tales from the loony bin

for good

2011-12-08T21:51:00.006+08:00

on december 8, 2012

11 days shy of what could have been two years now

i tell you goodbye

in the same way i said yes to all

GLINDA
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return

Well I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes the sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed

For good

ELPHABA
It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart

And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine by being my friend

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you

GLINDA
Because I knew you

BOTH

I have been changed for good

ELPHABA
And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for

GLINDA
But then I guess we know
There's blame to share

BOTH
And none of it seems to matter anymore

GLINDA ELPHABA
Like a comet pulled Like a ship blown
From orbit as it Off it's mooring
Passes a sun, like By a wind off the
A stream that meets Sea, like a seed
A boulder, half-way Dropped by a
Through the wood Bird in the wood

BOTH
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better?

GLINDA
And because I knew you

ELPHABA
Because I knew you

BOTH
Because I knew you
I have been changed

For good

2011-09-06T13:14:00.002+08:00

it appears that i have to pick up the pieces and begin anew. again. after being so sure that i would never have to pick up the pieces ever again. i guess there's really no such thing as a sure thing.

on a weirder note, here's a list of the inane things that have happened to me lately :
1. a guy i used to go out with asked me to be the host of his wedding reception. his bride doesn't know about it and he says that for as long as the audience doesn't know we went out, all should be well.
2. in the movie credits, there is a "gay lingo consultant"
3. an iphone app i've been playing since november has a very anti-climactic non-end
4. online shoe shopping has made itself extremely available to me
5. my long-awaited knight in shining armor has decided he would rather live in the forest and play with the dragons, whom he has befriended

it's time for a nap.

my favorite bontoc word

2010-07-05T21:38:00.000+08:00

i was never the best with languages. my foreign language in college was spanish, and beyond donde esta el tabac, there was never really much i could say.

i always like to think that the Fates have an incredible sense of humor when it comes to toying with my life, because my first job ever was in a place where i couldn't understand a thing -- tagalog and english were secondary languages, and the language being spoken there sounded like a mix of F and CH sounds, and there was not a trace of english or tagalog anywhere.

the Fates decided that i was to be a teacher, and my naive little mind had visions of becoming an Anne of Green Gables sort of teacher. but as the Fates have an ironic sense of humor, i did not prepare for the surprises that awaited me. every single nightmare i've had of being a teacher came true then -- from firecrackers exploding in the classroom, to blank faces in the classroom when i tried introducing my idea of high-brow literature, to staff meetings in ilocano that i had no way of understanding, to every high school child's belief that it was his birthright to make teacher's life as hellish as possible.

but my favorite Bontoc word saved me and provided the much needed equilibrium i needed at that time in my life. every child in all my classes knows that this is my favorite word. and this word brings back fond memories of a different life.

werwer.

this is a Bontoc word that means naughty, makulit, matigas ulo. but to me, it is that and so much more.

werwer is children writing their dreams for their futures and me sealing them in a ziploc bag and us burying them in the school garden. and gleefully enjoying an english period spent out of doors.
werwer is spellcheck wednesdays, where the children would fall all over each other getting a pink star drawn on a yellow post-it.
werwer is the class laughing at the teacher because she spent two days under the sun wearing sunglasses, and came to class with a Batman sunburn on her face.
werwer is children sitting near the window teasing a ray of sunlight and having it dance on the blackboard, causing teacher to slap at it, making the entire class laugh.
werwer is marvelling at the children bringing their own floor wax and brooms to keep their own classrooms clean.
werwer is listening to U2 songs in class and finding the metaphors and similes in the song lyrics.
werwer is reading a student essay about tree planting on a hot day, and remembering how the sentence "my feet is cook!" made teacher's day.
werwer is the students sympathizing with teacher's scratched up hands, because teacher did not know how to do her laundry by hand.
werwer is thursday afternoons spent in the town cathedral, rehearsing mass songs and getting out of lessons for one afternoon.

werwer is the thought of the children who helped make me an adult.
children who are now adults themselves, who have led interesting lives and who have grown up without me knowing.

but they will always be children to me, and it is with much love that i remember them all today. agannad kayo, and thank you for bringing the werwer into my life.

stories

2010-04-04T00:37:00.002+08:00

the man makes the stories, and the stories make the man.

i am fortunate to be blessed with a home that overlooks a lake which i get to visit once a year. a place where i get to leave the rest of my life behind, where i can sleep deeply, wake up refreshed and count the many stories i have been abundantly blessed with.

stories of ...
... musical stoplights with cami, cathy, pia and tommy. this is the story of much laughter, food and forgiveness
... kuya breaking his arm after showing me how superman flies. this is the story of how superheroes are born.
... lola dada "shooting" at me and kuya in mindoro, causing us to run home and bathe and nap without a fuss. and later of lolo ciano telling me of his anting anting and lola coring validating it. this is the story of having a full childhood in mindoro.
... long weekends in boracay, bohol, and puerto galera. and of the 12th floor of the metrobank plaza. this is the story of the metrobank kids and the second generation of Y2V.
... subic and tabangao with che, pin, and marijo, and retelling the secret details to che and russell. this is the PG13 version of the story.
... karaoke with pchi, nena and con. this is the story of our twisted version of a prayer meeting.
... the great wall of china, ayuttaya, the great singapore sale, and other no frills adventures with marijo. this is the story of working to live.
... the oasis concert, the overnight trip to singapore, and of nesse taking me to try spicy stingray. this is the story of one's first grownup adventure.
... reserving dinners at burgoo for the most important announcement of all. justine and ines done, angel and me left. this is the story of brides and their best friends.
... a swiftly tilting planet in the cebu skies with edmark, and with noel cheering us on fromthe safety of a coffeeshop. this is the story of travel traditions.
... silly hats and opulent hotel rooms during kadayawan festivals with ninin. this is the story of the secret sisterhood.
... murphy, doggie, JB, JJ, garvygator, hugo bear and kimmi. also of wormy, pillow, dressy bessy, spanky, and lamb. this is the story of my imaginary best friends.
... kano and kailey enjoy their first summer in mindoro. this is the story of reassurance that the next generation will carry on our traditions.
... gary's gravity-defying antics, which deserve a chapter all its own.

i made these stories, and i am blessed that these stories made me.

this is for the cast of thousands in my story. thank you for being part of my story.

defying gravity

2009-12-19T04:05:00.003+08:00

from palm avenue to sanctuario de san antonio
dec 19, 2009
1:30ish in the morning

GLINDA:(spoken)
Elphaba - why couldn't you have stayed calm for
once, instead of flying off the handle!
(sung) I hope you're happy!
I hope you're happy now
I hope you're happy how you
Hurt your cause forever
I hope you think you're clever!

ELPHABA
I hope you're happy
I hope you're happy, too
I hope you're proud how you
Would grovel in submission
To feed your own ambition

BOTH
So though I can't imagine how
I hope you're happy right now

GLINDA
(spoken) Elphie, listen to me. Just say you're sorry:
(sung) You can still be with the Wizard
What you've worked and waited for
You can have all you ever wanted:

ELPHABA
(spoken) I know:
(sung) But I don't want it -
No - I can't want it
Anymore:

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down!

GLINDA
Can't I make you understand?
You're having delusions of grandeur:

ELPHABA
I'm through accepting limits
''cause someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I'll never know!
Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love
It comes at much too high a cost!
I'd sooner buy
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I'm defying gravity
And you can't pull me down:
(spoken) Glinda - come with me. Think of what we could
do: together.

(sung) Unlimited
Together we're unlimited
Together we'll be the greatest team
There's ever been
Glinda -
Dreams, the way we planned 'em

GLINDA
If we work in tandem:

BOTH
There's no fight we cannot win
Just you and I
Defying gravity
With you and I
Defying gravity

ELPHABA
They'll never bring us down!
(spoken) Well? Are you coming?

GLINDA
I hope you're happy
Now that you're choosing this

ELPHABA
(spoken) You too
(sung) I hope it brings you bliss

BOTH
I really hope you get it
And you don't live to regret it
I hope you're happy in the end
I hope you're happy, my friend:

ELPHABA So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky!
As someone told me lately:
"Ev'ryone deserves the chance to fly!"
And if I'm flying solo
At least I'm flying free
To those who'd ground me
Take a message back from me
Tell them how I am
Defying gravity
I'm flying high
Defying gravity
And soon I'll match them in renown
And nobody in all of Oz
No Wizard that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down!

GLINDA
I hope you're happy!

CITIZENS OF OZ
Look at her, she's wicked!
Get her!

ELPHABA
:Bring me down!

CITIZENS OF OZ
No one mourns the wicked
So we've got to bring her

ELPHABA
Ahhh!

CITIZENS OF OZ
Down!

for gary abello, who i'm defying gravity with

it's a brand new day

2009-09-04T15:46:00.002+08:00

it’s a brand new day
sun is shining
it’s a brand new day

for the first time in such a long long time
i know i’ll be okay.

thank you joshua radin
for having the words when i don't.

my sitcom life

2009-08-06T11:08:00.002+08:00

i'm starting to realize that my life is like a newly-piloted sitcom -- moving along well at its pilot season and seems to have the potential of being a hit.

but now i'm thinking i ought to fire this sitcom's writer (or the committee that thinks up its storyline and plots).

they come up with really good plots, and the wardrobe is pretty interesting, and the punchlines lines are worth repeating, and the stories on the whole are funny and riveting and thrilling and hopeful.

so why is it that every single ending always leaves a bad taste in my mouth? it's like you know what the perfect ending is going to be like, and you know the audience is foaming at the mouth for it. and yet, why is it what we never give it?

team, if we keep on going like this, we will not last til the second season. seriously.

at the end of dinner #2

2009-08-05T23:02:00.001+08:00

realized anew that my knight in shining armour is STILL lost in the forest, and has most probably been eaten by a dragon by now.

turning 34

2009-07-16T23:55:00.000+08:00

birthday conversation through text with an uncle who is really just a big kid himself

tito piet : yes, happy birthday! topet, tita jean, france, angel ito
me: thanks topet and company! ang lakas ng ulan dito (i was born on the rainiest day of the year) kamusta na kayo dyan sa mindoro? nami-miss ko na yung mga bata.
tito piet: lakas din ng ulan dito. ilang taon ka na?
me: hulaan mo :)
tito piet: mukha kang 32
me: pwede na. 34 na ko, actually
tito piet: pero 35 ka na no
me: 34 nga e!
tito piet: mag-asawa ka na!
me: sige. bukas na bukas din
tito piet: si tita jean mo napangasawa ko 32. si france 8 years old pa lang, 42 na si tita jean. kaya wag mo nang intayin umidad pa.
me: pag may okay na makilala, promise di ko papatagalin pa
tito piet: dapat mabait tulad mo
me: and gwapo sana, and madaming pera hahaha
tito piet: at may beach resort na may jetski at speedboat
me: na malapit sa Mindoro
tito piet: kahit hindi, wag lang sa may abu sayyaf

calling all single men who are mabait and gwapo and mayaman and have a beach resort with jetski and speedboat, preferably near mindoro, tito piet would like to have a word with you.

time stops when you're having fun

2009-07-15T23:59:00.001+08:00

july 15, 2009

stayed up late, was waiting for midnight to strike and feel that i turned 34.

lying in bed reading and glancing at my bedside clock. why does it feel that it has been 11:58pm for waaaay too long? got up, looked at all other watches and saw that midnight has struck five minutes ago.

i've been 34 for three minutes already. everywhere except on my bedside clock. my bedside clock has kept me 33 forever.

got up after 15 minutes and changed bedside clock's battery. i don't need a clock to tell me that i can have fun forever.

blast from the past

2009-07-01T16:26:00.006+08:00

this is proof that the the time-space continuum exists, and that there are folds in it, and that i have just tripped and snagged myself in one of those folds.

