're no one else i've known.

some girls take pleasure in buying a fine trousseau,
counting each treasure and tying each tiny bow.
they fold up their futures with perfumed hands
while you face the future with no demands.
some girls expect things others think nothing of.
some girls you marry, some you love.

this is from the soundtrack of once on this island. love the whole song but the last line makes me sad. di ba?

children will listen

we never really know how much we screw up children. but we do screw them up, whether it be through praises, criticisms, off-hand comments, or sometimes just by being ourselves. of course the love we give them serves as a means to counteract these things, but sometimes... well sometimes they don't get counteracted.

the other day my nephew renzo had this to say:

di ba tita anna president arroyo is a real president even if she's small?

go figure. i don't know what he heard or saw. but that was his dilemma.

i can only imagine what kids think about when they watch tv, see headlines (for those who can read), or listen to the radio. and i wonder what conclusions they draw everytime adults drop comment after comment after comment.

issues like this can't be that easy to understand. ako nga confused, sila pa kaya? or perhaps they have a better understanding of the world because they have no worries about what others think.

reminds me of this song from into the woods:

"Careful the things you say
Children will listen
Careful the things you do
Children will see and learn
Children may not obey, but children will listen
Children will look to you for which way to turn
To learn what to be
Careful before you say "Listen to me"
Children will listen..."

comfort food

when i think of comfort food, i only have 2 candidates: medium rare T-bone steak or spaghetti with meat sauce.

i don't go for chocolates or ice cream or cake. it has to be either steak or spaghetti.

i've always wondered why. then one day i sat down and contemplated the whys of my comfort food. after much thinking, i realized that i consider these my comfort food because i associate them with happiness.

when i was younger (ahem) there were no fast food outlets in baguio. eating out was always a treat because it meant a restaurant. birthdays, graduations, anniversaries were spent in the same way -- mass in the morning then breakfast at star cafe or dainty lunch. then we'd celebrate at home with my mom cooking her famous pansit and maja blanca, or dinner at shakey's or rose bowl.

shakey's was not a fast food when i was growing up. it was a pub-type place, with swinging saloon doors, low hanging lamps, prints on the walls, and waiters dressed in tin-pan-alley outfits, complete with hats. there was a small elevated platform where a child can watch a guy assemble pizzas. it was always dim, and there would be a live band (or combo, as they used to call it then) or a pianist.

every time we went to shakey's i ordered one thing: skilletti. this was spaghetti with mushrooms, red and green bell peppers, and ground beef in tomato sauce. they would serve this in a skillet, which added to its charm. imagine! eating from a pan in a restaurant! it was such a pleasant treat for me. if i couldn't finish it, they'd put it in a happy-meal like box but which was in the shape of a house. complete with decorative chickens in the yard.

as for rose bowl, i'd order their huge T-bone, medium rare, with a boat of mushroom gravy. they served it on sizzling plate and i'd watch it sizzle and bubble when i pour the gravy on. then i'd dig in. i'd slice through the succulent meat and just savor the tender, juicy bite-sized steak. my own slice of heaven.

i never shared my steak. my sisters would always share because they couldn't finish one serving. i ate mine all by myself.

so there. every happy occasion in my younger life was marked with mommy's cooking, or shakey's skilleti, and rose bowl T-bone steak.

these days they don't serve skilletti anymore, and shakey's is just a regular fast food place. rose bowl's steak has shrunk, although it's still yummy (or at least it was, about 2 years ago). sad.

the associations never left me though. whenever i feel the urge to eat something and i'm down, i look for my happy food. i don't look for rose bowl steak or shakey's skilletti. i just want steak or spaghetti. kahit na jollibee pa yan or mcdonald's or steak dun sa casaa.

the happy feelings flood in and lift up me some. comfort food. literally. small blessings. i'm always thankful. :)

(oh, and shakey's and i turned 30 this year. no wonder i love the place. :)

bedlam. again.

yesterday was the first day of the bar exams. before anything else, i guess i'd like to say i'm mighty thankful i never have to go through that again.

2 of my sisters and 1 cousin are taking the exams at the moment. was up at 430 yesterday morning to make sandwiches for their lunch. at 615 we brought them to the gates.

after the 2nd exam there they were, rehashing the questions, and telling tales of what happened during the exam. several examinees didn't come back for the afternoon exam. a friend was telling a story about how a girl exclaimed "ilabas niyo na yan, na-di-distract kami!" when one of the examinees had an epilepsy attack. talk about stress.

i know how stressed out they must have felt. after all, i've been there before. standing there at the sidelines and watching them i found myself wishing i could spare them the trouble of having to go through that trying period.

for someone who wants to become a lawyer, the bar exams is a necessary evil. after going through a grueling 4 years (or in some cases, 5 or 6) of law school, they have to go through 6 months of review, one month of hell for the exams, and another 6 months of waiting and wondering whether they should consider studying again for the next bar.

it disrupts a person's balance and waylays well-made plans.

still... it's something one must go through. an uncle once said that it is a learning process, that if only for the months of review, one should want to take the bar exams.

to a certain extent, i believe that. i can honestly say that i learned a lot during the bar exams. time and again i found myself saying "oh... so that's what it is" or "so that's why..."

still, despite the learning, the mental and emotional fatigue can sometimes be more than one can take.

they have 3 more sundays to go and then, freedom... at least until the bar results come out.

for my part, i just have to stay and keep waiting at the sidelines. and pray that they never have to go through it again.

the people who know how to run the country are busy cutting hair and driving cabs.

i heard this somewhere. or something like it.

for the past week all the taxis i've ridden had the impeachment proceedings on the radio. some will comment, some just listen on with grim faces. most likely they know more than the congressmen sitting at the house.

last night, however, the taxi driver was all smiles. he had a commentary on the impeachment on the radio, which he quickly changed to a music station. (looks like he wasn't interested in running the country).

he spoke to me in english and had a slightly feminine demeanor.

he dropped me off at conspiracy since i was attending a board meeting. here's how the conversation went:

him: here?
me: yes.
him: wag masyado inom ha?
me: opo.
him: (correcting me) opo ATE.
me: opo ate.
him: you have children na?
me: no.
him: so chubby ka lang?
me: oo, chubby lang ako.

i got out of the cab.

sigh. if he held the helm i have no doubt it would be very interesting for all us romans.

nemo's dead and michael jackson killed him!!!!

gotcha didn't i?

michael jackson and nemo are my nephew carlo's gold fish. he named them himself. michael jackson was there first. then nemo arrived.

i don't really know why he named the first fish michael jackson. nemo is understandable but i think the michael jackson name jinxed the fish.

my sister said nemo died because michael jackson got territorial. she said that nemo never really felt at home there and he probably felt like he didn't belong.

i begged to disagree. i told her exactly what caused nemo's death.

michael jackson molested him. and no one can convince me otherwise.

thanks bading

yesterday was a bad day all around. my parents have been in the hospital for almost two weeks already and yesterday we found out my dad has dengue and my mom might be in danger too.

got a severe talking to at work and i walked out of the conference room thinking i must be really stupid.

things at the romantic front aren't any better.

i've never really appreciated the meaning of the phrase "falling apart at the seams." that's what it felt like. and for a moment all i could do was sit down and try not to bawl my eyes out.

