varavlog

check!

(okay na yan, maski fake, check naman yan).

don’t know what the hell it means. wanted my name written beside it but the artist was being an ass and just wrote “t”. thank you na din for this check off my list.

bonding time with the ciscos with the girls beadworking their way to kingdom come.

the useless boys are all downstairs discussing pacquaio and mayweather.

sisay gusto magbakal? barato lang. hehe….

im singing along to words i don’t even understand. i’m smiling from ear to ear. langya i’m in love again! shyetttttt!!!!

parehong-pareho kita chin. thank you abs for the repeat.

pero talagang i love ji hoo forever fans club ako.  labot mo man. hmp.

(i was tempted to paste my face over jan di’s photo, pero i don’t want to puke a month from now sa kalokohan na yan, so dae na lang..hehe).

by the way, i assembled this computer all by myself (meaning, naisaksak ko gabus na kordon sa tamang saksakan from the kinalas state it was in- tried remembering the male-female tip and it worked!). i’m so proud of myself and if you happen to know how big of an engot i am, you should be proud of me too.
bisperas na sa aga. enjoy!

this is by far the shittiest birthday ever. no scratch that, the shittiest DAY ever. first off, i had this huge  argument with someone over the most ridiculous thing.secondly, not only did i have to work outside again because of the brownout, i had to jump from three places to work, so i ended up working til 11pm!  - all the while trying not to mind my busted right shoulder. to top it off, i found out minutes ago that my little sister’s wallet got stolen at school.  well, the thief had the decency to leave the wallet behind, now  clean of her lifetime savings! (she is a “bank hater”, i know, it’s weird, but that’s another story). sisay ka man hayup ka, malalapa ang kamot mo!

i didn’t feel like going home tonight so i stayed over at lola’s, thinking perhaps sleeping inside my old room could bring back some of my fondest childhood memories and give me something that’ll turn this day around. pero not even that is going to happen. BROWNOUT NA naman! hayup garo mga lukton kadarakula ang mga lamok! pucha tlga!

i didn’t even get to eat my cake today.:(

only thing that made me smile today - my friends’ greetings. especially this. thank you tere.  salamat mga friends.

so okay, im rescheduling my birthday. tomorrow is my birthday. tomorrow, i’ll try my best to be in a celebratory mood. so greet me again if you have the chance. thank you.

= “bako akong paha sa kaugmahan. dae ko iririsgo buhay ko para lang sa halipot na kaugmahan”.

=”pagbabayadan ninda ni pag-abot kang panahon”.

= “ang mga barkada maray sana sa panahon ning kaugmahan. sa kahurasaan, madurulag yan saindo.”

= “haen ang wisdom mo?”

= “dae man sa hinahagad ta baga, pero dakul pwedeng mangyari”.

= “inuuripon kita kang mga dayo sa satuyang sadiring daga. mga (bleep!!!)  sindang mga (insert any and every race here)!”.

= “if you don’t like me, i don’t like you too!” (which i’d automatically correct with “EITHER” …hehe).

=”ihuhungit ko na lang ngani, itinatao ko pa saindo”.

= “ang tunay na matalino, bako lang sa libro”.

=”pasalamat ngani kamo ta dae kamo nag-agi grabeng pag-tios. ako aki pa sana naglalaba na ning mga may inuduan. kaya ngani ako nagkasukang dugo.”

= “mayo akong ipapamana saindo.”  (and that really ends there. no KUNDI…hehe).

this is geno. and i’m pretty sure i misspelled his name and he’ll scratch my eyes out if he finds out i posted his pictures. well…(his favorite word drawn out), he’ll never find out (he thinks this social networking crap is below him…hehe…).

anyways, he’s the latest among the long list of my mother’s torture slash daily words of wisdom recipients. bless this boy and his patient heart. he surely has toughened up since the first day he unwillingly stepped into the dragon’s lair. oh sure, he still shrieks OMG and dramatically pulls his  hair  whenever he’s flustered and yeah, he has made pretty  cringe-worthy mistakes as he was learning the ropes of  mama’s household, but when i look at him now, i see a brave and dependable kid who isn’t afraid to learn new things and stand up for what he thinks is right - and with mother around, you can be sure there’s a lot of that going on.