first off, michael jackson dies. and all this time i thought that, with all the crazy stuff he was capable of doing, he could actually live forever. and then he dies. and takes with him the soundtrack of my growing up years.

then i attend a spinning class in the gym. i've never gone to this particular branch before but it had the class i was interested in so i didn't mind trudging all the way there. so i attend the class, which burned more brain cells that fat cells. while doing the post-workout muscle-numbing stretches, a faintly familiar dude crept into my line of sight.

no. it cannot be.
it cannot be the guy i went to the prom with.
the prom that happened 19 years ago.

in a split second, i decided that i do not want to live with the "what if" of whether it was him or not. so, with a grand display of lack of brain cells, i went up to the dude and said, "hi. are you (the boy who i loved in high school and went to the prom with and made my life into a sweet valley twins book and who i haven't thought of in 19 years?)"

he looked at me without the faintest sign of recognition (augh! the heart of the 15-year old me broke) and said, "yes"

ohmyeffinggod it IS him.

and we talked for the first time in 19 years. it felt like there were four people in that conversation -- the 33-year old me, the 34-year old him, the 16-year old me and the 17-year old him.

and right before we parted (because i realized ten minutes into the conversation that i was grotty from a one hour workout and had big straggly hair and was wearing an icky unflattering shirt), he said, "your eyes are still the same." the 16-year old me swooned and the 33-year old me was struck speechless.

and as i walked away, i swear i could hear michael jackson singing "the way you make me feel, you really turn me on, you knock me off my feet, my lonely days are gone." which was one of the songs he and i danced to at the prom.

snippet of a dinner conversation

2009-04-20T20:57:00.002+08:00

conversation at the dinner table a few nights ago.

me: saan kaya ako ikakasal?

ninin (deadpan) : sa dreams mo.

leche. mukhang totoo nga.

in my dreams.

detachment

2009-04-20T16:20:00.002+08:00

i never really thought of myself as the kind of person who was overly attached to material stuff (except for my shoes and books, of course). I don’t mind getting cheapo clothes from tutuban and various other sale bins. i don’t care that my iPod is four years old already and creaks like an old man’s knees. i don’t care that my mobile phone doesn’t have all that new-fangled technology that my non-techie brain cannot comprehend. it matters very little to me that my jewelry and bags and watches are all fun and not serious and not the type that will appreciate with time, nor are they the type that can be handed down to the next generation.

and all this time, i didn’t mind having regular stuff because i figured if they were taken away from me, then it’s okay. i realize i accumulate stuff for their fun value and throwaway attitude.

until my phone crashed.

my beautiful girly pink phone that trills “chweet chweet text message” when you SMS me and sings “this is the story of a girl who cried a river and drowned the whole world, but she looks so sad in photographs, I absolutely love her, when she smiles” when you call me.

my pretty pink phone that holds my illegal photos of the Sistine chapel ceiling, the live recordings of the Duomo church bells in Florence and Noel Gallagher singing Champagne Supernova at an Oasis concert in Singapore, and other photos of my feet in Bohol, Bangkok, Mindoro, Rome, Venice, Glasgow, CamSur, Boracay, Malaybalay, and Romblon. and a photo of the words Les Miserables on a London West End theatre stage.

my arte pink phone that contains ten years worth of HR and headhunting contacts, contacts that have been the foundation of my life as an HR girl. little known phone numbers of CIOs and group heads of banks. work phone numbers of colleagues and competitors in the HR world. email addresses of headhunters.

gone. all gone.

so now i am rebuilding what in all honesty cannot be rebuilt. and yes, i am an idiot for not backing up any of the information in my phone.

and i am not as detached as i thought i was. i am attached to everything in that phone and all that it represents.

i’m so upset. i need a nap.

grooviest cab ride in the world

2009-04-15T22:31:00.003+08:00

it was an extraordinarily tiring day. so tired my eyes felt like popping out of their sockets. and days like these require me to do Me Time. and Me Time i did. but the big mac meal and caramel macchiato did not fix me the way they should during Me Time, so i decided to walk. and walk i did, and when that didn't help i just decided to go home and take a shower and sleep. got into a cab after about ten minutes of waiting and humming some tuneless note in my head.

i got into a cab, no different from the hundreds of cabs the whole world over. i gave the driver my destination, and sat back and emptied my mind of the day's flotsam. then it started out so quietly – like a quiet breeze ruffling the nape of my neck – i thought it was my imagination finally snapping. i heard singing. so softly.

two drifters off to see the world
there’s such a lot of world to see
we’re after that same rainbow’s end
waiting round the bend
my huckleberry friend
moon river and me.

the cab driver was singing Moon River. beautifully. with an unmistable andy williams flavor.

i kept silent in case it really was my imagination snapping and i was imagining the the whole thing. but after a few lines, the cab driver says, “okay lang po ba mag-ingay ako? mahilig po kasi ako kumanta pag nagmamaneho.”

i wasn’t losing my mind after all! he really was singing! and i wanted to weep at how beautiful his voice was. so i urged him to keep singing.

and sing he did. he sang a bunch of old tagalog songs (that i couldn’t identify, sayang). and right as he was rounding the corner into my village, he starts channeling elvis costelo.

she may be the face I can’t forget
the trace of pleasure or regret
may be my treasure or the price i have to pay

holy camote que, the man is singing She. one of the most heartbreaking songs in my world.

then in a twist that makes my world one loony bin, he belts into the next stanza

she may be the beauty or the BEST
may be the famine or the (yes you guessed it) FEST
may turn each day into a heaven or a HEEL.

mercifully, we reach my house as he finishes the song. i gave him a P40 tip and thank him for making my day.

at least in the eyes of at least one cab driver in this world, i am a goddess worth singing to. thank you manong. this was the trippiest ride ever.

tripping over thin air

2009-01-31T11:12:00.002+08:00

when people trip, they always trip over something.

a banana peel
a battery operated mickey-mouse-on-a-singing-train
a wobbly step on the staircase
an open bag of cheetos
a small dog

whe i trip, i usually over trip over nothing.
well, not nothing exactly.

i trip over thin air.

and today have two bruised shins, a possibly sprained toe, and a black-and-blue ego to show for it.
i even think it was a cute guy who tried to pick me up (in the most literal sense of the word) after i tripped.

tripping on thin air. what a bonehead.

God's Sick Sense of Humor

2008-12-05T14:25:00.003+08:00

God is a funny and unfair Man. Don’t get me wrong, I love Him dearly, and I think He is the grooviest Man ever. But He does have a sick sense of humor and I feel like He makes my so-called life the butt of His practical jokes.

Case in point.

2006. I meet Blind Date Guy (see complete story in an earlier entry). Who one day just disappeared into thin air.

2007. I meet M, who seemingly fit all my requirements -- employed, intelligent, heterosexual, Catholic, enjoyed pursuing me. Who fit all my requirements except one -- does not want to be in a committed relationship with me. Go figure.

Mid-2008. I meet Sgt. Saludo (my colleagues have a knack for naming the men in my life) who seemingly also fit all my requirements – smart, can charm the skin off a snake, unbelievably intelligent, funny, straight (so sexy!), seriously seemed to like me. Who is of a different religion. A religion I cannot marry into. C’mon, God!

Late 2008 – I knew this was a lost battle from the very start but it bore considering. A really hot guy, so intelligent, so great at his job, physically drooling-all-over-myself hot, so refined and well-mannered and well-spoken. And gay. As a butterfly. Who twirls before sitting on a chair. God, work with me here please!

And here is God’s biggest practical joke of all. He makes me the Ultimate Meantime Girl. He makes me The One Before The One (see earlier blog entry too).

I got a midnight text from an old flame yesterday. Saying he is getting married next year. Which led me to think of all the men who have come and gone into my life (and believe me, there have been plenty). And each and every one of them, without fail, have married the girl they hooked up with AFTER they date me.

Every frigging one of them.

God is a really great Guy. But His sense of humor is really twisted. God, You know I love You, man. I really do. But please please pick on someone else. Am starting to get pikon with Your practical jokes already.

my last dangerous game of solitaire

2008-08-15T19:43:00.006+08:00

the sacrifice the 19-year old made delivered the results today.

and 14-year old memories came unbidden

1. kalachuchis swiped from the neighbor's tree
2. dancing in zu (gaaak, when disco was still hot)
3. coming home early from the US to see me off to bontoc
4. a green ribbon during the SEA games
5. exchanged braids
6. silver ID bracelet and matching college rings
7. lunches at makati sports club
8. luneta, world youth day 1995
9. once on this island
10. a&w rootbeer floats

the 33-year old is amazed at the ability of the 19-year's heart to love beyond what a heart is capable of loving.

at 19, she gave him what he wanted, because it meant the world to him.
and she wanted this day to happen, because he wanted this day to happen.

there you go, God. he's all yours.
he loves me, but he loves You more.

one liners

2008-08-12T13:11:00.004+08:00

lots of thoughts floating around my head. need to pin them down and shake them off so can move on with the rest of my life.

i seem to find new and innovative ways of humiliating myself in front of you (during a late night phone call after one measly mojito).
all the what if's have been answered and i have done everything humanly possible and i am slow to accept that it is all out of my hands now (after one last good self-absorbed cry. last na talaga)
there are loads of much better ways of earning a living (after one idiotic email too many)
i remember how i lost that earring (after a three-year disappearing act)

i just need a nap. on the beach. under the shade of a tree. on a really sunny day. with the wind blowing. slathered in suntan oil. in a really nice bikini. with a flat stomach. and thin arms.

the secret sisterhood of the big sister

2008-07-04T18:54:00.003+08:00

when she was born, you initiated yourself into the secret sisterhood of the big sister, and promised that you would do everything in your power to make sure that would have everything she can ever want. you swore to protect her. and you promised move heaven and earth to make and keep her happy.

and you've been doing a pretty good job until now, when she has started to discover who she is and is starting to step out from under the mantle and safety of the big sisterhood. when she is discovering what she wants. when she is making her own decisions. when she is finding out what makes her happy. and when she is discovering that making and keeping her happy is no longer your job, but her own.

you never denied her anything from the moment she was born. and you cannot deny her THIS now, now that THIS makes her happy. now that THIS is what she needs at this point in her life. now that THIS is one of the most important things she has.

now is not the time to begin denying her anything, especially when you know how imporant THIS is to her. you swore by the big sister code, and turning away from it is not and will never be an option.

time to step up, big sister.

the re-return

2008-06-25T12:10:00.003+08:00

june 22, 2008
12:04 am

chweet chweet. chweet chweet. text message:

i'm okay to be friends if you're okay to be friends.

holy camote que.

if there ever was a moment to say "be still, my heart"
this would be it.

farewell to my pot-bellied finny friend

2008-06-15T20:11:00.004+08:00

the goldfish at home are family members, they have the same overweight look as the rest of the human family members. they never say no when food is offered to them, which convinced me that we are really related.

one of the goldfish died last friday.

their tank was being cleaned, and when he was being moved from the tank to a timba where his brothers were temporarily parked, he leapt from the cleaner's hand and went SPLAT! onto the cold marble floor. he was hurriedly put back in the tank where he did a few halfhearted wiggles before moving on to the great aquarium in the sky.

he would've turned 3 years old on the day i turn 33.

goodbye, fishie. feeding you and your brothers before i leave for work is always a high point of my mornings, and you always manage to take away my sungit by swimming up to me like crazy when you see me approach with your fish food.

your brothers will miss you too. my mornings will never be the same without you.

disappearing act

2008-05-20T21:28:00.003+08:00

ñ has disappeared.

and my own safely guarded disappearance has been blown, due to an inconspicuous run-in at work.
now i am no longer flying under the radar.
the old circle has found me, the circle i have worked so hard to disappear from since i dropped my basket.