sent messages to a couple of friends and one of them told me to have faith, that i shouldn't let my emotions take control of me, and that everything will be fine. i believed him.

but this text message from my beautiful pregnant friend takes the cake:

hey... it's okay. we all have bad days. tom will be better promise. ur dad wil get bettr. ur mom wont catch it. work's just work, u know. and love..wel we know that's a rollr coastr ride. basta isipn mo n lng, u hav 2 stay gorgeous. anong isipn ng anak ko? that i keep ugly company??

needless to say, that put things into perspective. i sent her a message telling her that she needn't fear, i will always be gorgeous. (ahem). to which she replied, "good. yun lang naman ang immediate concern ko eh."

sometimes, when you feel that everything is going dark, the Big Guy Up There sends someone to do His work and give you hope. no matter how absurd the delivery is.

whoever said that He doesn't have a sense of humor is dead wrong.

the high point of my life this month. so far.

wednesday last week found me waking up at 4 in the morning to get ready for a flight to cebu. it was a company thing, and our flight was at 7:30. because i live several provinces away from the airport, my pick up was at 5.

slept on my way to the airport but i was wide awake when i got there at 5:45. my companion richard's pick up was at 6 so it was a good 45 minutes before he arrived.

we checked in and waited. i brought a book along and was reading when richard nudged me, pointing to a guy who was reading a few meters away from us. it was marc nelson (did i get that right?).

i merely nodded. nice face (almost feminine, i thought), nice body. carrying a book. hmmm. pogi points.

after observing him for a while, i went back to my book.

our flight was delayed for an hour. when we got there i was almost cranky because the itinerary we got specifically stated that our orientation was to start at 10. and we got there at 9:30.

we went to get our checked-in luggage. saw marc nelson again, standing there near the conveyor belt. he was with a tall guy in a black shirt and a cap, and an old lady.

i glanced at them, glanced away, and whipped my head back to look. SI PIOLO!

i started shaking richard's arm (almost tore it off, more likely) all the while saying, "si piolo, si piolo!!!" richard started laughing. he could not elicit a decent response from me regarding marc nelson and here i was, going gaga over piolo pascual.

i know, i know. they say he's gay. but man, standing there all i could think about was how good looking he was, and how beautiful his eyes were.

i didn't have the guts to go near and have our picture taken. it would have been friendster-worthy but as i found out, i'm chicken.

i liked seeing him though. and i told all and sundry that i saw him at the airport.

sigh.

does this make sense to you?

this morning on the way to work my sister and i were talking about a couple of her friends who actually spent tons of money (well maybe i exaggerate..) just to have their fortunes told, their tarot cards read, and all other things of similar import. it got me thinking, have i ever spent money to have my fortune told? why are they doing this?

the only time i can recall having my fortune told was when my teacher in communications I told the class that she'll read the palms of the first 3 people to finish their essays. i finished second. she read my palm. no surprises there -- one great love, several affairs, will have to work hard to get what i want.... yada yada yada. oh and one other time when my brother-in-law's cousin offered to read my palm. he wanted to open my third eye. i said no thankee and he just told me then that if i wanted something bad enough, i'm just going to have to ask really hard because somebody unseen was waiting around to grant my desires.

but i never paid for them.

people pay to be told their future. does this mean that the future has happened and it's just waiting for us to arrive? that the life we are leading is just a road we're following and we have no control over the events that take place because they're already fixed? (does this paragraph make sense to you?)

i find that scary. it's like i'm following a script i didn't even know i read, and that all the mistakes, achievements, and other landmarks in my life were dictated. preordained. programmed. one big movie. somebody actually wrote it into the script that i am going to feel this much happiness, this much pain... what kind of life is that? is that even a life at all?

on the other hand, people say that you choose your destiny. choose it? with the choices we make at every crossroad we come to? so for each person there are gazillions of futures and every choice made will dictate which future you'll arrive at? my sister said it's just like those "choose your own adventure" books. each decision leads to a different page and a different destiny. so is it like that? but that's also preordained.

parallel universes perhaps? at some other universe i'm making different choices and experiencing different things, and going to a different path. but it's still me. and sometimes i and the other mes make the same choices that lead to the same place but at different times? (that would explain deja vu some). would that be preordained?

hmmm. this is making me dizzy.

food for thought. if the "future" is preordained, then wouldn't every single authentic tarot reader or palm reader say the same thing? or are they just giving the possibilities?

hmmm. do they go to fortune tellers because they need something to believe in? they need to be told that they're going to be alright, that they'll find love, they'll be happy? if that's the case then i suppose i would gladly pay for that assurance.


but still, i would like to think that my life is my own, and my future unknown. to anyone. that my mistakes are mine, achievements mine, happiness all mine. that they are my own doing. nobody to blame but me, but at least i'm not following somebody else's script.

so i'll ask you again, did this post make sense?

dem lights are on but ders nobody home

me. going to the 41st floor from the 44th. gets on elevator, stares at door. realizes didn't press button. gets off at 39th. goes into another elevator. gets off at 41st.

me. going to 44th floor from the 42nd. with a paper cup full of steaming mocha. gets on elevator, stares at door. presses button. realizes elevator going down. gets off at the 40th. waits for another elevator, goes in, gets off at 44th. cup still steaming.

sigh.

and so it goes

j: ika nga ni Qui-Gon Jinn, "patience my young padawan. keep your thoughts and feelings on the here and now."
me: that, absurdly, makes me want to cry.

totally embarrassing. there i was, sitting in front of my pc and crying.

bad form.

but thanks, j, for the concern. it did make me feel somewhat better, after the embarrassment, that is. :)

losing the faith

i have always made it a point to go to church every sunday. i have been doing it all my life and i always found a certain amount of comfort and peace during mass. particularly when the people who don't know each other start singing together. of course people sing at concerts too, but it's not really the same thing.

last year however, i can't really pinpoint when, i decided not to go. at first it was just "i don't really feel like it." then i stopped going altogether. this year i have gone to church exactly 4 times. new year's day, ash wednesday, palm sunday, and easter sunday.

what happened?

i don't really know. it seems as if i've been wrestling with my demons for so long that i couldn't bring myself to go to church, even to go through the motions. it doesn't feel right.

i want to go back. i want to listen to the people singing in unison, even if i don't know the songs. i want the comfort and peace i used to find there, no matter how troubled i was. the few times i went, i was just as disturbed when i left as when i entered.

i want to go back. i want to know that no matter how badly i screwed up my life, i can always go to church and be absolved of my sins. it is the one place i am certain i will not be condemned. but i can't bring myself to attend mass.

strange. i know i can always go. but i guess i have to forgive myself some before i can.

di ko pa kayang humarap sa Diyos.

still riding her own melt

there we were, at the malcolm theater in the college of law. it was freshman orientation and we were all milling around the room, looking for familiar faces.

somebody backed into me and exclaimed for the world to hear:

"AY PUKE MO!"

i got startled but i calmly delivered the only logical answer in my head:

"PUKE MO RIN."

we've been friends ever since. but that's just making the long story short.

we like the same books and we laugh at the same jokes. she's smart, with a quick wit, and is never at a loss for words. fiercely loyal to the people she cares about. she's seen me through a lot of low times, and i was forunate enough to have been there when she had hers.

independent. horribly so. but not averse to receiving stuff.

dances really well, and flirts without knowing it. hehehe. and this girl knows how to p a r t y.

we waited for midnight for her birthday last night, and i remember thinking (looking at her while she was making googly eyes at the bassist) -- life is manageable and a lot more interesting because she's there.

hapi beerdey renski. lab u.

things come in threes.

got tagged by anna katrina ages ago. here goes.