he reminds me so much of kurt. or kurt reminds me so much of him…hmmm… anyway, geno sings like it’s nobody’s business. once in while, we get treated to mariah’s falsettos when he’s doing the dishes or applying his nightly facials and once in a while we tell him to shut up. hehe… but yeah, he does sing like an angel when he’s in the mood, i’ll admit. i also laughtrip whenever he translates and sings regular songs into gaylingo. you should really hear his, “mga jombay lang kami, ngyawa sa mga gelai, mga gelai makekieme, minamartahan lang kami”. it’s hilarious.

he gets the funniest ideas. his latest one was blurted out this morning. “Ate, magibo akong cookbook. itong pano ning raway. garo arog kani, “saute the f*cking garlic and the damn onions. add the mother *cking tomatoes.” kung bikol man, “igisa ang p*inang bawang saka yodi*tang sibulyas.” and he really went on to describe an entire recipe peppered with his colorful language.  buds and i laughed our asses off….ah, such freedom whenever teapot isn’t around to shhh us.

oh yeah, he designs and sews clothes and draws some mean device illustrations for teacher teapot.

a renaissance gay man indeed. 

at the foodcourt.

waiting for buds for our saturday date. done with download for work. just watched glee’s sectionals. still no buds.

i only have one wish for my birthday, christmas, and new year….

i think i have been nice enough this year. so please? thank you.

happy weekend.

I am letting today go.

I am not even going to be bothered by the fact that my download is taking 20 minutes PER FILE.

I will write this day off as an “I don’t care if I’m a kilometer off my mark day”.

I will be gracious, composed, and accommodating when the internet people come knocking.Hell, I might even offer them a goddamn drink or something.

I am not going to panic when bossing fails to reply to my messages.

I am not going to acknowledge frustration or allow it to sully my disposition when the adaptor to my keyboard fails me, therefore making me type directly.

I am so together today that I won’t even slam the mouse when I get disconnected for the 100^th time.

I am even going to let geno’s “nagtataba kana baga ate” remark slip and send him happy thoughts.

I’m so relaxed I didn’t even flinch when I couldn’t comment on tere’s blog (mareply man daw ako tere kung igwang nagtxt.hehe.saka ta mayo).

I am so Zen today that nothing will penetrate my cone of calmness - not even my mother’s loud singing and guitar playing like she’s driving all the house spirits to the gates of hell would distract me from my kumbaya mood.

No, nothing will get to me today.I will not blow my top off over something as silly as bubogs on the floor – slicing my big toe open.I might even spend a minute or two marveling at the miracle of the human circulatory system.

I am going to ignore my sister’s “hayup na buhay ni” statements and actually SMILE. I won’t let a single profanity escape these lips today.

Because today, I am chill personified.

hell to the yeah.

garo maugma maging barista.

kamusta man ning weekend na ni ta nagtatrabaho ako sa gilid kan salog?

Oh man, im sitting next to a couple having the pettiest argument about the guy watching something on youtube he apparently shouldnt be watching. they’re getting pretty loud na.

i need to pee and get something for this bitch of a headache. will somebody come over here and hold my post for me? no takers?. waahhhh…..

fireworks by the river. cool.

sa pagkalawig-lawig na panahon na pinaikot mo ako sa saimong mga “base station po kasi may problema maam” excuses,  finally, nauntog na ako. i’ve decided to let you go. haloy na akong dae maugma saimo, pigtyatyagaan tka lang ta kala ko pede ka pang magbago, kala ko ako may sala nin huli harayo istaran ko sa istasyon mo, pero clearly, mayo kanang pakilabot sa mga consumidores mo na nagbabayad man sa tamang oras.

i’m very proud na i got through this week na mayo ka….narealize ko na kaya ko palan na mayo ka. mala ta naiantos ko ang trabaho saka mga daily reads ko with prepaid.  naghahalat na lang akong bisitahon kan karibal mo.

good riddance ka talaga.

tinapay.

p.s.: don’t try calling me. i’ve changed my number.

oh, why you look so sad?

