This is the fourth anniversary of my liberation from an 8-year thingie that changed my life for the better. Here's hoping that I'll learn more this time than I did that time. No regrets, only lessons to be learned.

***

On that note, I'm now missing P, who made the whole experience lighter and easier. Wish you were here.

My birthday turned out to be one surprise after the next. I didn't plan a celebration--didn't feel like doing anything at all--but wonderful, wonderful people around me made this day oh-so-special.

My mom woke me up at 5:30 so we could hear mass. Was blessed by the parish priest, who is also a friend of the family, afterward. His words of prayer moved both me and my mom to tears. Went back home and back to sleep.

Both my sisters left to go to Mall of Asia, my mom had to go to work. Spent most of the morning moping around the house and sleeping off a mild hangover on the sala sofa. At around 2pm, Pupay and Meg woke me up by singing the birthday song. When I opened my eyes, there was this cake in front of me.



Started watching the matrix trilogy on the computer after that. At around four, my cousin suddenly came to the sala, told me to close my eyes and go out to the terrace. Here's what was there:



A kiddie party with my cousins and nieces! Blew a second cake, we didn't get to take a picture of it, though.

To cap off the evening, I saw Cheekay and Jigs in Makati. Jiggy just got a tattoo. We talked well until midnight, and my birthday was officially over.

Except for the last phone call when I got home, the day went great. P was right. I am blessed with uber super friends and a great family.

My heart has a papercut.

Because I was tagged by c5 and navel-gazing is my worst vice.


1. Do you like cheese?
Yep. The more the many-er.

2. Are you a chain smoker?
Only when I'm drinking beer. Smoking removes the bitterness of the beer and drinking more beer takes the taste of nicotine off my tongue...it's a vicious cycle.

3. Your favorite song?
Right now, happy and sappy love songs. Boo!

4. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
Yes. But I'm such a hypochondriac I just NEED to see them every so often.

5. What do you think of hotdogs?
Love them.

6. Favorite Christmas song?
Greensleeves.

7. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Cold water.

8. Can you do push ups?
Yepyep.

9. Favorite superhero?
Jenny Sparks

10.Secret weapon to get the opposite sex?
Get them drunk. Haha.

11. What's one trait you hate about yourself?
my paranoia.

12. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment
Wishing I could go home.
Wonder what J is doing?
Where the heck is Issy?

13. Name 3 things you bought yesterday.
jeepney fare (does this count?)
taxi fare (eto rin?)
just those two. I was fed all day.

14.Name 3 drinks you regularly drink?
Coke light, water, lemongrass tea

15. Favorite places?
My room, J's room, Las Pinas

16. What color of shirt are you wearing?
powder blue

17. Can you whistle?
sadly, no.

18. Favorite color/s?
red, silver, gold (bakit parang pang-pasko?)

19. Would you like to be a pirate?
No. They smell and they have bad teeth.

20. What songs do you sing in the shower?
high-pitched tunes I won't ever sing in public

21. Favorite girl's name?
no preference

22. Favorite boy's name?
no preference

23. What's in your pocket right now?
three cellphones, cigs, lighter

24. Last thing that made you laugh?
talking about big boss with my colleague yesterday

25. Worst injury you've ever had?
torn hamstring, majorly sprained knee.

26. Do you love where you live?
If the landlord weren't such a lunatic, yes.

27.How many computers do you have in your house?
two (the landlord's and mine)

28.Does someone have a crush on you?
Someone's bound to.

29.What is your favorite bar?
Anywhere with a clean restroom and a constant supply of toilet paper.

30.What is your favorite candy?
not so into candy. Now, chocolate is another matter entirely.

31.What were you doing 12 AM last night?
talking to J on the phone.

32.What is the first thing you thought of when u woke up?
"I miss."


I'm tagging: yac2x, ornubs, at yung mga mahilig pumatol sa mga ganito

Part of an email sent to me by my baby bro' Paul DG. Also forwarded to him by his boss (who, he said, doesn't usually send out forwarded email).


European English:

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. .
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as 'Euro-English' .