Three names you go by:
1. tina b.
2. tins
3. tintoy

Three physical things you like about yourself:
1. nose
2. fingers and toes (will this count as 2?)
3. eyes (looking haunted at the moment, but i like them still.)

Three physical things you don't like about yourself:
1. too thin hair (i like my hair, and it's not that i'm complaining, but i could do with a little more.)
2. logs, logs, logs.
3. and more logs.

Three parts of your heritage:
1. Filipino
2. Spanish
3. (2 na lang.)

Three things that scare you:
1. worms.
2. outliving the people i love
3. worms. ugh.

Three of your everyday essentials:
1. drinking water
2. stories
3. home cooked meals

Three of your favorite musical artists:
1. sting
2. U2
3. billy joel

Three of your favorite songs:
1. she's got a way - billy joel
2. ghost - indigo girls
3. there we are -- james taylor

Three things you want in a relationship:
1. love (of course)
2. humor
3. passion

Three lies and truths in no particular order:
1. i'm happy
2. i'm practically perfect in every way. :D
3. this too shall pass.

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you:
1. eyes i can drown in
2. yummy lips
3. clean, capable hands

Three of your favorite hobbies:
1. reading
2. writing
3. cooking

Three things you want to do really badly now:
1. bum around at some beach
2. buy a motorcycle
3. get my car kojak overhauled

Three careers you're considering/you've considered:
1. pilot
2. ambulance driver
3. chef

Three places you want to go on vacation:
1. Brazil
2. Vienna
3. Africa

Three kid's names you like:
1. Joaquin
2. Jordan (if it's a girl)
3. Sebastian

Three things you want to do before you die:
1. skydive
2. publish an erotic tagalog novel
3. pay off all my immediate family's debts. :P

Three ways that you are stereotypically a boy:
1. i throw a football better than most boys
2. i can be an electrician, a mechanic, and a plumber at home if need be.
3. i can change the 5 gallon water bottle for our water dispenser without batting an eyelash or breaking a sweat

Three ways that you are stereotypically a girl:
1. i cry. all the time
2. i go to pieces when i see hugh jackman
3. i like seeing men with nice butts in tight jeans. :P

Three celeb crushes:
1. hugh jackman
2. richard gutierrez :P
3. keannu reeves

------------------------------------------

I now tag the following people:

whoever wants to answer this. :)

finally

got to transfer some pictures from my pocket pc to my computer. here are a couple i said i'd post:


me and neil. sigh. don't mind the date though. the battery winked out on me. (yes that's snooky serna sitting at the back, although for the life of me i couldn't figure out what she was doing there.)




hehehe. my birthday celebration. nobody else was looking. saisaki along edsa.

don johnson, is that you?

a couple of weeks ago, the office issued a dress down policy for fridays. since most of the occupants of the building dress down on fridays, i thought it most appropriate that we follow suit.

but check out the friday attire.

2.0 GUIDELINES

For the purpose of defining acceptable office attire, we classify the following dress code corresponding to the workdays:

Regular Business Attire : Monday – Thursday
Casual Attire : Friday
Dress Down Day : Saturday


2.1 Monday to Thursday Dress Code

All employees shall wear the appropriate business attire from Monday to Thursday.

Inappropriate attire such as, but not limited to the following are not allowed during these days:

2.1.1 Denim pants (pants, overall, polo and skirts)
2.1.2 Carpenter/Cargo pants
2.1.3 Cropped or Capri pants
2.1.4 Jogging/athletic pants
2.1.5 Short pants or skorts (shorts in skirt style)
2.1.6 Tee shirts (with or without collar)
2.1.7 Micro-mini skirts
2.1.8 Tank tops/spaghetti strap tops and backless tops
2.1.9 Rubber shoes/sneakers (tennis shoes, bowling shoes, golf shoes, and the like)
2.1.10 Slippers/sandals (rubber, beach, or leather)
2.1.11 Hiking boots
2.1.12 Safety/construction shoes
2.1.13 Flat slip-ons/mules (less than 1 inch heel)
2.1.14 Clogs and flip-flops/Japanese slippers


2.2 Friday Dress Code

During Fridays employees may wear smart casual clothes. Restrictions set forth in Section 2.1 are relaxed for items 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.3, and 2.1.9 above.

2.3 Saturday Dress Code


Saturday is considered as dress down day. Employees can wear any attire they are comfortable in; however, wearing of vulgar, offensive, or obscene clothing is prohibited.

heyng? we can wear jeans and rubbershoes, but no t-shirts, collar or no collar? sure they posted some suggested combinations for the friday thing. i wish i could get a copy just so i can post it here. the combinations look good, but you have to be wearing a lacoste shirt, marks and spencer pants, and diesel shoes or any other permutation of the same brands for the combinations to work. duh.

they want us to become fashion victims.

ha! they thought they'll get the better of me! ha! i used to watch miami vice too!

i figured the best way to get around the no-t-shirt policy is to wear a blazer over the shirt.

so, if you see someone wearing white rubbershoes, casual pants, a t-shirt and a blazer on a friday, that would be me. solving crime.

a break from tradition

for how many years now i have been celebrating my birthday in exactly the same way. i send my friends text messages with the following missive:

"spaghetti and chicken. my house"

friends from high school, college, and law school show up. and recently, office mates. we do the same thing - eat up a storm, drink till the wee hours of the morning.

it was a constant thing, and one i looked forward to every year. there is comfort in habit and tradition.

this year, however, was different. we didn't have a maid to clean up after the mess we were bound to make, and dennis (chief cook on my birthdays) was leaving for abroad the next day. he shouldn't get tired. and i was coming from work.

so my sister decided to just eat out.

i hesitated, initially. some of the hesitation sprung from my reluctance to spend so much, and some from my reluctance to break my birthday party tradition (a tradition in my head, that is).

we went anyways, my sister offering to foot the bill, and me convincing myself it was bound to be fun.

it was fun. we ended up in saisaki/dads/kamayan, eating buffet. there was a group of singers there, with 2 guitars and one big guitar (don't know what it's called). they serenaded us, we requested for "dancing queen" and "sasakyan kita" just for the heck of it.

then we played billiards. i played a bad game, but it was all in good fun. the bikini open at the billiard hall was not in good fun though. still, when we could ignore them already, we did.

i went home smiling, and happy. change is not a bad thing, i said to myself. sure we didn't get our spaghetti and chicken. or drink till morning. but the important elements were there -- two of my sisters, my brother in law, my sister's boyfriend, my friends who mattered - i couldn't ask for more.

thank you. this birthday will go down in the books as one of the best.

why i didn't sleep a wink.

the night before my birthday i went out with my sister and her boyfriend. around midnight the text messages came in, and the guy singing up front greeted me, and i got kisses all around.

we went home around 2 am and i went back to reading my book. around 430 am, i decided to just wait for the sunrise -- so i went outside, looked for a good place to perch on, and waited for the sun.

it was a marvelous morning. i watched the mist over the fields settle, then dissipate. i watched the shadowed trees turn green with the coming of the light. where i initially i saw bats, i saw birds.

i felt the air becoming a little warmer and i reveled at the miracle that is called sunrise. i felt like i was the only person awake in the whole wide world.

then i saw lights coming on in my neighbors' houses. i heard the sounds and smelled the aroma of cooking. showers being turned on.

the world was waking up around me.

eventually i went back to the house and continued reading. i didn't get a nap till about 3 pm. over 30 hours awake and i was still smiling.

spent time with myself, and that, i think, was the perfect gift i could have gotten.

turning 30 wasn't so bad. :D it still isn't.

the half-blood prince

just finished reading the new harry potter book. don't worry, no spoilers here. it's just that... sigh.

woohoo!!!

we're having another baby! (still not me.) go figure. :D

haven't slept a wink

i watched the sun rise this morning.

it's 8:12. 30 years.

things i would have done differently, a lot.

things i should have said, a lot.

things i shouldn't have said, a lot.

people i shouldn't have loved, none.

people i should have loved, a lot.

regrets -- none at all.

it's been a good life, tears and pain notwithstanding. thanks, Big Guy.