Tears are in your eyes

come on and come to me now

when the night falls on you

you dont know what to do

nothing you confess could make me love you less

i’ll stand by you

won’t let nobody hurt

take me in into your darkest hour

and i’ll never desert you

i’ll stand by you.

freaking internet is cramping my style!

here i am all ready to get my jollibee breakfast, but my download is taking 48 years! so now, i’ve missed that “only till 10am” window, where do i go?  i’ve been wanting to eat jollibee breakfast for the entire week! plus, my lovely barrio had, for probably the 100th time this year, a transformer blow-up, so i couldn’t download earlier today.

bloody perfect.

this isn’t ruined however tinapay. even my mother’s early morning state of the nation address won’t ruin my day. i’m getting me some fun time today and the rest of my weekend.

enjoy your weekend too.

yikes! my big sister just found my three bottles of vodka mudshake and asked me a very obvious question (hence laced with “you’re a loser, you shouldn’t be doing this” undertone).

“what are those?”…. i looked at geno (my accomplice) and said, “inumon, mayo lang, gusto ko lang manamitan”.

“tano tulong gayo? gusto mo palan manamitan sana”.

“siempre ta iba-iba flavors niya, chocolate, caramel, and cappuccino”.

thankfully she left it at that (but not without the long tsk and that “you will sort of go to hell ” last look). i’m kidding of course. she just actually made the long tskkkk and walked away.

now tonight was supposed to be our pajama party slash mac and cheese pigout slash truth or consequence slash first alcoholic drink in over four years night. (i btw bought 15 packs of lucky me mac and cheese. the saleslady eyed me curiously, prompting me to say, “try mo, promise, maugma siya”.)

only problem, my mac and cheese chef is still not around and the bottles of mudshake are lukewarm. plus geno is nursing a bitch of a headache he says. so resched it is.

does the idea of eating mac and cheese and drinking vodka sound ludicrous to you? it does to me. my insides can only imagine the kind of riot these two will do to them. sa agang banggi masusubukan. i hope.

have a wonderful weekend y’all.

addendum:  COTTO FOR THE WIN! hehehe…

i am not a morning person. i AM thankful i work inside my room with a thick black blanket covering the windows where little sunshine could peek in.

i appreciate my boss for giving me semi-positive, semi-scolding feedback.

i love my sisters.

i can’t wait for new moon.

i am thankful to facebook for reconnecting me with old friends.  it’s safe (and kind of sad, hehe) to say that it’s the only social life i have going on right now.

i love the days leading up to christmas. there’s no other holiday quite like it.

i look forward to talking with cathy every time. she’s the only person who’s licensed to call me horrid names and i wouldn’t get pikon.

i miss my cousins and my high school friends. i hope i see them during the holidays.

i do try each saturday to not be lazy and i fail each time.

i am going to ask my guy friends this when i see them, “how would you feel if you get to wake up to aling dionisia’s face each morning for the rest of your life?”

i loved jollibee’s chicken tocino.

i think someday, someone is going to think i’m a gem and a keeper.

tere has just gone on a blogging leave. :(  (now, should i threaten her to boil the neighbor’s dog if she doesn’t come back or shave my head perhaps?…..i’m kidding, i’m kidding).

i’m gonna miss reading her blog. it’s the perfect mix of the mundane and the relevant. (mine however heavily favors senselessness, hah!). i feel like i got to know her better through that blog. but she says it well. blogging does have its pitfalls.

ako, why do i blog you ask? the exact same reason tere gave why she’s momentarily leaving cyberlife - because i want to give you a tiny access to my thoughts. a little peak into my soul (however dramatic that sounds).

i blog because it’s the only way i can share my life with you. all seven of you.
on a weird note: friendster blog offers very limited storage space and after checking  my status, i found out i’ve used up almost 99%. oh well, maybe i need to go on a vacation too.. or move to a new house. hmmm….

= broke two of my cardinal rules yesterday. took a nap at noon and ate more than one kitkat bar. only excuse, i was TOO SLEEPY to care about the rules.

= some people have got to know when it’s WAY TOO EARLY to call or text. he’s a nice guy and all tere, i know that, pero 6am is still too ungodly for me. plus i was having on of the THE most beautiful dreams ever, i wanted to tear my hair out when i suddenly heard my ringtone!

