stories

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a zillion more reasons why bohol has been good to me