PS. I think I'm now addicted to calamansi juice.

so writes neil gaiman as a post script to his july 11 journal entry, and perhaps to his philippine tour too.

i think it must have taken a herculean effort on his part to keep on smiling at 12 midnight when his hand must have seemed like a strange attachment to his wrist.

i was there at rockwell when he read an excerpt from anansi boys. i was there when he said that we make more noise than the brazilians, but are a little less mad. and i screamed along with the crowd for him to take off his shirt.

i was also at gateway yesterday to have a book signed. i witnessed several people walking on air after the signing. some were sobbing from sheer awe and joy, and some from frustration at having to line up from the fully booked store to aurora boulevard.

i got a little irritated that i only got to have 2 items signed when my pass guaranteed 4. the fact that the guy who took my picture took a sucky one didn't help any. (will still post it here though.) but i didn't complain. i didn't have to line up from the 3rd floor to the goddamned street.

the experience was well worth it. he's a nice guy, and he looks like a really yummy rockstar.

funny though. while i was having a book signed (all the while knowing he would not be averse to a hug and a smack) i made no move to go near him. just made idle talk to while away the time. i realized i was a fan of his creative mind, and that was just fine with me.

i left the place smiling and oddly sated.

thank you, neil. maybe someday you'll get more of that calamansi juice.

"ako." what's wrong with it?

saw this written on the seat of the bus:

"kenneth III-ii

mahal na mahal kita. sana pansinin mo na rin ME."

syet.

you know you're surrounded by lawyers when:

the invocation ends with "...in conclusion, dear Lord..."

elevator booboos

"i never went fat."

"you're so insecured."

"where are you located from?"

"the pain is standable naman"

since i'm on the 44th floor, i get to hear a lot of conversations in the elevator-- on my way up, and on my way down.

i don't mind, usually, except when they talk really loud about their personal lives which i don't care about much. check this conversation out:

girl 1: really? you talk about work when you're home? kahit na you work in the same place?

girl 2: of course! we're partners. we don't keep secrets from each other. the other night when we were about to sleep, she said....

okay. i have nothing against relationships. what the world needs now is love sweet love. but not in a crowded elevator. and i prefer not to know what couples do before they sleep. close man tayo o hindi. overshare, in my opinion.

still, it breaks the monotony. sometimes i hear jokes being exchanged and i end up smiling. sometimes whispered conversations which somehow carry make me go "aw."

i suppose my reactions really just depend on my mood.

or maybe i'm just insecured.

the day i watched my husband walk away

yes, my husband. or at least in a parallel universe.

tall. dark. handsome. with clean feet in leather sandals. (sorry, fetish.)

he just sat there listening to his earphones, hugging his bag. his head almost reached the ceiling of the jeep. i tried, oh how i tried, to not look at him. and failed miserably. he seemed stoic, then he smiled. my heart did little tiny flipflops. susmaryosep ang gwapo nga.

i have no doubt that we would look good together.

he got off at the same stop, and i was hoping against hope that he would be taking the same route. but he crossed the street. sigh.

i woulda married him. delectable guy that he is.

know what? for a moment there it was nice to fantasize about that guy. it made me smile.

can i stomp my feet and rant and rant?

moved to a different department in the office. different floor, different table.

i don't like my new cube. it's small and i don't have a place to put my magnetic poetry thingie and i have someone beside me and it's too quiet there and i can see all the people walking by and i don't have a window like in my old place and my friends are all three floors below and it's small and i don't have a place to put my magnetic poetry thingie!

my lower lip is sticking out so far i can actually see it without aid of a mirror. hmph.

actually i'm ranting about my office space because contemplating the state of the nation is too unbearable at the moment.

i will hug him and squeeze him and call him george

so goes my favorite line from my favorite bugs bunny episode.

it's one of the things i have always love doing. hugging.

there's always something magical about hugs. warm, safe, secure. everything is right in the world.

b and i were chatting earlier about how she prefers snuggling and cuddling to a roll in the hay. and i have to agree.

someone hugs you when you're sad, when you're happy, when you're excited about something, when you did something that deserves congratulations, when you're about to leave, when you've just arrived, when something happens, or even when nothing happens.

a hug communicates something that can never be conveyed with words.

somehow you feel a little less sad, a little more excited, a little more special, and a lot more loved.

the best thing to do when you get a hug? hug them right back.

i give in

been avoiding admitting this for too long. i'm lonely.

it's been what? 4 months. i've been doing the rounds, going out 2 or 3 times a week, playing badminton 5 days out of 6, getting a maximum of 6 hours sleep every night.

my body is complaining, but that's tolerable. though i've never been a big fan of medicine, i do know when to quit being a hero.

but the rest of me is a wreck. i've been on automatic mode for months now. i wake up, cook, eat, take a shower, go to work, go out if there's something to do, or go home and sleep. (repeat if desired. rinse.) and the other night, r threatened to pick a fight with me if i persist.

she wants me to cry. but that's too hard. the tears won't come and ease whatever loneliness rests in my soul. the beer dulls it, the sweat mists it. but it never goes away.

i miss _____. what i would give for another year. month. week. day, even. okay, even one measly hour.

i should get some sleep. this is too pathetic already.

this i'm willing to spend for

most of my friends know that i would not shell out money for shoes, make-up, clothes, or other things considered important by most women. not that i don't find them important or necessary. it's just that i never got used to buying them for myself. being youngest has its advantages. :)

but books are a different matter. so later today i'm going to a bookstore to buy a book for this:



oh joy!

i. do. not. have. a. penis.

at least the last time i checked.

so why is my email being flooded with "ENLARGE YOUR PENIS" or "PERMANENT PENIS GROW" or "KEEP HER SATISFIED."

it irritates the hell out of me because i have to keep checking mail just to delete these mails. with the limited space provided by hotmail (yes, they're still at 2MB) i can't really afford to let my mailbox be crowded by stupid spam like this.

sigh. if i didn't love my email address so much i'd switch. but then i've had that address since 1997 and friends i haven't heard from in years still send mail to that address just to see if they got it right.

plus, i sometimes get mail from people that amuse me no end. i once got 3 emails from 3 separate guys in the UK offering to send me fare money so i could marry them. UGH. but i found it funny. but that's another story.

back to my main train of thought, i have no way of unsubscribing because i never subscribed in the first place.

sigh. irritating.

woohoo!!!

we're havin' a baby! (not me.)

go figure. :D

no more pig for this girl. :D

Lechon Baboy: Roasted to a crisp. The main act on
a Filipino buffet repertoire.