= looks like my project is going to push through this november. yahoo! long time coming. i’ve been very uncharacteristically patient. hope it isn’t a flop.

= bing told me a very nice thing the other day and i saved our YM convo just so i’d have something to cheer me up when i have one of those ugly, pity party days such as yesterday. worked wonders bing. hehehe… (grabe sa kababawan, pero it does work!).

= my mother’s most riveting question as of late, “tano bro na Siya ngunyan?”

= the moon last night was a tease! didn’t even get to admire it for 5 minutes!

= love the weather today. would love it even more if i could spend the entire day in bed (hopefully continuing my interrupted dream).  oh well, chuckie time…good morning!

buds and i saw patient x and it was so bad we kept talking and laughing the entire time. nang, binggay, and anti came home and we all saw the echo. this one’s better. all three little girls kept screaming and nang almost peed in her pants. anti and i made fun of them. (by the way, i take after anti sa movie watching. she started watching movies alone in her preteens! and not only that, she made her rounds to almost all seven theaters in one week back in the day. idol! hehe)….tomorrow i’m watching michael’s “this is it. ” but first i have to finish this work. argh. you’re such a loser tinapay.

fun weekend…

brownout in manila  = no work for me yet.

oh well. leaving to run some errands (which just translates to me picking up 5 packs of kit-kat and 2 kilos of lanzones for mother).

i’m going to get my heater today. wish me  luck on a bargain price.

and say hi to your dearly departed.

to lola and lolo and my uncle and my cousin - keep an eye on us still here guys.

gotta run.  happy halloween!

had a vomit-your-guts-out type of migraine last night. maybe it’s my punishment for procrastinating again.

anyway, woke up feeling worlds better. turned the radio on and heard “colors of the wind” from pocahontas.

couldn’t help laughing. i remember that song! our speech teacher from college gave us our midterm project - recite our favorite poem in front of the class. day of my turn, i thought i had my poem down, but i kept spacing out minutes before and couldn’t remember lines from the poem!  i was panicking.

as my name was called, i made that last second decision and as i stepped in front of the podium, this came out: “you think you own whatever land you land on?”

by the second chorus, i almost had that sing-song tone to my voice, it almost gave me away. thank god, ms. whoever she was wasn’t a big disney fan. loved my classmates for pretending to not know the “poem” and resisting the urge to sing the chorus with me.

pheuw! hilarious and embarrassing!

i got an A by the way. (thank you ms. vanessa williams..hehe).

chin came home again. good to see face after all these years.

made chika til early morning. had lots of laugh over the silliest things about highschool.

still weren't able to settle the issue, "who the hell played romeo in our romeo and juliet in highschool?"

i hope our plans push through though. with face's name behind the masterplan, i hope everyone will take this thing seriously this time. it's face people! get on board!

1 spoon of instant coffee diluted in 1 tiny pack of cold chuckie  = palpitations and shakiness. no surprise there.

but breaking into tears when told that there was no more rice left for me at lunchtime - very surprising.  i seem to be more stressed than i realized. stressed and a little loony. what a brat.

thank you.

i needed that.

it’s been a long time since anyone’s told me something remotely in that context.  actually, no one’s ever told me that. so really, from the bottom of my impatient and sometimes hopeless heart, thank you.

i am after all just like any other girl. id jump off a cliff for words.  (not really, but you get that part.) 

how come we HATED taking naps when we were kids and now that we’re adults, it’s all we ever do? was real life that fun when we were kids? or is it because our dreams are  better than reality when we’re older?

anyways, i miss you so much kikay and your cooking. i swear one day, geno is going to kill me with food poisoning. (joke! hehe). so in that regard, i have just now struck up a bargain with my little sister. she is going to cook lunch from now on and i’d pay her. like oprah pays art smith. (yah, i get a kick out of comparing myself to oprah, hehe).

pretty wise huh? and in a very scar-like mode,  (you know, from the lion king, simba’s uncle) the sister can now say, …..”stick with me and you will never go hungry again!!! bwahahahaha!”

wow. today marks my 1st year anniversary at work. so far so good.

=== knowing the answers to some jeopardy questions and voicing them out before alex trebek says the right answer, especially when someone is around to hear them.