In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of 'k'. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced with 'f'. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent 'e' in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v'.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vordskontaining 'ou' and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

I have a friend (really!) who ordered me to post this here when she found out I actually blog. She’s concerned that other females may not be getting the most out of their sex lives and she’s a fervent advocate of great, mind-blowing sex. Anyway.


THE TEN STEPS (OR COMMANDMENTS) TO HAVING THE MOST FANTABULOUS SEX

1. THINK OF NOTHING ELSE.
Don’t allow other thoughts like work, family, school, religion, politics, etc. intrude. Once you let even just one of them in, it might put a damper on the whole thing. Thinking of laundry during foreplay is not a turn-on.

2. TOTALLY SURRENDER YOURSELF TO PLEASURE.
I know it sounds cheesy. But this is somewhat connected to the above section, too. If you think something will give you utmost pleasure when you do it, go ahead—even if it is somewhat unconventional. Just feel and enjoy.

3. KNOW THAT YOU’RE THE STAR OF THE SHOW.
Think of yourself as the lead character of a tasteful, erotic film (or if porn’s more your thing, think of yourself as a pornstar). You’re the bida here. All eyes are on you.

4. BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE THE SEXIEST, MOST DESIRABLE PERSON ON THE PLANET.
And, baby, you definitely are.

5. BELIEVE THAT EVERYTHING YOU DO TO YOUR PARTNER IS A TURN-ON.
…and your partner cannot help but be convinced.

6. ENCOURAGE YOUR PARTNER WITH MOANING AND GROANING.
It not only serves as inspiration, it also saves you from having to talk if you can’t manage to form coherent phrases in your head.

7. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO GIVE DIRECTIONS.
Tell your partner what feels good, which area works best, etc.

8. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO ASK.
You’ve both got your clothes off, an already potentially embarrassing situation, so where’s the harm in asking your partner for something/do something more?

9. TIT FOR TAT.
Oh, yeah. Pay attention to your partner, too.

10. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT.
Repeat even if a bit tired.

From package insert:
An old story tells that when the Maya Indians of Guatemala had worries, they would tell them to worry people. At night they would place the worry people under their pillows and when they awoke, the worry people had taken their worries away.



My little community of worriers




Thanks, P. I absolutely lurrrrve them!

When did the Pinoy custom of greeting someone you haven't seen in quite a while with "Saan ka papunta?" or "Kumain ka na?" get replaced with "Tumaba ka, ah." or "Ang taba mo ngayon."

I've been puzzling over this with my friends P, R, and J for several days already. Two of them came home (for vacation) from studying abroad and the people who've seen them kept on remarking on how they've put on weight. I'm very sure they really traveled back all this way just so they could hear that delightful piece of news.

Last Saturday, I saw someone whom I hadn't seen for several weeks and the first thing she said was, "Taba mo."

I was actually feeling good that day, and thought I looked quite spiffy in the white shirt I was wearing for the first time. And she just managed to ruin my mood with that very thoughtful remark. Okay, maybe she didn't know that I used to have a major problem with my weight and that hearing that I've gotten fat is never welcome. Still, I was pissed, and told her, "Tang**a, kailan pa ba nauso na gawin pambati yan?"

She obviously did not get that she had actually offended me and even added, "Hindi nga, seryoso." And I felt even more terrible. Okay, so she isn't at all ugly, and she is thin. So make me feel like a fat cow, why don't you?

R, when I had asked him several days ago about this social behavior, actually tried coming up with an explanation. He said that it's probabaly a Pinoy way of establishing a feeling of familiarity, closeness, and community. What they're actually trying to say is: Hey, you are my friend and so I say this ugly, mean, horrible, wicked thing (since I don't have enough EQ to be aware that it is potentially offensive) just to let you know that I care enough to actually pay attention when there are changes happening to your body.

However, yesterday, before J and I dropped him and P off at Metrowalk, we again got to talking about it in the car, since R mentioned that people have once again been saying that he's fat. J said that people who say such things are stupid and rude, and I reminded R about what he had told me. He responded, "I just said that to try to make myself feel better."