Which Filipino Food Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla



sigh. i always joked about being a roasted pig everytime i leave the beach. now here's confirmation.

the girls

april, 2005. first time we got together again after 10 years.

tinola on a cold saturday morning

there's nothing like waking up to a good home-cooked meal.

got to baguio around 630 this morning. went to sleep and got up a couple of hours later. by the time i was up and about, my parents and my sister were already done eating. but there was hot food on the table, and there were sliced fruits and the table was set for me.

i've evolved into the independent sort over the years, mainly because i lived away from home and partly for survival. so when my sister and i got an apartment, i did the cooking and the cleaning (sundays when i had the strength).

i started cooking breakfast for myself and my sister, and bringing a lunch box to school. just so i wouldn't have to spend so much of my allowance eating out.

when i started working, i did the same. cook breakfast and lunch, eat at home, bring my lunch to the office, and try to be home to eat dinner.

the set-up works well for me because i can choose what i eat, my food is msg free, i can satisfy my cravings, and i don't spend as much as i would have had i kept on eating out.

but sometimes it gets tiresome. i wake up in the morning and i tell myself to get up and start preparing for work and i just snuggle deeper into bed. i want to get at least an hour more of sleep, or perhaps two. i get up, though, and start my day.

which is why coming home is always a treat. i wake up to a home cooked meal and i don't have to measure food by the cup, or think about what i'm going to have for my next meal.

i am the independent sort. but there's nothing like going home.

quick shout out

happy birthday ate lan. :D love you.

education and the high cost of living

school's almost here and every now and then i hear my friends, and even strangers, complain about how expensive it's gotten to put kids through school.

my officemate's children are required to buy around 3000 pesos worth of books per year. not to mention the rising tuition fees. and her kids are only in grade school. they have to buy workbooks for each subject.

workbooks are foreign to me. when we were in grade school, the school lent us the books, we copied the exercises in our notebooks, and gave the books back at the end of the school year. notebooks are much cheaper than books. plus i find the thought of writing in books abhorrent, kahit na workbooks sila.

preschool is worse. i overheard a conversation in the jeep the other day about how this woman put her son in day care because it's only 1500 pesos a year, plus a monthly fee of 75 pesos. she said the preschool she was looking at was charging something like 27000 per year for a 3 year old kid.

what's up with that? i know that children that age are only learning their abc's and colors and shapes and that they have more playtime than school time.

i remember going to nursery school when i was 5. my mom assures me that my tuition that time was nowhere near the thousands. of course that was ages ago. but still. all we did was learn our alphabet, have snacktime, naptime, playtime, then go home. wala namang makapagsasabing tanga ako.

it amazes me how these things work out lately. the tuition for a year in preschool costs more than my 4 semesters in law school... give or take a sem or two.

i've heard it said that people put their children as young as 2 years old to preschool because they have to work and school is the only place they could leave them without fear.

that's sad.

i wonder how it will be when i have kids. sigh. it's enough to give anyone a headache.

it sucks to be you

nothing personal. it's just that i've been obsessing over the soundtrack of avenue q the musical.

a friend gave it to me last friday and i only got to listen to it yesterday morning. i had no idea what it was about but the first song reminded me of the opening strains of the sesame street theme.

apparently i wasn't far off. the format is the same-puppets and humans, with musical numbers, of course. but the similarity stops there. i don't think we will ever have a sesame street episode with a song number entitled "i'm not wearing underwear today." :)

the music is wonderful, the humor terribly adult. the album appeals to the child and the (perverse) adult in me. hope i'll get to watch it sometime soon. you should too.

oh, before i forget, here's a phrase from "what do you do with a B.A. in English":

"i'm kinda pretty
and pretty damn smart.
i like romantic things
like music and art.
and as you know i have
a gigantic heart.
so why don't i have a boyfriend?!?!?
F__K! it sucks to be me!"

-kate monster

cute, di ba?

now i work in the market as a check out girl

obviously this line is not enough to convince people of tracy chapman's gender.

admittedly, i used to think she was a he. the photo on the cd my sister gave me (her first album, i think) did not help any. i still thought she was male. hehehe.

last night i discovered that people are still confused. two waiters at the conspiracy garden cafe along visayas avenue (do visit. this is a shameless plug.) were arguing. on my way to the washroom one of them stopped me to settle the issue. the question was -- "ma'am, babae ba si tracy chapman?"

i answered yes, of course. one of them had to fork over 10 bucks. nothing to sneeze at these days. every centavo counts.

they were good natured about it though.

wala lang. naaliw lang ako. di pala ako nag-iisa sa pagkalito kay tracy. :)

kids. yes kids.

as soon as i arrived in baguio my sisters started telling me stories about the kids. two of my favorites:

carlo:

carlo: (holding chicharon bulaklak) ano to?
tita: chicharon bulaklak
carlo: nung buhay pa ito san to nakatira?




renzo

renzo: mama, i know why papa married you.
mama: why?
renzo: because you're pretty.
mama: you mean he didn't marry me because he loved me?
renzo: no. he loves you because you're pretty.

there. sometimes i'm almost afraid to have kids. :) ah but they're such precious ones.

good to be home.

my manang

well, i have 5. but the only one i call manang is ate k. no, it is not derogatory. nor does it allude to appearances. for the ilocanos, it is a term of respect for an older female. and for us, a term of endearment.

she came immediately before i did. we grew up together, fighting over the smallest things (we beat each other up over toeshoe pads), laughing over the tiniest matters. we were together in grade school, college, and eventually -- law school.

it's been a riot. it still is. we finish each other's sentences, look at each other and communicate more without saying a word.

she's hopeless with the dishes, almost gives me heart attacks with her driving, lazy around the house (peace!), terribly sentimental, and horribly emotional. but she's got the purest voice one can ever hope to have, and as one of her friends put it -- a face by da vinci, a body by boticelli (HAHAHAHAHAHA). she stands for what she believes in, and argues just for kicks. she will fight for those she loves, right or wrong. she's smart as hell. she's one of the select few who can catch my cracks without my having to explain myself.

those who know her will agree.

let's just say i'm lucky to have 5 sisters, and to have her as one of them.

HAPI BERTDEY MANANG K. love you.

new look

finally got the chance to make my blog over. i'm liking the new look. :)

dead ringer. not.

was walking along the sidewalk earlier on my way home when i saw this guy sitting on a bench. i literally stopped in my tracks. i thought it was my ex, w.

the resemblance was amazing. or so i thought. i actually stared and almost said hi. he stared back and that's when i realized it wasn't him. i kept on staring and decided they didn't look all that much alike.

it's almost sad that i could actually mistake that guy for w. there were marked differences in the faces.

i think it's sad because i used to know every plane, line, and crease on w's face. i'd know him from the side, from the back, and most definitely from the front. but now the face in my head is not as clear.

i suppose everybody goes through this. perhaps it's the subconscious' way of coping.

perhaps it's survival.

java java java java java

every time i grab a cup of coffee, people around me try to stop me from having the brew. mainly because i get a little crazy. okay, okay. a lot crazy.

do you remember the scene from encino man where brendan fraser chews up some coffee and starts bouncing around the room? that happens to me. except perhaps i manage to not hit the walls.

it's funny. perhaps it's because i was never really a coffee drinker. milo was my drink of choice for the mornings, beer in the evenings. drinking soda is also something i don't do often.

so the caffeine hits me with a bang. literally. i wear a big, stupid, idiotic grin all the time (my sister would say deranged) and i can't help it!

the good part about this is that i can always threaten my friends and family about my drinking coffee. hehehe. that'll learn 'em!

the next time you see me sporting a big grin (and you know for a fact that i didn't get l___d) make a beeline for the next door. :D

i know tibibord wears a painful look everytime.