and apparently ñ's disappearing act has been more successful than mine -- resigned from his job, left his flat, changed numbers, no replies to phone calls and emails, and seems to have been wiped off the face of the earth.

around the same time i dropped my basket.

it has been three years.
there must be a reason why this is all coming up after three years. party's definitely over.

beautiful bohol forever

2008-02-27T12:32:00.005+08:00

a zillion more reasons why bohol has been good to me

02/14/2008

2008-02-14T23:28:00.001+08:00

first flowerless valentine's day in 16 years.

ika nga ni tuds, "hindi ka nalulungkot?"

leche.

true love

2007-10-09T12:55:00.000+08:00

eating crabs is a metaphor for life. it is beautifully served on a plate in front of you, arranged beautifully on a bed of greens and swimming in oils and sauces. steam wafts up, carrying with it the scent of unearthly spices that drive your tastebuds into a frenzy. the anticipation of digging into this feast is almost too much to bear. but there is the challenge of getting the meat out of the shell.

shelling a crab is no easy feat. one must painstakingly dirty one's hands, as there is no other way to get the meat out. one uses all tools available -- the nutcracker, the long pointy forky-looking thing, one's fingers, one's teeth -- to get all the meat out. once in a while, one stubs one's fingers on the sipit's sharp points, but that is okay because there is still meat in the crevices.

the result is worth it -- a pile of slightly steamy, succulent, sweet crab meat that one will mix with the bagoong rice drenched in szechuan sauce, and which one will deliver to one's mouth with silent and almost reverent ecstacy, which will cause one to swoon over the sheer delight of it all.

bliss.

that is life.

and true love? it is seeing my dad, who loves eating crabs almost as much as he loves his kids, shell the biggest, fattest sipit, collect the fat from the crab's middle, and put it all on my mom's plate.

that is true love in this life -- getting the best parts of the crab and giving it to the one you love best.

happy birthday poppy. you're the best.

sleeping with the Lord

2007-09-17T12:51:00.000+08:00

new priest at last Sunday's mass. might not be all that acquainted with chapel's sound system, which is so sensitive it can pick up an ant's hiccup. various lessons from various parables pounded into our eardrums. could actually feel the pew vibrating with the strength of the priest's bass voice. it was LOUD.

overheard this whispered conversation during the homily.

ninin : ang lakas ng boses ng pari.
poppy : oo nga e. hindi tuloy ako makatulog.

26 sugar high years

2007-09-07T00:00:00.000+08:00

her first word was "okay."

and she said it to me when we were standing on the hairy rattan-woven welcome mat pretending we were astronauts on the way to outer space.

***********

she is the didi to my zsazsa, or the zsazsa to my didi -- depending on whose villain needs to be bitch-slapped.
she is the loony pill to my loony bin.
she is the ernie to my bert.
she is the nuts in my chocobanana shake.
she is the green, the red, and the white on my pizza.
she is the patis and kalamansi on my inihaw na tilapia.
she is the maggi savor to my plain white rice.
she is the durian to my suha.
she is the funny hats to my kadayawan.
she is the glass of lukewarm water to my cafe juanita buffet lunch.
she is the tongue-piercing to my bellybutton tattoo.
she is the pilates dvd to my home tv shopping.
she is the flower power sando to my yemen shirt.
she is the lost phone to my bayo sale.
she is the palaisdaan to my every mindoro vacation.
she is the sugar high to my sungit.

she is my missing piece.
she is my missing peace.

happy birthday, baby sister

dashboard confessional

2007-09-02T00:22:00.000+08:00

m : i thought i was going to end up marrying you.
M (without missing a beat) : me too.

positive work attitude

2007-08-22T18:16:00.000+08:00

great insight about handling work stress.

if we're going to die working,
we will die with our make up on.

graduating from hogwarts

2007-07-23T12:36:00.000+08:00

i was not prepared to deal with the end.

(if you haven't read harry potter and the deathly hallows, i suggest you turn off your computer RIGHT NOW and go back to the book.)

mad-eye moody
hedwig
remus lupin
nymphadora tonks
dobby
fred weasley
severus snape
peter pettigrew
cedric diggory
sirius black
albus dumbledore

i cannot imagine a world without you in it.

to harry, ron, hermione, prof. mcgonagal, hagrid, buckbeak, neville, mr & mrs weasley, tom the barman, crookshanks, peeves, nearly-headless-nick, the fat lady, diagon alley, hogsmeade, hogwarts and the rest of the wizarding world, i have no words to say how terribly i will miss you all.

the past seven years of my life have been filled with anticipation, wonder and magic.
my inner witch thanks you and, difficult as it is, says goodbye.

hmmmm what to wish for

2007-07-16T00:06:00.000+08:00

i have my black dress, my lipgloss, my ice cream and my birthday candle.

what else can this 32-year old girl possibly want?

life is good. so unbelievably good.

ahhh, here's what i wish for.

i wish your life be as un-freaking-believably good as mine.

the challenge

2007-07-10T12:35:00.000+08:00

the gauntlet has been thrown into the ring.

the line on the sand has been drawn.

the challenge has been laid down.

nagkahamunan na.

let the joust begin.

for the Didi in our lives

2007-06-28T13:54:00.000+08:00

watched zsazsa zaturnnah last saturday (so hilarious! everyone must watch! homophobes excluded) and picked up a number of lessons on friendship.

(super short summary -- ada is a beauty parlor bakla who transforms into this vavavavoom zuperheroine named zsazsa zaturnnah who saves her little town from a giant palaka and a horde of sexy antagonists with crazy eyeshadow. ada/zsazsa has a best friend named didi who is what a best friend should be and more).

why everyone needs a Didi in their lives

* Didi will make you eat rocks so your inner super heroine will come out.
* Didi will dress you in a fantastic outfit that will strengthen your resolve to do good and that will highlight your physical assets
* Didi will encourage you to fly, and will peel you off the cement when you discover your wings don’t work
* Didi will take a bullet for you
* Didi will stop you from stepping on poop while strolling in the woods
* Didi will know how you truly feel for the one you love, even before you fully understand it yourself. And she will help you fall into the arms of the one you love when you are too stupid to do it yourself.
* And Did will see through your cranky, prudish, stand-offish, crochety, acerbic, bitter, negative veneer and loves you for and despite of it.

this is for all the Didis in my life. lab yu Te!

bukidnon's gift

2007-06-11T12:10:00.001+08:00

anim na tabo ng tubig

2007-05-30T20:21:00.000+08:00

ano ang aking natutunan mula sa nakaraang bakasyon ng pamilya sa hundred islands sa alaminos, pangasinan?

isang bagay lamang -- na kaya maligo ng isang tao na anim na tabo ng tubig lang ang ginagamit.

nitong nakaraang linggo, nagbakasyon ang pamilya sa pinoy big brother house sa governors island sa pangasinan. cute ang bahay ni kuya sa hundred islands -- may dalawang kwarto na puno ng double-decker na kama. konting hakbang lang, pwede nang mag-snorkel.

may isang sabit -- walang kuryente. at mula alas sais ng gabi hanggang alas sais ng umaga lang tumatakbo ang generator.

isa pang sabit -- ang tubig na nasa tangke ay sapat sa pagligo ng 15 katamtamang-laking tao lamang. at ang pamilya namin ay binubuo ng 25 malalaking tao. hindi sapat ang tubig sa tangke para maligo nang mahusay kaming lahat.

ang solusyon? tig-anim lang na tabo ng tubig ang pampaligo bawat tao. sa pag-uwi na lang maliligo nang lubusan.

paano maligo nang matiwasay na anim na tabo lang ang gagamitin? eto ang mga payo ng pamilya

ninin -- dahan-dahan ang pagbuhos ng tubig.
mommy -- konting shampoo lang ang gamitin.
odette -- tanggalin ang lahat ng sobrang shampoo bago magbanlaw
aunti didit -- pwedeng hindi na sabunin ang binti
tuton -- umupo habang nagbubuhos ng tubig
jong -- kunin ang anim na tabong tubig ng mga taong hindi maliligo, para madagdagan ang iyong rasyon ng tubig

masarap at madami ang pagkain, maganda at malapit ang dagat, at kasama ang maiingay at nakakatawang kapamilya. sinong may kailangang maligo?

babypink

2007-05-25T23:46:00.000+08:00

the friends you make in high school are the friends you keep for life.

they are the people
who made the horrors of puberty bearable,
who held your hair back after you barfed from your first drinking binge,
who listened to the blow-by-blow of each conversation you had with your high school crush,
who gave your phone number to the cute guy at the soiree who was too shy to ask for it himself,
who lent you hairspray when yours ran out,
who went to your debut and gladly danced in your cotillon de honor when they really don't dance,
who gave you mixed tapes of the beach boys, mike francis, and fra lippo lippi even when it wasn't your birthday,
who cried with you when the boy you loved for eight years fell out of love with you.

they eventually grow up and become married women and transform into these shimmering, lustrous, magical creatures called mothers.
who give birth to an amazing baby boy named gabriel, who even inside the womb, had a big naughty grin on his face.

Gabriel

who looks just like his mother
who is the first pamangkin of the sisterhood that is my high school barkada
who will be showered with good thoughts and blessings from his four favorite aunties, none of whom have met him yet
who is the most loved little baby boy in the world.

to my babypink sisters, carol crissy liza mayose, you are the loves of my life, and have been for the past 20 years. i don't get to tell you that too often, but you are.

to first nephew baby gabriel, auntie wissa sends you big hugs and kisses and will teach you to dance the roger rabbit and the running man.

priceless

2007-05-09T21:43:00.000+08:00

sony psp -- P14,500
cost to fedex the psp to glasgow, scotland -- P2,500
text from my kuya saying "uuy, thank you. Thank you. Got my PSP today. Mukhang mapupuyat ako this weekend :) " -- best P17,000 investment in the world.

My lazy morning

2007-05-06T07:20:00.001+08:00

...in boracay

the one before the one

2007-04-28T21:37:00.000+08:00

i realize that's what i am.

the one before the one.

the one who dates guys,
teaches them these useful life lessons,
and eventually prepares them for the One,
who, 99% of the time, they meet after we stop dating.

gaaaak.

comfortable

2007-04-23T21:18:00.000+08:00

he's on my mind.
all the time.

he's all i ever think of...

... except when i am

* pirating people
* waiting to get on the MRT
* squashed among vicious women on board the MRT
* answering emails from internal clients
* knitting
* napping
* reading historic fiction
* surfing the web for cheap airfare to europe
* looking for U2's next concert in asia
* skyping with people from scotland, london, taiwan, and new york
* tinkering with my new shredder
* eating potato chips
* painting my toenails
* buying pirated DVDs
* watching my white trash reality shows
* flat-hunting
* updating my iPod
* dreaming of getting into my lucky blue bikini again
* contemplating a career change
* enjoying my coffee
* eating ice cream
* writing my thoughts in my journal
* contemplating my flabby and jiggly bits
* walking to the bus station
* wishing for my hair to grow faster
* enjoying my red leather bag
* dreaming of anilao
* putting on my earrings
* doing overtime work
* shopping for shoes.

always.

Lolo's favorite joke

2007-03-18T17:54:00.000+08:00

It was one of those regular Sunday lunches in Sikatuna. It was some time after Lolo’s stroke so he was a bit forgetful at the time already. When he seemed to be in a good mood, we would encourage him to identify us around him at the table. By then, I think he had completely forgotten who I was and was conveniently lumped under the category “Apo.” It was funny to watch my dad and uncles try to get Lolo to say their name when they ask Lolo which of his sons were the most handsome. Even in his forgetfulness, Lolo was still the very wise and witty man, who would always innocently reply to the one who asked him, “Ikaw.”