When they got out of the car, J turned to me and said, "See, it doesn't matter if you try to explain that behavior in fancy words. There's just no accounting for rude and stupid."

It's always nice to gain a bit of perspective on certain matters.

I hate it when someone just leaves and I'm not prepared for it. It doesn't even matter if it's less than half a month.

I wasn't prepared, is all.

I miss.

Maligayang bati! Mahal kita. *hug*

My interactions with rice have always been tainted with guilt. At the tender age of nine, under the disapproving eyes of my mother and aunts, I would devour one whole bandehado of rice--equivalent to about three cupfuls--on regular meals. When the viand along with the rice was a favorite, like talunang manok or talangka, I could chuck in another cup or two. One of the more famous stories my relatives love trading around the reunion dinner table is of how my mother once tried putting me on a diet. When she brought me to my Lola’s house for our weekly family get-together there, she put the big bandehado of rice all the way to the end of the long narra table—and well away from my reach. Whoever was telling the story would start shaking with laughter as he or she recalled how I looked longingly and with such hunger at that pile of rice after I had finished the half-cup my mother had placed on my plate. It got so bad that a single tear escaped and rolled down my cheek. My lola, when she saw that tear, started cursing everyone at the table for their cruelty—“Hindi na kayo naawa sa bata!”—then she proceeded to grab the bandehado and plonk it right in front of me. No surprise then that I became quite pudgy—and my cousins and friends would often taunt and tease me about it.

The worst of the lot would be the grubby boys of our truck mechanic. And too bad they also happened to be my favorite playmates. Sometimes, since these boys lived just a stone’s throw away, I would go home with them when their mother, a big-haired, gap-toothed woman who looked perpetually pregnant, hollered her “Oy, mekeni!” in a voice like a foghorn. For merienda, Aling Syoneng would often serve us a peculiar sort of lugaw with regular long-grain rice cooked in lots of water and flavored with white sugar. She’d sit at one end of the table and go slugging away on a bottle of pale pilsen while watching us eat. If I stayed long enough I sometimes saw them cook rice and ulam not on a stove, but by using panggatong. One time, when I tried helping by loading some more wood to feed the fire, I lost my balance and burned my leg. When Mother found out how I got the burn, she lectured me on how I shouldn’t impose on the pobre mechanic’s family and how they have little enough to eat without having an extra mouth—mine—to feed. The next time I ate at the boys’ house was several months later. I was served biscuits and coffee at the wake of Aling Syoneng who had died of cirrhosis.

When I was diagnosed as a juvenile diabetic due to obesity and old enough to have an interest in boys as more than just playmates, I went on a strict diet that limited my caalorie intake. That meant going from several cupfuls of rice every meal to a cup or less. I shed a lot of pounds—and wouldn’t stop. When I started looking like a walking pile of fish bones and getting sick almost every month, my mother put a stop to the nonsense and ordered me to eat. I obeyed, but not without feeling like I was doing my body a disservice every time I did so. It was only when I took up running as a P.E. course in UP that I started eating sans the accompanying queasiness from guilt.

As a college dormer in Diliman, I survived on instant noodles and canteen food so I never learned how to cook. It was a different story though, when I went on to stay in UP as a full-time teacher. I had my stomach to appease, I was getting sick of fast food, and I had a boyfriend to impress. Being the staple, rice was top priority. I faced the challenge of cooking with much trepidation, considering that another famous story in our family is how I almost burned our house down by boiling an egg and then promptly forgetting about it. The by-product of that experience was a blackened lump in the middle of a smoking Teflon pot never to be used for cooking again.

My first attempt was a huge letdown. I put in just enough water to cover the rice instead of following the 1:1 ratio and, of course, the grains failed to fluff up and cook completely. With a sudden attack of conscience from knowing how many mouths two gatangs of rice could feed, I sadly threw my failure into the trash.

With all these unpleasant memories, I should’ve given up entirely on rice. But it’s such a pervasive part of our daily lives. What needs to be done is to found fond memories of the vexing grain. Maybe in doing so, I can make peace with it and, eventually, lay all this guilt to rest.