45 years and counting

today is the 45th wedding anniversary of my mom and dad.

over the years i've seen them love each other to bits, and fight each other over both small and huge matters alike.

i have this to say though: if i find something even half as wonderful as their relationship, i'll be one of the luckiest people in the world.

happy anniversary ma and dad! love you.

"her shoes were tight but she said, awryt!"

but that's what some say.


click here.

watched once on this island last night at the carlos p. romulo theater at rcbc tower. i must say, i was dumbstruck.

i was unfortunate enough to have witnessed a totally amateur production of the play about a couple of years ago. it was horrible and it left a really bad taste in my mouth. so when my sister told me we were watching the play and that they actually had professional actors, i had high hopes.

i was in for a treat. the opening number "we dance" was enough to erase the bad taste.

there were only 12 actors, and each one played his/her role so well it was almost magical for me. well i do believe the guy playing daniel and the girl playing ti moune could have done better (look, somebody agrees with me.). but the rest of the cast, particularly bituin escalante, menchu lauchengco-yulo, bojie pascua (yes, kuya bojie), may bayot, and jett pangan gave justice to their roles. the little girl (i didn't catch her name) was also wonderful, with her lisp and pure voice. the last scene particularly got me.

must watch, if musicals are your thing. you won't be disappointed. i know i wasn't.

i'm still singing in my head.

the few, the proud, santolan-annapolis crowd

araw araw sa mrt
pagpunta sa trabaho
at sa pag-uwi
aking napapansin
di maiwasang tumingin
mga bumababang mabilis
sa santolan-annapolis.
nakikipagtulakan
parating naiipit
paisa-isa silang
lumalabas pilit.
isipin mo naman
sa dinami-dami ng tao
bakit kakaunti
ang bumababa dito?

nakakaaliw, nakakatuwa
di maiwasang maisip
ang mga nanganganak na ina.
umiiri, nagsusumikap iluwa
ang sanggol
palabas ng bukana
humihilab ang tyan
anak, labas na dyan!

bawat taong lumalabas
sa santolan-annapolis
kailangan gumalaw,
lumabas ng mabilis
at pag nakaraos
at nakalabas na ng pinto,
mga taong naiwan,
muling pupunuin bawat kanto.

naisip ko ring bumaba dito
pero pagdating ng cubao,
ubos na ang mga tao
kaya hahayaan ko na sila
na bumaba paisa-isa
at aaliwin ko na lang ang sarili
sa kanilang pagbaba.

HAHAHAHA. sometimes i kill me.

old friends found

got in touch with an old friend. i must say, it feels good. specially when you're feeling down in the dumps.

it's funny how things work out. just when i thought that nothing would lift my spirits, an old friend comes along and says hi.

good to have you back. :)

under the weather

for the first time in i don't know how long i slept till 2 pm in the afternoon.

been sick for the past week starting thursday. was working till 430 am last saturday so here i am, suffering the consequences.

stayed home today because i was too groggy. i usually can't sleep beyond 9 am, no matter how late i turn in the night (or dawn) before.

hate getting sick. it's a rare occurrence for me. i get sick once a year and it really gets me down.

so here i am, still at home, trying to not move because the heat is HORRIBLE. thank goodness it's windy. but still.

am loaded up on medicines at the moment and hopefully will be well by morning.

sigh.

do the words roasted pig mean anything to you?

yes. that's me. roasted. (pig?)

got back from 3 nights 2 days in boracay around 1 pm this afternoon.

suffice it to say that if not for the jetski and snorkeling and clear waters i would've hated the place. oh, and the fresh bread at the barracuda bar. :)

more on this when my back no longer twitches with every movement of my fingers.

my belief was not unfounded

itaas mo!

although that newest commercial with kris aquino really ticks me off.

short and sweet

i've had my share of commencement speeches. and i regret that i wasn't around to listen to this.

it is at odds with the traditional general commencement speech - mainly because it is almost conversational, and in tagalog to boot. there may have been others like it, but i profess ignorance.

read it. it's shorter than my previous blog. and easier to read. :D

after 6 years (brace yourself, this is going to be a long one)

well here i am.

sabi nga ng daddy ko, abogado na ako. and all of a sudden i don't know what to do anymore.

when i was applying for a college course, i didn't know what to take up. i didn't know what i wanted to be. i had wanted to be a nurse back in grade school then thought better of it as i grew older. (maybe i should have pursued that line of work. might be filthy rich by now. hehehe)

going back, i never had a plan in life. for a moment there i wanted to go into politics, like my grandmother and my dad. that dream faded into oblivion really, really fast.

so there i was, a high school student without the faintest idea what i wanted to take up in college. the guidance counselor didn't help any. this is the gist of his evaluation:

"Will be good at anything she endeavors, except maybe a career in politics."

duh. i could have told you that.

still, i didn't know what to do. so like any girl in a quandary, i asked my older sister who was in college. she gave me pretty sensible advice. or so i thought. by the time she was through with me, i was convinced that i wanted to take up computer science. and in default of that, interior design. a year ago i realized that i applied for those courses because my sister's two best friends were in those courses at that time.

thing is, i ended up in geodetic engineering (go figure) and stayed there for about 3 years. i got dismissed from the college of engineering and ended up in ... (drum roll please) interior design.

yes. my second choice when i filled up the application for college. i didn't go there in the first place even if i had passed because I HAD NO TALENT FOR IT. so when i got dismissed, and i applied again, i was on tenterhooks. my grade point average was fine. but hell, i didn't know how to draw and there was a talent test.

for some reason the head of the department thought my drawing of the queen anne chair was passable, so i got accepted.

barely made it though, what with all the drawings, renderings, etc.... my theories were fine, the executions were... okay i guess.

i graduated.

the year i graduated from college was the year my sister took her oath as a lawyer. i had been toying around with the idea of taking up law. just to see what it was like... bottom line was i didn't want to go to work just yet .

but i still decided to take the board exam. it seemed like a logical next step. but my sister (yes the same one who advised me on what to take for college) told me that it would not be practical to go to review classes because i was planning on taking up law.

and once again, i believed her.

my classmates sent me materials for the exam, and they went with me when i applied. they religiously attended the night classes, taught me how to draw, to color, to fix the perspectives of my plates.. the works. and me... i slept.

some of my materials have remained unopened till now.

to make the long story short, i failed the exam. i did not study, nor was i really paying attention in school. imagine this: the question was how many springs are needed for a so-and-so sized sofa. imagine me, moving around in my chair, trying to figure out how many springs will poke my butt at any given moment, and the distance of the pokes.

so yes, i failed. but i took the entrance exam to law school. passed. went for the interview. passed.

