anim na tabo ng tubig

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

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

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

...in boracay

the one before the one

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

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

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

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

our God has a very big eraser

Great Books of 2006

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?