Like I said, it was one of those regular Sunday lunches. We were all sitting around the dining table and surveying what was to be devoured that day. One of the ulams was this regular-looking medium-sized slightly-flat fish that did not have anything particularly remarkable about it called “kitang,” or spadefish (yes, I Googled it). As the moms and aunts were discussing what the fish was and how it was cooked, Lolo suddenly announced to the entire party at the dining table:

“Anong sinabi ng isang kitang sa isa pang kitang?”

Immediately transformed into an attentive audience (which in our family means shutting up and putting our utensils down), we asked, “Ano po?” (I was sort of expecting a profound lesson or memory that he wanted to share with us.)

Lolo burst into this big grin, his eyes squinting with effort not to laugh before his punchline, said, “Kitang ina mo!” before bursting into huge gales of toothless giggling that sent the loose flesh round his neck and on his arms jiggling.

We all collapsed laughing. We were all laughing so hard that Lolo’s dogs waiting for handouts under the table pricked up their ears and looked concerned at all the commotion.

Before we had all managed to catch our breath, Lolo continued, “Ano naman ang sinagot nung kitang dun sa unang kitang?”

Gasping with effort from laughter, we managed to wheeze, “Ano po?”

Lolo could barely get his response out because he was laughing so much, “Kitang ina mo rin!”

Lolo Jack
Dr. Joaquin S. Sumpaico Sr
Dec. 31, 1912-Feb.17, 2007

romance

2007-02-14T22:51:00.000+08:00

so i'm the biggest valentine scrooge on earth. everyone who sent me an SMS today got this in reply -- "BAH HUMBUG!"

but two separate incidents happened today that shows there is still romance in this world, and i'm glad they happened near enough for me to witness them.

my dad is the most unromantic man on earth. for their 35th wedding anniversary, he wanted to take my mom to dinner in iceberg. iceberg! after 35 years of marriage! so i was surprised when he texted me on the morning of february 13th, with instructions to buy my mom three long-stemmed red roses for him. that was a shock, as i cannot remember, in my almost-32 years on earth, my dad ever getting my mom flowers.

so he leaves the roses on my mom's breakfast plate this morning, and the first thing my mom says when she sees the roses is -- "wow, my son, what a big spender." imagine her shock when the flowers were from my unromantic dad, and not from my brother. she sends me an SMS after she got the flowers, telling me that my dad can still manage to surprise her, and that there will always be hope.

my 87-year old lolo has been married to my 82-year old lola for the past 61 years. he had a little stroke a few years ago, leaving him having difficulty walking and talking. but every valentine for the past 61 years, without fail, stroke or no stroke, he goes to the dangwa bus station, to personally choose the best 24 red roses in the flower market, to give his girl on her birthday, which falls on valentine's day. he shuffles around, and is hard of hearing, and mumbles most of his answers when we try to strike up a conversation with him. but my lolo still manages to give my lola the most beautiful flowers in the world on her day.

to my unromantic dad and my romantic lolo, thank you for reminding me that there is still romance in the world. to my mom and my lola, you are the luckiest girls this valentine.

forgiveness

2007-01-11T23:17:00.000+08:00

our God has a very big eraser

Great Books of 2006

2007-01-06T21:37:00.000+08:00

My resolutions for 2007 include visiting my gynecologist regularly (to ensure that my polyps don’t get too comfortable living in my body), avoiding flings with younger men (don’t ask, don’t ask), and reading more books. Of these three resolutions, I feel pretty sure that I’ll stick to the last one til the end of 2007.

To give thanks to 2006 for being magnificent to me, here is a list of the best books I’ve read in the last year. Don’t expect literary criticisms of the intellectual sort. These are my favorite books because they kept me amused and out of mischief. And they gave quite a few good one-liners to text to my boy toys of the month (lightning strike me now)

1. Home from the Vinyl Café by Stuart McLean – it’s a compilation of essays about Dave, the owner of a used record store, his wife Morley and his kids Stephanie and Sam. It tells of how Dave becomes a hypochondriac over a zit on his face; how Arthur, the family dog, rules over the entire household; how Dave toilet trained their cat Galway; and how Morley had to purchase an…uhhhh… athletic cup for Sam; and how the family sends off Stephanie on her first date. It’s such a great book that I bought its sequel, The Vinyl Café Unplugged, where Sam learned how to knit, which inspired me to do the same. Also included a great selection of early rock and roll stuff.
2. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris – David Sedaris is my new favorite gay man, next to the Fab 5 and the gay merman of my dreams. He lives in a bubble of his own grandeur, where he floats on clouds perfumed by the drama of daytime soap operas and the drama of his five sisters, his hippie mom and his strait-laced dad. He laments about having a lisp in grade school, nearly dies of embarrassment at being a real nudist camp, and freaks out at being mistaken for a housecleaner who cleans in the buff. All his books are great (Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Barrel Fever, Naked, and Holidays on Ice, although Holidays on Ice was a bit dark and uncomfortable for me, which is how David Sedaris probably is in real life). The one time he was in Manila for a book signing, I had to work late in the office. But I‘m not worried, I will meet him one day on the set of whatever his favorite daytime soap is. And we will have champagne and hit it off.
3. The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall – tells of a tattoo artist in Coney Island in the 1920s and his masterpiece, The Lady with One Thousand Eyes. Any work of fiction about tattoos will certainly be on my must-read list. It was from this book that I got my concept for next year's Halloween costume.
4. Wicked by Gregory McGuire – a good follow-up read after you’ve gotten too old for fairy tales. This book will tell you that The Wicked Witch of the West was not all evil, and that the Witch of the East was not all good, and that Dorothy is slightly annoying. Must read Mirror Mirror, and Son of a Witch. Haven’t gotten around to Lost yest, although I hear good things about it.
5. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult – the one book that drove me to tears while reading it. If you have a sibling who’s your best friend, you must read this book and have your sibling read it too and you’ll give your kidney, liver, eyeballs, ovaries, split-ends and any other body parts your sibling will need to survive.
6. Stainless Longanisa by Bob Ong – he gives the words “Super sorry” and “Super thank you” a whole new meaning. Perfect reading when lounging in Tamaraw Beach in Puerto Galera. If I meet Bob Ong in real life, I wouldn’t ask him to sign my books. I’d invite him to have a beer with me.
7. Different Dances by Shel Silverstein – the only book Shel Silverstein drew expressly for adults. Some cartoons are dark, some laugh-out-loud hilarious, some too awwwww for words, all beautiful. Shel Silverstein is a scary-looking dude (shiny bald head, dark and fully-bearded chin, glowering expression, dirty feet) but understands children perfectly. It still saddens me that he passed away seven years ago but am comforted that he still is the light in my attic.
8. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger – the saddest story about waiting. Henry moves forward and backward in time with no prior notice, and his wife Clare waits for him from whenever he comes from. This book is also a great reference of British punk rock in the 80s; first time I read about Violent Femmes' “Blister in the Sun” in a novel.
9. The Venetian’s Wife by Nick Bantock – not a sequel to the Griffith and Sabine books, as I thought. No envelopes to open, no love notes to eavesdrop on, no postcards from another dimension to read. But there’s a diary to snoop into and a ghost to deal with. And the art is exquisite.
10. Anonymous Rex by Eric Garcia -- it's about a dinosaur private investigator dressed as a human being. There's this great big bunch of dinosaurs that managed to evade extinction and live dressed as humans and interact with humans. Dinosaurs get drunk on herbs and emit a scent, each as individual as fingerprints. I want to be a dinosaur.

Must reads for 2007.
1. Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s How to Paint Sunlight
2. Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past

Can’t find either book in Manila. Saw them in Singapore but didn’t buy them because I was too kuripot for words. I live to regret this.

Any other book I should know about? Let me know, got loads of free time on my hands.

the truth finally comes out

2006-10-01T01:31:00.000+08:00

he's gay.

as a butterfly.
albeit a muscular, well-built, impeccably-attired butterfly.

i have fallen off my chair laughing. and if i don't hang on, i may fall off my chair again.

keeping the faith

2006-09-25T12:35:00.000+08:00

september 24, 2007, 4:00 – 7:00 pm
araneta coliseum

dugong bughaw
puso
believe
forever
the sixth man
it’s the school we choose

fourth quarter, we lead 71 to 70 with four seconds left. the ball inbounds, is caught, is passed, the player takes aim, he shoots, he scores. we trail by one point (72 to 71). one second left to the game. the sea of blue balloons is stilled, defeat imminent. the yellow sea erupts in celebration. it’s all over. throw in the towel. do better in game 2. start moving and beat the crowd going to the parking lot.

nothing left to lose anyway.

or so we thought.

one second left on the clock, a 12-year old san miguel play is recycled. one second left on the clock, the ball inbounds, is caught, is thrown and – miracle of miracles – GOES THROUGH THE HOOP! in less time than it took the crowd to blink, we had won the game.

chaos. celebration. hugging people you don’t know. winning in such a magnificent way. there is no greater feeling than this.

keeping the faith is what this game is all about.

can’t wait for game 2.

september sorrow

2006-09-17T22:15:00.000+08:00

this will be the second international coastal clean up i will miss.

i've hung up my beautiful bcd, packed and ziplocked my purple and black wetsuit, sold my pelican and mosquito, and lost all my dive logs. i haven't been in the sea in 15 months. and i have a funny feeling i never will again.

my memories of my last dive have begun to get fuzzy around the edges. i remember it was an unusually bright day for june. i remember we went to all my favorite dive sites and got to swim with swarms of my favorite little orange fish. i remember thinking to myself, at 85 feet deep amidst clouds of fish of every imaginable color, i can stay here forever.

if i had known that it would be my last time there, i would have written about it sooner.

crabby crabby crabby

2006-08-09T13:29:00.000+08:00

am in an unbelievably bad mood today.

am annoyed at my job, at the people at the other end of the email messages and phone calls, at the stupid candidates of this pisspot of a company.

i don’t see what the frigging deal is.

i just want people to get out of my way and stop wasting my time with their efforts to grow a brain at this late stage of the game. whatever you do from this point on is utterly useless and will not add anything to the bigger picture.

Seriously. Gawd.

top 31

2006-07-22T21:47:00.000+08:00

what life has given me on my 31st year

1. orange and green daisy tattoo under my bellybutton
2. tarp and powerpoint presentation with my life in it
3. new job
4. co-workers that act like they're my children
5. travels financed by self
6. photo with randy santiago
7. footsie, olive, chocnut, and bok
8. poker
9. weekend trip to puerto galera
10. corn-rowed hair, henna tattoo, cat bite, and sprained ankle in puerto galera
11. black ipod nano!
12. toint weddings
13. returning to bunnies' 5-seater boat
14. blind date not quite from hell
15. tulips on valentine's day
16. short white chocolate mocha on regular days, tall vanilla blended cream on difficult days, tall caramel cream on gawd-i-should've-stayed-in-bed-i want-to-shoot-myself-in-the-foot-and-die days
17. overnight trip to singapore to see oasis -- first time to travel abroad by self
18. me time -- body scrub, facial manicure, pedicure, massage therapy
19. city of saints and madmen, flowers for algernon, hypocrite in a pouffy white dress, blessed are the cheesemakers, the life of pi, the venetian's wife, the electric michelangelo, balzac and the little chinese seamstress, stainless longganisa
20. the lake house, spiderman 2, supersize me, superman, batman begins, the usual suspects, rent, once on this island, xmen 3
21. america's next top supermodel, house, CSI, lost, 4400
22. tiger airways and the great singapore sale
23. medical city 1013
24. pyrotechnic olympics and hot air balloon festival
25. no coastal cleanup for the first time in four years. selling of mosquito and pelican
26. two more sprained ankles = flat shoes. does not stop me from naturalizers, though
27. orange, fuschia, and green blazers
28. four polyps and a growing myoma
29. ipod speakers!
30. giving my little cousins one great childhood memory
31. living in a world where people topple over because of the sheer weight of their extremely large heads.