====rendering my mother speechless: us watching TV. mama snorting “nagrerelilive-in, tapos mangalas magkabaradusan”. me as-a-matter-of-factly replying in a tone i use to talk to my little cousins, “ma, dae man kaipuhan maglive-in para mabadus. kaipuhan lang magsex.”

i know she opted for euphemism because heaven forbid her kids hear her say that word. i however love going in for the kill and seeing the shock on her face when i  use that word. hehe…

=== knocking on teapot’s door when she’s sleeping. revenge is sweeeeet..

=== napping in the middle of work. shhh…..

to be continued….

socialinterview.com

“What is the funniest thing you’ve ever seen/heard Tinafay Kafay do/say?”

I answered: “everything is funny with tinapay. but the best was her quip that she’s “easy”..hehe “

how is that funny cat?

i like my hair lugod pag dae tig-huhugay. pagpig-eefortan, garo na tatagan.

dancing at 2:55 am to justin timberlake’s “rock your body”.

walang tulugan!

THAT’S IT! i’m getting myself one of those water heating chuvas. showers are supposed to be relaxing. not something i dread doing at the end of the day (and sometimes neglect doing because it’s just too painful to drag myself in there when my body is dead tired na….euw).

btw, had to make that disclaimer as my title because in the past, each time i complained about my job, something would go horribly wrong and id find myself comforting my jobless ass with several helpings of buds baked mac (and that doesn’t sound right..hehe).

work today literally brought me to tears. not the volume itself but my inability to work at a regular pace because of sheer exhaustion from lack of sleep the night before. work ran an unprecedented 16 hours, finished a little before 1AM. in a reversal of roles, we had to take on some of the load from a number of manila officemates because of the scheduled brownout in their respective places.  (as far as i know, the bicol MTs have this excuse down to a T.. because we do have lousy power services, our place especially. bossing probably just rolls her eyes whenever a bikolano MT begs off from work because of brownout, “hmp. wala nabang iba?”). so this is what it feels like to be dumped on with another batch of dirty laundry just when you thought you’re done with the whole hamper. not a good feeling.

hay. another day tomorrow. again, i’m not complaining. just making kwento. there’s a difference.

=slept as early as 10pm. got woken up by rustling plastic at 1AM. i wonder whatever happened to my mantika sleeping power abilities. i must really be getting old.

= earlier, had to sit through two hours of vanessa hudgens’ nasal singing voice. now why does she get cast as the girl who sings when her voice is not even that remarkable? she acts like she sings…lackluster…and very annoying.

=saw the timetraveler’s wife as kadobol. didn’t fall in love with the characters but saw eric bana’s butt in all its nekkid glory five times (yes i counted).

= craving for jollibee’s new chicken BBQ. when will this little barrio have its own avenue strip daw hay. if i was living near centro, i could sneak out right now and be chowing down on two, no make it three pieces of chicken BBQ. kainis.

= chats with cathy make me a little less abnormal and a little more gaga. funny girl.

= waiting for a reply. things are different. confused but hopeful that things will eventually get better.

= 4AM…in the stillness of the night, i suddenly hear nobody, nobody but you. now i feel like dancing but i should be sleeping. try to sleep tinapay. goodnight world.

pepeng gave me my four-day vacation (weekend included). the brownout lasted til 7 pm last night and was only able to work for 2 hours using up the laptop’s batteries. i originally planned to go to lola’s, but bossing told me to not leave the house as it could be dangerous daa. aww. how  nice of her.

i’ve always wanted time away from work.

so why do i feel this big disappointment when i woke up and found out i wasn’t assigned the weekend work? why? when every freaking weekend, i struggle with meeting the deadline and wishing til i turn blue that the work would magically get done without me having to lift a single weary bone in my body.

hay. you know what they say about contentment? it’s not something most of us can claim to. we’re all such restless individuals, always wishing for another thing when what we have is perfectly fine. you’ve always wanted a vacation and now you have it. what do you intend to do with it? more importantly, how are you going to make it worth missing out on the oh-so-important-center-of-your-life work?

i have no idea. but i think i’ll start with washing my hair thoroughly. take all the grime out of this week’s tragedies. and combing it for once! yey!