what followed was 4 years of fun. i was failing exams, getting screamed at during recitations, losing sleep. learned to play billiards, discovered the acoustic music scene, gained an unmentionable number of pounds, lost boyfriends, gained some...others...

then the bar came along. failed the first one (i still firmly believe my paper was switched with that of the person who placed number 10.) i was working at that time.

i kept on working until about a month and a half before the next bar exam. studied some, played super bounce, studied some more. took the exam.

i passed this time around. now here i am.

after the euphoria, the celebration, the endless bottles of beer... here i am.

i will never have to worry about getting good grades again. about passing. about knowing enough to get by and gain approval, and consequently, receiving a passable grade.

suddenly getting the grade doesn't matter anymore.

and i don't know how i feel. on the one hand the happy go lucky life of a student is something i enjoyed extremely. the pampered life of the bar exam taker i also enjoyed, despite the frequent stress attacks.

i'm relieved of course. and at the same time lost. it was like those few months during high school before going to college. what to do next?

i can't ask my ever reliable crazy sister. she's taking the bar too.

so i guess i'm going to have to do some soul searching... what to do next. i have a host of choices: ambulance driver? bartender? electrician? taxi driver? erotic tagalog romance novel writer? baby sitter? teacher? the list goes on and on. except politics of course. but i'm a lawyer.

i took the oath last friday. while in my slinky dress under my shiny black toga, dying because of my 4 inch heels, i thought -- this is what i had worked for. i didn't want to be a lawyer but there i was. and as i listened to the speeches and watched the faces of the people taking the oath around me, i realized that if i didn't really want to be there, i wouldn't have been.

i have never been one to just keep on going at something just because i had started already. i could have quit, and yet i pressed on. this must have been something i wanted to do. maybe it is. i'm on my way to being sure....

another chapter of my life is over, i guess. and i'm closing that book. what happens next, you'll read about it here. or not.

but for now it -- it's finally over.

taking things slow

well here i am back in baguio after all the brouhaha of the past few weeks. it's all been a blur-- celebrating with people, trying to work, catching up on my reading, still trying to work...

attended the oath-taking yesterday. with a hangover. :( so let me put a new date on my april 9 post. make that april 29. :)

my mind is mercifully empty this morning. thank god for small blessings. will post again later.

hearing double

had my longest encounter ever with a pair of identical twins today. my friend's twin is back to stay and it was the first time we've met.

it was like being in the twilight zone. i don't ever recall being with identical twins at the same time. all my cousins were fraternal twins.

anyway, their faces were easily distinguishable. they look exactly alike but there are marked differences in expressions. but when i turned my back and they started talking, it was like being with someone who was having a conversation with himself.

weird. but highly interesting. the bond they share is apparent. i was almost envious.

i used to fantasize that i had a twin sister or brother and we were just separated at birth. then we'll meet again some day and find out that we had parallel experiences all through our lives. you know, the stuff that disney movies are made of.

sigh. sometimes being a single birth is lonely.

now this is original

talked to my sister's friend last night. she said a friend of hers saw our picture together. the friend said i have a nice ambience.

ambience. hmmm. last time i checked this was NOT applicable to humans. maybe i'm wrong.

either that, or i've gotten so big i've become a place to them. sigh.

*%$#^&*(*^@^!!!*#&*$^&

yes, that is exactly how i felt the whole day. the guy in charge of the floor in the office refuses to lower the thermostat in the office. they claim that they're trying to test if the air conditioners can actually maintain a temperature below 27 degrees centigrade in the office.

27 freakin degrees???? do they have any idea how hot that is? where i come from, the maximum i've ever encountered was 26 degrees, and we considered that sweltering already.

and they want us to stay in our itchy office clothes and calmly work in the heat like there was nothing wrong.

i've been barely functional the whole day.

sigh. the moon is smiling outside my window and it's a cool evening, thank heavens.

will watch moon.

this is all i have to say

i'm a lawyer now. :)

coffee fix

i smell good enough to drink.

had a body scrub which involved vanilla and coffee. after smelling of horse the whole day (went horseback riding), it was sheer heaven.

slightly invasive though. i wouldn't recommend it to the prudish types.

i feel so clean and soft and i smell so good. sigh. if only.

my poor butt

tuesday found us travelling to pagudpud, a town in ilocos norte. the water is clear (except for some parts which have a lot of seaweed) and the sand is almost pristine. the whole family was there which made it better.

the only problem was it took us 9 hours to get there. but then, it was worth it.

we swam and ate lobsters and bought bracelets and basically just lazed around. (and gained pounds in the process) we went snorkelling but saw nothing because the winds were so strong and the boatmen didn't bring us to the lagoon. i saw 20 bucks though. i decided i like snorkelling. must do that again.

thursday afternoon we were on our way back to baguio. the trip, including meals and stops took all of 10 hours. got to baguio around midnight. rested for an hour the i was on the road again, to pick up my sister from the airport. her flight was arriving at 9:55.

we got to manila at 7 am. i took a shower and just lay on my bed for 5 minutes. just so my body could remember what a bed felt like. then we were off to the airport.

my sister was out by 11. then we headed straight to baguio. the trip was looooong. and hot. the aircon conked out somewhere in tarlac. golly. open windows. i felt so dirty and oily. ugh.

got home around 6:30.

how many hours of travelling? you do the math.

and i'm going back to manila tomorrow. sigh.

ah, but it's been all worth it.

just a kiss

caught the bottom half of the movie just a kiss last night. i found myself scratching my head in confusion.

first i saw a couple kissing, a colored suicide, then 3 funerals, then marissa tomei coming on to a guy at the last funeral, then the guy giving the girl in the casket a kiss, then that girl came alive then was really dead then everything zoomed back to another scene and everyone was alive again.

sigh. whatever i had been worrying about was pushed to the back burner in an effort to understand what i was watching. finally gave up.

must look for the dvd.

isang gabi, mahigit isang taon na ang nakalilipas, sumumpa kaming magmahalan hanggang matapos ang walang hanggan. naging saksi ang buwan sa sumpaang ito. nagbigay liwanag at basbas.

ngayon bilog na naman ang buwan at heto akong nag-iisa. nalulungkot.

di nagbabago ang buwan. makalipas ang ilang araw, ito ay nag-iiba ng mukha. subalit bumabalik at bumabalik sa pinagsimulan. paulit ulit.

di gaya ng pagmamahal. lumilipas, pumapanaw. isinasantabi dahil hindi pa panahon.

di ba't kay lungkot?

what odd creatures humans are

thanks to cbeck's blog. visit this link.

smelly sneakers

...

I want this love
Though it hurts me so
I want this love
Can’t let you go
Every moment without you
Reminds me of things
We used to do
Laughing at nothing
Every second worth rejoicing
Sharing our sorrows
And dreams of tomorrow
Loving like it will never end
How quickly you’ve become
My best friend.
Giving you the best of me,
Taking what you give
Wholeheartedly.
Wishing for forever
Saying goodbye
Never.
Keeping your hand in mine
Convincing myself
We’ll be fine.
I want this love
That hurts with goodnight
That makes me lonely
When you’re out of sight.
I want this love
That makes me feel alive
With every little pain
I feel inside.
So stay close to me,
Stay close and you will see
This pain I have
Is because we loved.