infidelity

2006-06-18T19:15:00.000+08:00

people who cheat will always be caught. and i got caught. it was written all over me. no matter how hard i tried to hide it, everyone could see what i did, plain as day.

i've been going to the same beauty parlor (parlor, not salon) for the past 10 years and connie has been cutting my hair these 10 years. when connie went on a long leave because she was pregnant, my hair grew to scary proportions. when i moved to bontoc for one year, i only got to get my hair cut one time that year. when i went through that shaved-head period of my life, connie and the rest of the beauty parlor people were very loving and supportive and understood why i had to do it, no questions asked.

then i cheated on them.

i was having a bad time with my life three weeks ago and i really needed to get a haircut to bring a bit of sanity back into my life. it was a monday and i knew it was connie's day off but i knew i had to cut my hair or i will die. so i went to another salon where i didn't know a soul and had them take off a good two inches off my hair.

and i looked mutt ugly.
mutt ugly.
which is uglier than butt ugly.
butt ugly would have been acceptable.
mutt ugly caused people at work to look at me five seconds longer than was polite and give me a look that said "i understand, you're having a difficult life and we understand why you want to uglify yourself like that."

so over the weekend, i went back to my beauty parlor because i couldn't bear to live another day looking mutt ugly. connie , bless her forgiving heart, took one look at my hair, gave a bit of a shrug and confronted me with the accusing query "nagpagupit ka sa iba, no?" i couldn't deny it, the stupid rotten-mushroom shape my hair had taken was a dead giveaway. so i meekly admitted my infidelity and promised to never, never let anyone else touch my hair again.

pacified with my pathetic reply to her question, connie proceeded to make me look slightly fabulous again, and to make me feel doubly guilty for cheating on her, she shaved and shaped my eyebrows for free.

moral of the story -- no matter how bad life gets, never cheat on the person who cuts your hair. you know you can never get away with it.

i am a hysterical and a neurotic fan

2006-06-07T16:59:00.000+08:00

The most unbelievable thing happened to me last night. I finally got to meet a guy I was in love with 18 years ago. And I find out I am in love with him still. He’s 46 now, but he’s still as hot now as he was 18 years ago.

His name is Randy Santiago. Yes, the Randy Santiago of the sunglasses and the noontime variety shows

What was supposed to be a quiet dinner with my Bunny friends in Teriyaki Boy became a flighty, slightly hysterical meal complete with flashbulbs popping and breathless babbling and downright adolescent behavior so totally unbecoming of a woman of my age and stature. (Age and stature be damned! It’s Randy Santiago, the object of my countless tweenage fantasies!)

All I wanted was a photo with him. So after a lot of pushing and encouragement (read: buyo and gatong) from my friends, I took a deep breath and summoned all my resources of blind (and a bit stupid) courage, stood up walked over to Randy Santiago, and proceeded to act like a ditz.

See transcript of our conversation below.

Lissa the Ditz (in a slightly high-pitched and breathless voice): Hi I’m really sorry to bother you, I don’t really do this and I know I’m disturbing your dinner but I just had to come over (I was medyo babbling at this point)… I loved you when I was 12 (Aaaaack Jeezuz what the hell am I thinking?) and …… (I trailed off into brainless muttering)…

Randy Santiago (bless his heart, he was so kind and gracious and must be used to blathering idiots fawning over him all the time): No, no it’s no trouble at all. Please have a seat (pats the seat beside him and actually invited me to sit with him!!!) So how old are you now?

LtD : I’m 30 now, am medyo old na.

RS: E ako, am 46 na. (How can he be 46? That gorgeous hunk of humanity) Where do you work?

LtD : (I had to pause for a while because for the life of me, I could not remember where I worked)

And the conversation went on for a few more minutes, but I could not remember a whole lot because my brain was screaming “I’m sitting in a booth with Randy Santiago and we are having a regular conversation like regular people!!!!” When I felt I was about to implode, I stood up and said as graciously as I could “It was very nice meeting you, I don’t want to keep you from whatever else you’re supposed to do. You’re a good sport and it was really nice meeting you" (I keep repeating myself. Gawd) And I slink away.

Half an hour later, when things have returned to normal and I started acting like a normal human being again, Randy Santiago dropped by our table. To say hi to my friends. To say goodbye. And to give me one last opportunity for me to make a fool of myself. I gave him my business card. Gawd, I’m an idiot!

I had the biggest crush on him 18 years ago, and even after 18 years of growing up and living life, I am still every bit the neurotic and hysterical fan I was when I was 12. Only Randy Santiago can do that to me. Bless him for being the most gracious and kind and understanding star in the world.

tales from the loony bin year 1

2006-06-04T13:26:00.000+08:00

the loony bin's a year old.

i survived it when the basket dropped last year, and what a year it's been.

thank God for the loony bin... it saved my life.

must do today

2006-05-26T12:48:00.000+08:00

1. get new Flight Plan and Ice Age 2 DVDs from Manong Bubuy. Plus check if Da Vinci Code, X-Men and MI 3 are available.
2. talk with area supervisors all over the country and plan career day.
3. put in new songs in my ipod. paos na paos na si alanis at bono.
4. pack bikini for tomorrow's company outing.
5. look for U2's concert schedule in the asia-pacific region. juggle dwindling savings and plan to go.
6. clean my inbox once and for all.
7. get a caramel cream without whipped cream from starbucks.
8. keep my temper.
9. keep the pretty.
10. keep a humungous secret.
11. get nails done.
12. buy purple pens.
13. balance my department's budget.
14. go home early.

man, i'm tired. i would love a vacation on a deserted island somewhere.
kelangan may toilet with running water.

world cup wonderings

2006-05-20T22:05:00.000+08:00

ever wondered what it would be like if,
everytime a basketball player makes a basket,
he reacts the same way a soccer player does when he makes a goal?

this is no way to live

2006-05-04T12:24:00.000+08:00

work schedule for the merry month of may

may 5-6 -- baguio, to conduct exams and interviews
may 8-9 -- meetings with visayas and mindanao counterpart / conduct interviewing skills training
may 9 -- cavite, to conduct presentation of HR initiatives
may 12-14 -- butuan, to conduct presentation of HR initiatives

plus have to finalize the group's outing and pirate a zillion people and plan for the rest of the year and strive to maintain my sanity.

on the plus side, this is what i have to look forward to

june 8-12 -- singapore for sightseeing and partying
august 18-20 -- davao for kadayawan festival
september 15-18 -- cagayan de oro for white water rafting and canopy walk
october 13-16 -- cebu for snorkeling and diving and partying

this is THE way to live after all.

getting wasted

2006-04-10T13:18:00.000+08:00

it doesn't take a whole lot for a non-drinker like me to get wasted. and since my tabletop dancing days in jvp, i make it a point to stay away from alcohol because my system and alcohol do not get along and when they are put in one place together, there will be (a.) a headache (b.) knee-kissing (c.) waking up from a deep sleep wondering where the heck i am.

but last night, i made a decision that i was going to get wasted. since i feel my system has been through a lot in the past ten years since i last binged on alcohol, i figured i can attempt to get wasted and still be enough of a responsible adult to get up and go to work the next day.

get wasted i did. didn't take much, though. the jolt to my system from the little bit of alcohol i had went straight to my head and bloodstream and made me a morose and depressing drunk.

who cares. the point was to get wasted and wasted i got. and i have a frigging headache to show for it and a cranky attitude to go with it.

rage and alcohol do not go together. where is the ocean when i need it?

back to regular programming

2006-03-30T13:03:00.000+08:00

enough. i've had enough. enough of this adolescent drivel. enough of this waiting and hoping and wanting and yearning and looking. it's not there. it never was.

i've had it.

you may say ...

... that it's so easy to laugh with me
... that we understand each other so well we can almost read each other's minds
... that what we have is comfortable and right
... that our children will have my art and your sight
... that we have the rest of our lives to go on road trips together
... that there is no need to tiptoe because we already fit perfectly
... that there is an "us"

but you know what?

no thanks. this is a risk i took and no way on earth will it work.
i've had it. i've had enough. better to cut out while i am still whole.

please make sure your pipes are in better working order this time.
and don't ever watch me with the wind again. ever.

no more drama in this life.
back to regular programming.

how do i like thee? let me count the ways

2006-03-16T13:02:00.000+08:00

I like the way

you order me dessert
you make sure we get to talk everyday.
you include me in your life, by introducing me to your sisters, friends, and chickens
you invite my friends to come over and play poker
you share your music with me
you watched a play because I told you about it
you say I don’t know.
you laugh, because your laugh fills up the whole room
you blow on my tea to make sure it isn't too hot for me to drink
you got me a book because we both like the same writer
you watch me sleep
you touch my hair when you kiss me
you walked in my garden with me
you enjoy coffee and insist i try a different flavor
you nibble on my arm and fingers
you put your whole heart in every hug.

I don’t like the way you’re going to leave before you realize how much you are loved.

my favorite day in 2006 …

2006-02-27T21:49:00.000+08:00

…is february 23.

because this was the day i traveled abroad by myself for the first time in my life.
because this was the first time i watched a concert alone. ever.
in the mosh pit.
and it was an oasis concert.
in singapore.

one more item crossed off “the things i must do before i die” list.

watching oasis and hearing the gallaghers sing and being 20 feet away from them and almost catching noel’s tambourine gave me the same thrill as seeing the venus di milo, the winged victory of samothrace, and the mona lisa for the first time. and singing (and screaming) champagne supernova and wonderwall and don’t look back in anger and what’s the story, morning glory with a zillion other people was fantastic.

i think turning 30 last year gave me some sort of magic powers that enable me to do these things.

since i’ll only be thirty for five months more, i’d better maximize these powers before a different sort of magic power takes over.

i hear U2 will be in tokyo in april. please let my superpowers be strong enough to take me there and back.

thanks nat and nessa for the mimosa and the burned teeth and gums. i can finally feel my ears again.

how i got locked in a bathroom and nearly lost my mind in the process

2006-02-12T19:04:00.000+08:00

spent the weekend with my bunnies in a windy haven where the stars and sunlight kept us company. sat around all night saturday talking about things that should have been talked about two years ago, and shared in savoring the possibility of the reality of having love in my future.

bedtime was supposed to be at 3 am since we had hot air balloons to meet at 5:30 am, and i dutifully planned to do my ablutions to try to catch some much needed sleep. as soon as i got into the bathroom and locked the door behind me, i knew something was wrong. there was an ominous lack of reassuring click from the doorknob. i tried the knob to open the door, and nothing happened. i whispered calmly to myself “i seem to be locked in the bathroom.” a split-second later, i was pounding the door and walls and screaming to my bunnies “I’M LOCKED IN!!! GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GETMEOOOOOOOOOOUT!!!!”

a zillion thoughts zinged through my mind – the bathroom window is too tiny for me to crawl through; maybe i can ram the door and break it down off its hinges; i have a swiss army knife in my bag next to my shampoo; what if they can’t get me out, how can they use the bathroom – but the only thing i was capable of doing was to scream “GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME OUT NOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!”

finally, 15 hysterical minutes later, bunnies managed to remove the doorknob from the door. the door swung open and i burst out of the bathroom and collapsed onto the bed, laughing and crying hysterically, forgetting that i was still clutching the other half of the cursed doorknob. the whole nightmare happened over a period of 15 minutes (and give or take a million years) and the bunnies were laughing their heads off the whole time.

so that ordeal was over, and i didn’t get to pee in that bathroom that night anymore.

this is for my bunnies, who do all things in an atmosphere of love, well-being and world peace. love you bunnies

blind date # 7,195

2006-02-01T12:14:00.000+08:00

so i have been on more blind dates than i'd care to remember. or admit.

a few posts back, i said i would chew my foot off before i ever went out on a blind date ever again. after having successfully dodged dozens of well-meaning friends' intentions to set me up with "this really great guy, he's smart and funny and calls when he says he will and likes dogs and loves his mom," i did not reckon with my ninang's unbelievable powers of persuation.

so she sets me up with her neighbor who wreaks water damage on her ceiling and browbeat the poor guy into calling me.

mother of all surprises...

i actually like the guy.

he is single, gainfully employed, well-educated, well-travelled, well-groomed, loves dogs and art and photography and food, ad nauseum. and being the most recent convert of the precepts of "he's just not that into you," i actually dare think that he could be that into me.

so i have degenerated into an adolescent who gives a blow-by-blow account of every shared meal and conversation to all my girlfriends, thereby degenerating my girlfriends into adolescents as well. as i haven't been an adolescent for more than half my life, i must admit that acting like an adolescent while trying to be an adult is making me more neurotic than i already am.

i've avoided thrills like this for my own peace of mind. once upon a time i made it a regular habit to fling all caution to the wind. maybe this time, i can toss caution into a light breeze, but must make sure that its firmly attached to the end of my rope.

alanis speaks...

