maiwan na ang lahat ...

... 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

letter to my friends

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

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

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

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

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

follow the leader.

eyes wide open

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.