©tina b.
3:08 a.m.
March 8, 2005

gary jams at kwago

last saturday gary granada sang at kwago bar in baguio city. i didn't take a lot of pictures since i only had my phone with me. it was fun, the crowd was okay (with some boisterous people, but that was okay too), and it didn't rain.

his songs are really good, and his voice makes you feel like all is right in the world.

thanks gary.

~~~~~~~~

speaking of artists like gary, drop by this post.

 

here's that rainy day

it's gloomy outside. from my seat here by the window i can see the buildings and cars and roads, wet with rain. i know there are sounds out there but from up here i can hardly hear anything.

it's like i'm surrounded by glass, all alone, watching the world get wet. watching the world go by.

i have always loved the rain. there's something so cleansing about it, despite the dirt and chemicals to be found in it. as a child i used to watch the rain water run down the street, bringing debris with it and leaving the pavement clean.

i still do that sometimes when i get the chance.

i digress. back to my glass cage.

i'm lonely. lord knows i've been having my share of late nights and movies and outings and all that. but i'm lonely still.

it's been a month.

maybe it's just the rain. or the cold. or the still empty chairs and tables around me. or maybe i was just on a temporary high this morning from the coffee i drank.

maybe i just miss him. a month.

HA!!!

update on the stupid bank.

on a hunch i checked the website of the bank to see if they have online banking. yep. they do. was able to access my account.

they actually have online banking! oh joy!

so today, i paid a credit card bill and transferred the rest to my sister's account with the same bank (i have her atm).

i wasn't about to let them keep the leftover amount which was less than a hundred pesos. so i paid my phone bill. the staggering amount of 32.87.

i feel so satisfied. :) wipe this gloating smile off my face.

on the way to conspire

last night renski and i went to conspiracy bar (along visayas avenue).

we got caught in traffic while coming from makati. traffic was BAAAAAD. somewhere along the flyover going to libis we had the same thought. we needed to pee. badly.

first we thought we could make it to the bar without incident. but when we got to katipunan i knew holding it in would be sheer folly. so i told her we'll drop by her apartment.

her apartment was on the 3rd floor and by the time we got there, we were just about ready to burst.

we made it, though. barely.

and i tell you, the relief after was indescribable. if i had to describe it, however, i'd say it was better than sex. yes. better than sex. but only slightly. :) hehehe

now see what you made me do!

i was so pissed about that bank thing that i forgot my blog's birthday yesterday! (or is it anniversary?)

happy birthday/anniversary blog!

stupid bank

the other day i found out that my atm card can no longer be read by atm units. since i still had about 100 pesos i didn't worry about it so much. i had food, my transpo was taken care of, and i didn't foresee any spending sprees.

however, 100 pesos can only go so far. went to the branch here and told them about my problem. my account is in baguio so i was asking if i could withdraw over the counter here. the guy said yes, but there was a surcharge of 150 pesos. excuse me? handling fee costs that much?

so i said forget about it. he said my card was old and that i should call up my branch because supposedly, i already have a newly issued pre-encoded card since they changes designs already.

asked my sister to call the bank and they said i didn't have a card there because they didn't receive a request from me. but they were the ones who changed cards, right? i shouldn't have to apply for a new one. they said no. i should apply. PERSONALLY.

the stupid idiot my sister was talking to could not comprehend what my sister was patiently explaining. that i was manila based, and that it would be impossible for me to take a leave from work, go up to baguio on a weekday, JUST SO I CAN PERSONALLY APPLY FOR A NEW ATM CARD.

UGH!!!! then they had another suggestion. for me to withdraw my money here, pay the surcharge, close my account and open another account in one of their manila branches.

ano sila, hilo? after subjecting me and my sister to their abject idiocy they expect me to open an account in one of their branches?

ang tanga naman nila.

it's too early in the day for this. sigh.

will go bring my money elsewhere.

the girls

why i love my job. :)

oh yeah

jumped to cbeck's blog and saw the link to this.

for my generation which grew up watching transformers, this is a treat. :)

it's got to be one of the coolest, if not the coolest commercial i've ever seen. check it out.

sleepy sunday

summer is here. the heat is too much.

watching a bird in a cage hanging by the neighbor's window. he just paces to and fro, watching the birds here in the area just flying free. it must suck to be him.

i have half a mind to get a stick and try to open that cage. poor bird.

hate to be him.

getting morbid after the wedding post

si emman kasi.

1. Am I ready to die?
yes.

2. Why?
just feels like it.

3. At what age do I see myself dying?
55

4. Under what circumstance? What causes me to die?
driving.

5. Describe your pain tolerance.
high. really really high.

6. When was the last time I really prayed? What was the content?
new year's day i think. am currently lost.

7. Who will miss me when I die?
my family mostly.

8. If I die today, what will people say about me?
ang ganda pa rin niya. :D

9. How would you like your funeral to be conducted? (e.g. where, under what conditions, color coding and stuff, emotions?)
i'll be in my blue star spangled pajamas. on a bed. no coffin for me. one viewing, then cremate me. can you get parokya ni edgar to hold a concert?

10. Who do you want to handle your body (pertaining to who would clean your body and embalm)? How would you want your body taken care of?
ugh. bahala na sila. basta cremate din ako gaya ni emman. tapos ihalo ang ashes ko sa kape at ipainom sa bisita. so i will forever be part of you.... (insert EVIL LAUGHTER here)

11. Name at least 3 persons you would not want to go ahead of you.
this i refuse to answer.

lessons from a wedding

went to my sister's best friend's wedding to my sister's boyfriend's fraternity brother yesterday.

it was one of the most beautiful weddings i have ever attended -- the music was good, the priest was good, and everybody looked happy. plus the food was good too.

but like any other experience, there are things that you will learn:

1. it is next to impossible to completely button a bustier if you're alone in the car; wearing a skirt over your shorts in the car is next to next to impossible.

2. lotion on your feet, killers heels, and steep steps do not, i repeat -- do not, go well together.

3. driving for 2 hours along south super highway with your window open will get the nails on your left hand dirty, but not your right.

4. the most beautiful person in a wedding is the bride, no matter how sleep deprived, tense, or tired she is.

5. sometimes, weddings make you cry.

6. white roses are still prettier than red ones.

7. when they said "sonya's garden bed and breakfast" they really meant the garden part.

8. peeing in a bathroom with humongous screens overlooking a garden makes you feel horribly naked.

9. sun dried tomatoes rock.

empty chairs and empty tables

it's been 4 days since the people here in my immediate vicinity were put on forced leave.

it tends to be quiet sometimes.

too quiet. sometimes i can hear my heart sobbing.

it's been 20 days...

give me a year. maybe two. maybe the rest of this lifetime.

i remember

archie.

he used to call me snowflake.

wherever you are, you're still missed.

i spoke too soon

right after i posted the previous entry we got a call from the higher ups telling me that they'll be down shortly and that i'm going to do a demo for some foreign visitors. demo of the program that we've been using.

i only had 5 minutes. as luck would have it, i couldn't access the application. when i finally got it open, i couldn't find a file that was not locked. so the application was useless.

i winged it. opened several windows and started off with -- if this were working, this is how it's going to work. blah.

it was over soon, and they didn't have questions for me. either they understood me completely, or i made no sense whatsoever and asking questions would only compound the confusion.

so there.

i should not say i'm bored. something always comes up.