2006-01-18T12:49:00.000+08:00

...and she speaks to me.
was she a spectator to my life in 2005?

You've been my golden best friend
And now with post-demise at hand
I can't go to you for consolation
coz we're off limits during this transition

This grief overwhelms me
It burns in my stomach
And I can't stop bumping into things

I thought we'd be simple together
I thought we'd be happy together
thought we'd be limitless together
I thought we'd be precious together
But I was sadly mistaken

You've been my soulmate and then some
I remembered you the moment I met you
With you I knew God's face was handsome
With you I saw fun and expansion
This loss is numbing me it pierces my chest
And I can't stop dropping everything

I thought we'd be sexy together
thought we'd be evolving together
I thought we'd have children together
I thought we'd be family together
But I was sadly mistaken

If I had a bill for all the philosophies I shared
If I had a penny for all the possibilities I presented
If I had a dime for every hand thrown up in the air
My wealth would render this no less severe

I thought we'd be genius together
I thought we'd be healing together
I thought we'd be growing together
thought we'd be adventurous together
But I was sadly mistaken

thought we'd be exploring together
thought we'd be inspired together
I thought we'd be flying together
thought we'd be on fire together
but I was sadly mistaken

ready to dive again

2006-01-04T17:17:00.000+08:00

ready to go into the water again.
six months is a long enough time to heal.

i miss the fish,
the salt,
the wind,
and the feeling of time stopping.

end of a chapter

2005-12-25T16:04:00.000+08:00

because Christmas is about forgiveness and asking for it.
because Christmas is about letting go and being happier.
because Christmas is about being thankful for the good times that were, and for the bad times that are over.
becuase Christmas is about laughter and good times and the Biggest Birthday Party in the world.

to kinder gods and fiercer loves
to brief jealousies and even shorter griefs
to wine, to tea, to sunsets and coffee
to family, friends, country.

maligayang pasko.
good journey and healing to you, ñ

craziest place i've ever worked in

2005-12-11T00:28:00.000+08:00

welcome to the world of the lesser known greek and roman gods and goddesses, which includes the goddess of the flabby-bellied, big-armed, tattoo-sporting single women over thirty.

mooning the recovery room

2005-12-07T20:23:00.000+08:00

gave birth to quadruplets yesterday -- a quartet of polyps (who i've named eeny, meeny, minie and moe) that have been residing in my uterus and have been making me a bit unwell this past year. so they had to go, in typical embarrassing and hilarious fashion, like everything else in my funny life.

a couple of things i’ve learned during this particular hospital stay, which i impart to you in the off chance you’ll find yourself in the same position as i am.

1. it is impossible to pee while laying down. it is doubly impossible to pee into a bedpan. it is only with superhuman powers that one can pee in a bedpan while lying down surrounded by people in showercaps and scrubsuits.

2. anesthesia makes you funny. at the start, it feels like a big punch in the arm, then it brings you to a soft fuzzy warm place where it is normal to smile goofily at anyone who comes your way.

3. the rudest way to wake up from an anesthesized sleep is having a catheter yanked out of you (aaaack!) it is the height of rudeness to have a catheter yanked out of you partway, then a pause to explain what is happening, before the damn thing is taken out completely.

4. hospital gowns have a reason why the opening is at the back. it’s to give patients a chance to moon the other patients in the recovery room.

have i grossed you out of your mind yet?
yes? good.
my work here is done. off to more world domination!

what i did this weekend, allah be praised

2005-11-06T18:42:00.000+08:00

had a spur of the moment long weekend in puerto galera where i ...

... got my hair corn rowed (not the smartest decision i've made in my life)

... sprained my ankle, not on the rocky mountainside off tamaraw beach, but on the step of the henna tattoo place

... was bitten by a cat while i was trying to hypnotize it into falling asleep.

haven't had this much fun in a long long time.

photos available upon request =)

prayer for the babies

2005-10-23T19:29:00.000+08:00

went on a road trip today and took the roads i usually think of as my spiritual home.

went to mass at a a safe haven amongst the mountains and the wind and was unusually blessed with the gift of tears.

and it was there that i prayed for the littlest ones, whose arrivals were and are eagerly anticipated and in whose lives i wish to add a lot of laughs to.

hannah francesca, martina paula, martina pauline, alfonso (maybe), angelie jolie (nyark not likely), little nameless baby still in the tummy, fabada -- you were all in my thoughts today.

may you grow up to be beautiful, strong, and filled with grace always. having you in this world has brought so much happiness to a place that so desperately needs it.

the mind reader

2005-10-09T11:26:00.000+08:00

i don't love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
i love you as one loves certain dark things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

senor pablo neruda is one amazing dude.
he can read minds

1 am

2005-09-12T20:37:00.000+08:00

i think of you at 1 am
and i smile

and wonder what could have been.

you must be the one
causing me
my shattered sleep

it was great seeing you again.
wish you could have stayed longer
so we could have talked some more

at 1 am.

maiwan na ang lahat ...

2005-08-22T22:05:00.000+08:00

... pwera lang si murphy :(

how could i have been as thoughtless as to leave my baby in davao after a weekend of partying? there is no bigger bonehead than i.

i'm so sorry, murphy. i will never leave you again. in the meantime, you can clean ninin's house while you're still there.

forever

2005-08-13T11:41:00.000+08:00

that's my belly button, and my permanent daisy under it. gawd, i love my life!

may i never be that stupid again, and may i always be this stupid forever.

the one that got away

2005-08-07T01:12:00.000+08:00

i just love the concept of having a One that Got Away -- the one who coulda woulda shoulda been The One. who for some reason or another just didn't fit perfectly into the big picture but still left an imprint that is sweet, sentimental and vaguely hilarious.

(this concept, by the way, came from an article written by mark macapagal sometime 2003. i loved that article so much that i actually sent him fan mail. i hope to God he never sees this blog =p)

i think everyone has a One that Got Away. it's almost always about an almost relationship with an almost perfect someone that plainly did not happen. and most of these One that Got Away stories take place over a short period of time, and thankfully just leave a heartache that can be cured by a long drive, a chocolate bar, a couple of cigarettes, and four pairs of new shoes.

my One that Got Away happened in summer 2003. it was short, unbelievably sweet, and totally unexpected. it is the stuff amateur poetry and teen romances are made of. and when the realization came that He was my One that Got Away, i derived a large measure of comfort from what a friend told me. "when i saw you two together for the first time, you had that aura of having already been friends for a million years."

the nice thing about completely recovering from the One that Got Away is that you'll get to spend dinner parties recounting every hilarious detail of what coulda woulda shoulda been.

i've completely gotten over my One that Got Away years ago, who is still very much the closet romantic and late night shrink he was two years ago. from what i read, he's having the time of his life still, and is still loved by all he meets.

happy birthday, my friend. everyone must have a One that Got Away in order to say they have truly lived. and it's great that of all the people who coulda woulda shoulda been, i'm glad you're the One... that Got Away.

harry potpot

2005-07-23T10:08:00.000+08:00

took me six hours to read harry potter 6 cover to cover.

and now i'm in mourning. i just lost an old friend whom i've admired since the start.

i should've gone to the funeral.

i would have wanted to leave a bottle of raspberry jam and bertie botts' every flavor beans at the grave.

unconditional love

2005-07-10T20:09:00.000+08:00

it's that time of year again.

and man, what a way to start it off.

an unbelievable 30something point deficit in the second quarter alone, and an almost but not quite unembarrassing finish of an eighteen point loss.

can season 68 get more embarrassing? and to think it's just the first game.

this is a true test of unconditional love -- to still keep on cheering for and believing in my team despite the mind-blowingly horrific way they played the game today.

lose or lose, it's the school we choose.

bleurgh. *p

romblon ramblings

2005-07-07T21:07:00.000+08:00

since my days as a freeloading bum are numbered, i’d better get my summer stories and pictures organized before they get buried under what the little prince calls matters of consequence.

one major thing i learned from this summer’s ramblings is that it is possible to have a vacation out of town and not make reservations for a place to stay. i’ve finally learned to appreciate the thrill that comes with the mindset of just showing up, unannounced, without reservations, and relying on the fates and on lonely planet that there will be a roof over my head tonight. oh, and that prissy old me can enjoy a vacation without a hot shower.

all i need is the ocean, the odd meteor or two, a hammock, a school of dolphins, sunblock spf 30, and a bunch of crazy-ass kids who survive of laughter, alcohol, adrenaline, and film.

in all the places i’ve hopped in and out of this summer, my favorite is romblon. and in response to your first question, no i didn’t see any marble. i didn’t go to that part of romblon. i spent two days in tablas island and another two days in carabao island.

how to get there and what to do once there – fly to caticlan (and skip boracay completely). take a trike to the pier of sorts of get on a biggish bangka bound for tablas island. it’s a four hour ride, so pop lots of bonamine. if possible, sit on the boat’s roof and soak up the sun. two hours into the ride, keep eyes peeled for the hundreds of dolphins that will swim alongside your boat and provide eye-popping entertainment by hurling themselves in the air and spinning and twisting with inexplicable joy. remember to scream hysterically at them which will propel them to show off some more.

disembark at tablas island and look for place to sleep. consult lonely planet and trike drivers. take a smallish bangka to the marine sanctuary 20 minutes off the island and snorkel and feed the fish. lounge around the big balsa in the middle of the sanctuary and work on tan, mooch off other people’s green mangoes and bagoong, jump repeatedly off balsa into the water, and wait for sunset. turn off mobile phone and forget the rest of the world.

return to mainland and have dinner. enjoy a couple of after-dinner beers and karaoke til next bunch of drunks take their turn to sing. stagger home and sleep.

go to the palengke next morning to forage for food. take a half-hour trike ride to aglicay beach, which will be deserted. stuff face with all manner of seafood. lie around on an inflatable mattress, look at sky, look at toes, work on tan, and thank God for the Man who made beaches.

next day, travel to carabao island. take another mini-bangka ride and travel for two hours and be prepared to have self and all belongings drenched during the ride. disembark at carabo island and wait for good-hearted natives to direct you to the only place to stay. unpack all wet stuff and hang to dry. change into swimsuit, cross street, and get in the water. play with the little kids horsing around in the water. disregard language barrier as play is a universal language. hire motorcycles in order to explore the rest of the island. seating arrangement on the motorcycles – driver, friend, self. helmets are for wusses.

get off motorcycle for pictures – on a hill, on top of a 30-foot rock, in the water, underwater. eat M&Ms to fortify strength. liberally reapply sunblock often. swim at all possible beaches. sit at the top of the mountain and wait for sunset. from vantage point, look out at the rest of the world. try to catch breath.

return to resort for free dinner with the island’s vice mayor. stuff face again. grab some beers and proceed to dilapidated floating barge on the beach and string up hammocks. lie in hammocks, talk quietly, watch the sky. scream hysterically at sudden apprearance of the biggest, brightest meteor this side of romblon. calm down. sway drowsily on hammock, listen to the water and watch the stars and trees and wind and night and the occasional gecko. stay under the stars until it gets too cold to lie around in a bathing suit. stagger back to the room. bathe in the dark. sleep like the dead.

wake up early to catch sunrise. breakfast on bread, chocolate spread, liver spread, coffee and swiss miss. pack up and prepare for one-hour bangka ride to boracay. wear prettier bikini, board bangka, take scenic route around carabao island, stopping often for little dips in likely-looking water. work on tan some more. stop at semi-deserted stretch of beach for serious sun-bathing and jumping off prow of the boat.

arrive in boracay. forage quickly for lunch, and dash off to catch boat to caticlan. board caticlan-bound boat, and pray that flight home will not be missed. disembark at caticlan, rush to airport. run madly to get inside the airport as last call for flight is being called. miss flight. argh. reserve seat for next flight. brush sand off feet. read book and wait for flight home.

life is good.

sucker

2005-07-04T11:56:00.000+08:00

i've been suckered so badly these past two years!

watch all the B movies and read all the cheesy quotes so you'll have an idea of the lines that suckered me into believeing.

i need you.
it's been over with her even before i met you.
i'm never going to walk away.
you understand me so well.
you're my home.

gawd, what a sucker i've been. and it has to hurt so i'll remember the lesson.

ugh, i've become a boring statistic. i don't know what annoys me more, the fact that ñ left or that this story has become so boring.

may i never be this boring ever again.

employment and thirty

2005-07-01T18:08:00.000+08:00

so i finally accepted a job offer. after almost half a year of travelling and loonying around.

i start immediately after my thirtieth birthday.

thirty. what a strange number. i can't think of any body part that numbers thirty. ten fingers, ten toes, two ears, two knees, one hundred something bones...

oh i know! thirty assorted scars from a lifetime of falling from bikes, getting scraped from falls from trees and railings, being bitten by fish, once having acid dribbled down my foot, blood donations, IV lines, ad nauseum.

what does it feel to be thirty? i wouldn't know. i still have two weeks of being 29.

why spelling bees are ridiculous

2005-06-23T18:39:00.000+08:00

i flipped the channel to espn one day (in hopes of finding ice skating finals) when i stumbled upon a spelling bee, an actual american national spelling bee which apparently has been going on every year for the past twenty-something years. a spelling bee! on espn! what is this world coming to?

spelling bees are strange. the kids who join are almost all 100% nerds, and the words are stranger still -- strange medical and scientific words that absolutely nothing to do with real life. the whole process is downright surreal and funny that my sister and i actually watched the whole thing.

how it goes:

1. kid (age range: 11-14 years old) steps up to mike and official pronouncer gives a word. the kid has 90 seconds to spell it.
2. kid can ask the word's definition, etymology, and hear a sentence with the word in it.
3. the kid has to pronounce the word right before trying to spell it.
4. kid spells.
5. if he gets it right, applause. if not, a little bell dings and he's outta the game. there's even a crying room at the back of the stage for the kids who lose.

i really don't see the point of spelling bees. first, almost all the words have never been pronounced out loud since words were created. and i don't see the point of knowing how a word is spelled if you don't know what it means and probably won't use it in normal conversation for the rest of your life. and some of these kids actually learn latin to help them in spelling bees. latin! who would they talk with? most of all, what value does a spelling bee add when these kids are looking for a job?

gawd what nerds.

oh, and who's the bigger nerd, the kid who joins the spelling bee or the one who sits in front of the tv watching it for two hours?

lights are on but no one's home

2005-06-13T00:43:00.000+08:00

take me anywhere but here.

i look the same as i did last week. no one can tell that i'm any different from the way i was last week.

that's the problem. one can have a broken leg and everyone can tell. having a broken mind and a broken spirit is impossible to see.

the great thing is i feel nothing.

back on this island

2005-06-01T03:37:00.000+08:00

eight years after watching the play once on this island for the first time, planning to watch it again left me with a bit of trepidation. i was such a different girl eight years ago, and i was a bit afraid of how much it would affect me again eight years after (or scarier, how little it would matter.)

i should have known by now that trying to recreate the past is the biggest exercise in futility. i tried to get the whole gang to watch it together but i had forgotten that the gang is no longer in college -- one's married, one's in china, one's in rome, one's in singapore, one got tickets for a different date, ad nauseum – and that the gang has different lives already.

thank goodness ma cherie was free, so at least i'd be able to see it with someone who was there with me the first time. the gods must have been smiling at us that night, as we got free upgrades to much better seats in the theater (partially thanks to the ten “brothers” who sat in the balcony with us, who would rather watch a play on a Friday night then hang out in a bar to drink beer.)

the play was as fun as ever. i cried at the parts i wept at eight years ago. and eight years ago, i would have never dreamed that my life would mirror Ti Moune’s. at least she became a tree. i still have to learn to forgive.

Asaka, Ague, Erzuli, Papage, i will dance for you on this island. always.

an amusing encounter with a traffic cop in subic

2005-05-27T06:36:00.000+08:00

on the road in subic -- pin driving, me in the passenger seat, che and marijo in the backseat. windows open, hair blowing in the wind, sun glistening off lips lined with strawberry flavored lipgloss, bikini strings peeping from beneath shirt straps. all feeling too fabulous for words.

trying to turn into the parking lot leading to the duty free grocery but can't as Traffic Cop #1 is issuing a ticket to an errant maroon mitsubishi lancer.

Traffic Cop #2 sees our car not able to turn and seems very eager to help.

Traffic Cop #2 says to Traffic Cop #1 : Patabihin mo yan (pointing to the errant lancer). Hindi makadaan etong mga .... (trails off, apparently unsure of what to say next)

Me : (vaguely menacingly to Traffic Cop #2) Etong mga ano?

Traffic Cop #2 : Etong mga magaganda (scratches head in embarrassment)

gales of cackling laughter from the rest of the passengers in the car.

(buti na lang di ko sinabing, etong mga lesbiana)

when was the last time you did something for the first time?

2005-04-22T15:05:00.000+08:00

the past two weeks have been choc-a-block full of first times.

1. first time to try weed (with very strange results)
2. first time to dive in davao (played matchmaker to a pair of nudibranchs)
3. first time to miss a flight (but caught the next one still with sand on my feet resulting from a mad amazing race dash from the beach)
4. first time to hang out with kids with cancer and figure out that play is a universal language
5. first time to travel on the roof of a bangka (and scream hysterically at passing dolphins along the way)
6. first time to lie in a hammock strung on a floating barge under a moonlit sky at a beach in the middle of nowhere
7. first time to see a shooting star as big and as bright as a meteor (and think it was going to hit us which would have been the end of us)
8. first time to explore a countryside aboard a motorcycle
9. first time to say "this is the life" four days in a row
10. first time to get tanned to the point of resembling the color of an eggplant
11. first time to find the smile i thought i had lost forever.

thanks to ninin tatit angie joncam jerry sherwin miah bayani jerry mehanne for the most unbelievable two weeks i can ever remember having.

on getting old

2005-04-11T10:14:00.000+08:00

Nothing is free, not even age.
Age is the fee God charges for life.

letter to my friends

2005-04-06T14:26:00.000+08:00

dear friends,

have i ever expressed to you how much i appreciate what you've all done for me?

you never tire of laughing at my jokes.
you always make sure that we all get to have dinner together once in a while.
you help me in my never ending search for the perfect job.
you hold the tissue box when i cry my eyes out over the loss of ñ.

don't think me ungrateful, but i have one humungous favor to ask you.

don't anybody ever ever EVER set me up on a blind date ever again. EVER. i swear to God, i will chew my own foot off before i ever go out on a blind date again.

or if i absolutely must, at least make sure he looks like brad pitt.

thanks guys. you're the best.

love,
lissa

to-do list of the unemployed

2005-04-05T02:12:00.000+08:00

1. give dog a bath
2. take other dog to the vet
3. organize digital pictures in computer
4. delete fat pictures from computer
5. alphabetize books
6. decide whether to alphabetize books according to title or author
7. arrggh too difficult to alphabetize books. count them instead.
8. take a nap.
9. email employed friends with latest pictures of out-of-town trips (evil laugh here)
10. reorganize closet
11. decide which old clothes to discard, and which to keep with hopes to fit into again
12. retouch fake tattoo
13. file income tax returns by self
14. update photos and profiles in friendster, blogger and ym
15. take stuffed animals to dry cleaners
16. update bank records
17. get depressed over pathetically small savings
18. eat breakfast of oatmeal mixed with swiss miss
19. do five abdominal crunches...forget it. too painful
20. take another nap

a project eight years in the making

2005-03-22T02:28:00.000+08:00

i've finally completed one of the things i've always wanted to do -- get to see all the ateneo schools in the philippines. and it took me eight years to do it.

ateneo de manila's a snap of course. i went there every day for four years. still go there once in a while these days to go to mass, look at the sky, and see the me that used to be.

xavier university in cagayan de oro city was next, in april 1997. it was the first leg of the end of my JVP year (i was a Jesuit Volunteer from 1996-1997 where i taught high school english in the north -- another long story all together -- and the trip to mindanao was part of that year's close for me). i remember being very woozy upon getting to xavier as i had just gotten off a 17-hour boat ride. hooray for super ferry.

ateneo de zamboanga followed less than a week later -- still a part of my great mindanao road trip of 1997. i also arrived in zamboanga dirty and disoriented, as it had been a 13-hour non-aircon bus ride from cagayan de oro (and our bus was even stopped in the middle of the night somewhere in ipil for a "routine" check point, where all the males in the bus were made to get off by scary men carrying enormous guns.)

ateneo de davao twice, once in september 2002 and once in august 2003. i visited my sister for who was a JVP herself in 2002 for her birthday. then in 2003, ateneo proved to be a perfect backdrop to the kadayawan festival.

and finally, ateneo de naga in march 2005. totally unplanned, totally spur of the moment, and totally beautiful.

thanks to all the JVPs who sheltered, fed, and toured us and for making my great ateneo trek as fabulous as it was.

merely a word

2005-03-17T13:51:00.003+08:00

Am reading The Dante Club and I don’t know how much of that is fiction but there’s a part there that says that after his wife Fanny died, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow never wrote a single word about her. Instead, after her death, all he could write were lines of an Alfred Tennyson poem – “Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace.” If it were his own words Longfellow was writing, the temptation to write Fanny’s name would be too strong, and then she would be merely a word.

(would that ñ be merely a word, even after all the times I have written it.)

ode to the world's largest

2005-02-02T15:36:00.000+08:00

if i wanted a monkey on my back
i'd work in the zoo.

follow the leader.

eyes wide open

2005-01-05T05:04:00.000+08:00

lesson learned from 2004.

keep your eyes wide open.

that way, you know exactly what you're getting into
and you won't miss a thing while getting into it.

happy 2005 to me.

the two towels

2004-12-29T08:49:00.000+08:00

a friend texted me the other day asking me what christmas means to me, as she wanted input to be added to her christmas scrapbook. so i spent a better part of my sunbathing time thinking about it and came up with this thought. christmas for me, at least for the past three years, means having two towels hanging in my bathroom, instead of one.

i've shared a bedroom with my younger sister for more than half my life. our arguments would vary depending on how old we were. when she was three and i was nine, i'd get mad at her insistence of sleeping with a nightlight, as i cannot stand sleeping with the lights on. when she was ten and i was sixteen, she'd get a bit upset (although she'd never admit it) at the way i'd call our room "my room," thereby denouncing her fair ownership of it. when she was 15 and i was 21, she had our bedroom all to herself, as i spent that year living in bontoc, mt. province where i spent one year as a teacher.

for the past three years though, i've been without a roommate. my sister has been living in mindanao for the past three years and it looks like she'll be living there for a longer time still. and so i have been living in my room alone for the past three years. no nightlight to bother me, no weird music to have to put up with, no lights being kept on all night, no disarray in the bathroom.

but the drawbacks outwiegh the benefits of not having my sister to share a room with. no more late night conversations, not having easy access to a second opinion on an outfit i've decided to wear, and believe it or not, not having anyone to nag to pickup after herself in the bathroom.

if there ever was a sadder image that represented my sister and best friend not living at home, it's the image of just one towel in the towel rack in my bathroom. having two towels means that my sister's home for christmas, for having someone to giggle with at night, for having someone to tell my my shoes do not go with my jeans.

having two towels in the bathroom means my best friend is back home, and that'll we'll be giggling and acting like two year olds again. two year olds and eight year olds, i mean.

TIIS

2004-12-21T01:13:00.000+08:00

read this off a friend's friendster page

TIIS -- tang ina i'm single

laughed my head off.
passed it around immediately.

Alt 164

2004-12-17T07:05:00.000+08:00

That ubiquitous letter -- ñ -- is such a fascinating letter of the alphabet (I'm not even sure it's considered a member of the alphabet family). The way it's pronounced by itself -- enye -- and the way it sounds when squished next to other letters -- nyuh -- throws me in for the loop. Fascinates me to no end.

Of course, using that letter has its drawbacks. If you don't know the shortcut keys in Word, you end up with the bland looking n instead of the more dazzling ñ, which definitely has more character than its more sedate counterpart.

The ñ looks like a regular n that took a walk, got caught in the rain, and took shelter under the safety of an umbrella.

Kind of like the ñ in my life who I used to find shelter with as well.

ñ, this is for you. Thank you for sheltering me when I got caught in the rain. And thank you for sheltering me still even when the rain stopped.

supersize me

2004-10-27T04:59:00.000+08:00

my little sister's home for a week -- she'll be here til after halloween hooray! and my big brother's staying at home for a couple more days as well hooray again! my favorite part about having my parents out of the country for a couple of days at a time is that my siblings and i seem to be able to bond more.

last night, my sister brought home a dvd of supersize me. two minutes into the dvd, my kuya handed me the phone and said "order ka ng pizza. ang sarap bigla kumain." good thing that we already had dinner so we didn't binge on pizza anymore, especially since we had a first-hand look at how a McDiet can kill you.

i guess we were all so full from dinner that we all fell asleep halfway into the movie. i woke up a bit after midnight to my kuya's loud snoring and to my sister's foot on my stomach cutting off my oxygen. i didn't get up right away, i just wanted to lie there and enjoy the fact that i was at home vegetating with my two favorite people in the world.

it was such a kodak moment -- my brother lying flat on his back on the bed snoring like a tractor, my sister sprawled on the lazy boy with her leg lying across my stomach, and me lying on my side with drool puddling on my pillow. priceless.

change my hair, change my luck

2004-10-16T08:07:00.000+08:00

cut my hair yesterday. away with the faux cameron-diaz-in-charlie's-angels flippable hair and back to my no-nonsense vaguely gay-man hair.

my peanut butter streaks have almost disappeared (thank God, getting peanut butter streaks in my hair was not one of my smarter ideas) and more of my white hair/ skunk streaks have emerged.

maybe this new hair will make things better. lord knows i've tried everything to improve my life

from prozac
to Big Macs
to pedicures
to kick boxing
to coupland

maybe changing my hair will do the trick this time.

God in my lipgloss

2004-10-12T04:45:00.000+08:00

conversation in the car with my sister on the way to my dad's surprise birthday party.

ninin: ate try mo tong blueberry lip gloss ko, ang ganda. looooove ko this lip gloss.
ate: loooove mo ang lip gloss? love mo siya like your God?
ninin: oo! remember, God in all things.

ho boy.

God in my lipgloss.

God in my Prozac.

cleanup weekend

2004-09-29T04:30:00.000+08:00

went diving this weekend yahoo! so am back to being my normal sane self again.

i've said it once and i will say it a zillion times more. i love diving. it has literally changed my life. and i hope to continue diving until i'm old and gray.

i was in anilao this weekend for the coastal cleanup. stayed overnight with friends whose diving careers have dwindled to just this annual event. we all have such busy lives that if we just had to choose one weekend in which to dive, it would be during the coastal cleanup.

we cleaned caban cove, the ickiest and dirtiest dive site in anilao. i was lugging my fishnet sack and filling it with shampoo sachets, beer cans, stray pieces of rope, the occasional boot and sandal, and an unbelievable amount of junk food and candy wrappers. amazing the sort of stuff that ends up at the bottom of the ocean. one of my friends even found a one peso coin from the 1980s.

my favorite dive site for this weekend was in steps, a hop skip and jump away from cathedral. it was a pretty shallow dive,about 80 feet max depth. at 60 feet, there was the remains of this bangka that was about 30 feet long and ten feet wide. and there was a little space underneath it where you could swim under. a very cheap thrill similar to that of hole in the wall in puerto galera. and the wall was just like steps, an orderly progression of walls that lead you deeper and deeper into the ocean. it would have been great to have gone deeper but i got cold and it was dark so we all just went back up.

at 60 feet, i found the funniest thing -- a park bench. a cement park bench perched by the side of the remains of the bangka. i simply just had to swim over and sit on it, just to be able to say that i sat on a park bench at the bottom of the sea.

and it was at this dive where i had the most fascinating safety stop. at 15 feet, there were more park benches scattered about! there was even a little round cement park table. so all of us in the group sat on one park bench each and waited out our safety stop. there was even a school of little catfish that was clumped near us and i swam towards them and tried to herd them in one direction. i felt like godzilla advancing on a troop of terrified city people before being squashed to bits. fortunately for me, the DM stopped me from getting any nearer as catfish are apparently very poisonous fish. wouldn't have wanted to end my life as a godzilla impersonator being poisoned to death by a school of one-inch fish.

got my dive, got my buddies, got my new bikini, got my tan, got the ocean, got great viz...life can't get any better than that.

one big fight!

2004-09-21T04:12:00.000+08:00

as far as i'm concerned, UAAP basketball season's over for me. what an awful and embarrassing way to end after such a brilliant beginning.

the months between july and september are my absolute favorite months for basketball. this is the only time of the year when i actually like the game and can spend hours at a time watching and talking about the game. this, from the most apathetic person in the world when it comes to sports.

ateneo's basketball team started so unbelievably well. six (or was it seven?) straight wins, effectively sweeping the first round. then larry hurt his knee. and everything went downhill from there. it got so bad that even UP beat them, and the last win against NU was a difficult win at best. unbelievable.

and yesterday's game, oh man. i deliberately chose to go to mass at 4:30 so i would be spared the early quarters of the game. the mass ended exactly as the thrid quarter started and it was such a good start. then it got simply embarrassing after a while. it got so painful that a few minutes before the quarter ended, i switch channels to see what kris and boy were talking about in the buzz.

i'm the lousiest fan in the world. at bad games, i have been caught screaming "i am going to f***ing murder you!!!" at the ateneo players (albeit through the tv screen) when the team does a particularly bad play. similarly, i have been known to yell "rip his f***ing head off!!!" when the game gets to be a bit too physical. i guess i'm lucky that i am forever too lazy to scavenge for tickets otherwise it would be my head that would be f***ing ripped off at the game.

i've been cheering for this team for 20 years -- that's more than half my life. andno matter how much i scream for them and at them, they've only managed to win three championships, two when i was still too young to go to ateneo, and one when i had loooong graduated from ateneo already. it's been more a period of loss than of victory.

but cheer for them i will. i still have forty good years of screaming and cheering left. they may suck, they may choke, they may do one bad play after another, but they are responsible for some of the brightest and shiniest moments of ateneo pride i did not even realize i had. where else can you find a school where, after 13 years of never winning, finally win a championship and as if by some secret signal, draw old and young ateneans to katipunan for an impromptu party that was waiting for 13 years to happen? for that championship, the victory was too big to contain by one's self that we all had to go to ateneo to share in the victory there. magic.

they're my blue eagles and i will cheer and scream for them forever.

go ateneo! one big fight!

no more Bok

2004-09-14T07:05:00.000+08:00

Bok died last Friday.

a friend put it so perfectly.

pag namatayan ka ng aso na mahal mo, para kang nawalang ng kapatid.

i think it's going to take more than 19 years for me to like another dog again.

Bok Bok bokokok

2004-09-08T04:52:00.000+08:00

i'm not the biggest animal fan in the world. sure i love fish, but just to the point of admiring their colors and pointing out the really freaky-looking ones. fish live in a world of their own, where you are and will forever be a spectator and even intruder into their world.

cats freak me out. enough said.

dogs, well, dogs are a different story. i've heard and read enough about the freaky people who dress up their dogs in burberry sweaters and sit them on embroidered pillows (can anyone spell paris hilton?) most of the time i don't even get what the whole fuss is about dogs.

we've always had dogs for as long as i can remember -- patty, who had eight pups one time which we named after the planets (we didn't name any of them a pluto, too reminiscent of walt disney's dog). boris, the dachsund who'd bark at me when i get home way after my curfew. noodles, a japanese spitz that was the most ladylike of our dogs. she'd sit like a debutante at her coming out ball -- back straight with her two front paws crossed in front of her. baron and blink, a pair of labrador retrievers who were so dumb they didn't know how to have sex.

they were fun dogs -- they lived long lives, barked at the postman, newspaper deliver boy, meralco bill man, and the pizza hut delivery man. but as far as i was concerned, they were just dogs, as much a part of the landscape at home as the santol tree and the gumamela plants. all our dogs but two. and they were both named Bok.

the first Bok came into our lives when i was ten. he was one of those askals that eventually find their way into your home when the askals of your relatives give birth to a bunch of pups and they give the pups away. Bok was a white dog with black spots scattered randomly all over his body. he was just a regular dog but for some reason, he wormed his way into my non-dog loving heart. i've had him for about a year when the accident had to happen. our maid at the time was a bit old and her eyesight wasn't as it used to be. she was pushing the sliding door shut and she didn't see that Bok was in the doorway. poor Bok got his nose caught in the door and the trauma was bad enough to put him in a coma. he was in a coma for almost a week and we had the vet do everything to revive him. and he revived but he was never the same. it was as if he had forgotten all about us and would try to bite me whenever i'd get too close. it was as if he was still really angry at having the door slammed on his face and he remained angry til the day he died.

i went through the usual "i'm never going to love another dog as long as i live" phase that all bereaved dog owners go through. it was 18 years before i loved another dog again. and it was no accident that i named him Bok as well.

i was having one of my black weeks when my mom came home and said "i have a surprise for you." she gave me a ball of white with black spots scattered randomly all over his body. it was Bok all over again. same white fur, same black spots, same askal look and demeanor. and it was this Bok that rescued me and pushed me out of that black place.

Bok's been sick the past couple of weeks. he has heartworm, this pesky disease that dogs get when they get bitten by mosquitoes. so for the past couple of days, Bok has been freaking me out when he runs up to meet me. he runs up to me then suddenly just keels over. the first time he did this i thought he had a heart attack which nearly gave me a heart attack. will just wait for the treatment to kick in. in the meantime, he just sits next to me with his head on my lap, occasionally putting up his paw and asking for a tummy rub.

i hope he gets well quick. i know i haven't turned into one of those dog owners who dress up their dogs in silly burberry sweaters. i've become one of those dog owners who've let their dogs worm their way into their hearts.

how does one recover from a loss of a dog? i wouldn't know. i don't think that's ever happened to anyone yet. you lose a dog, you lose a part of you that keeps you human.