you too have a great weekend.

shucks, the news are depressing and uplifting at the same time.

saddened by the massive destruction brought by ondoy.

uplifted by the sheer strength, goodness, and resilience of the human spirit.

praying pepeng will be kinder or better yet, change its course.

hoping the people downstairs left some food for me as i am now duling hungry.

warm hugs for everyone.

i miss kikay and lalaine. especially lalaine. i have never seen a more politically conscious 15 year old or a sharper memory for songs and tv commercials. i actually miss her shouting at the TV “hambugon kang hayup ka, arroyo!” and her twinkling eyes when she’d retell me scenes from boys over flowers, usually ending with, “gwapuhon talaga si jun pyu adi ate?“.  she knows every word to every commercial she’s seen…and she’s seen them all i guess. i said i would give her the preamble and the table of elements for her to memorize just for fun, but we never got to that because they prematurely left. 99% sure they’re not coming back.

last fiesta , mama wouldn’t allow them to watch gerald anderson at the plaza show. she played the “stampede” card and unwaveringly told them, “no”.

so buds and i cooked up a plan. i’d tell mama i’d buy lots of heavy grocery so i’d need the two girls to carry them home since i’d be attending to something else after. clever, right? sadly, we never got to act out our seamless plan…the morning before the show, i heard they had to leave.

the house is quieter now. even geno, tatay’s singing caretaker, lalaine’s nemesis, has flat-out admitted to missing them. he now has no one to bicker with and he has to solely bear the full, 170-pound brunt of mama’s fury every time something gets screwed whereas before, all three of them took equal bites out of the pie of sermon my mother would serve them on a regular basis. i now find my amusement from geno’s attempts at domesticity, his consecutive palpaks, and the dramatic  “oh em gee ate, naloloka na ako!”.

of all the ones who came, they were the only ones i had hoped would stay longer than originally planned.

too bad they had to leave.

we’ve connected the dots and we now know who you are. yanggi is a very good detective. joy,hmm…not so much. hehe.

we understand if you still don’t want to reveal your true identity, we get that.

but we’re just saying,

BISTADO KA NA!

bwahahahaha!!!….

this is what i work with these days.

the idea is mama’s. the tambod is tatay’s. the pain is bearable but still a bitch. especially when you only get two hours of sleep each day. i don’t think it serves any purpose other than to remind me to NOT USE THE RIGHT HAND outside of work. it screams at me, “if you want to continue with this line  of work for  a couple more years, give me some idle time”. so i am now, for the time being, for most part anyway, a lefty.

oh, i’m such a sweetheart around everyone these days. i get hugs for my bellyaching. really. the fact that i’m such a whiner hasn’t even been brought up.(the tone here is sarcastic if you’re wondering).

hay. i need a fully body massage and a sleeping pill or two. and i could give these guys a run for their money.

a guy when asked, “how can one tell a real man?” very authoritatively and haughtily answered, “the beer belly”.

which i followed up with another question, “so those with washboard abs?”

“gays”, he predictively answers.

yes, trust men to reduce a seemingly rare and difficult to attain characteristic deemed desirable by the opposite sex (the fit body) to a queer, unmanly trait. hay, foxes, think what you want, but the grapes REALLY ARE SWEET.

imagine a girl maliciously eyeing a vavavoom girl and the first girl immediately thinking, “lesbiana, hmp”. 

a very unlikely scenario right? that’s because we girls might want to tear some other girls’ hair out for being too pretty, but we never use homophobic slurs to make us feel better about ourselves.

i don’t understand why sexual insecurity is such a huge issue with guys. why blood has actually been shed over a mere suggestion that one could actually be gay (as if being one is the most demeaning and insulting assumption people could make of them).  we rarely see two guys being touchy-feely with one another, because god forbid they’d be accused of being less masculine than they actually are.

i admire that guy who actually has the guts to admit to some things uncharacteristic of adam’s descendants — like having seen a few telenovelas or knowing the words to some sappy love song by a boyband, or wanting to learn how to sew or bake — he who doesn’t take capital offense punishable by death at being called bakla, jokingly or otherwise.

and to wrap up my incoherent thoughts on this subject, your 50-inch girth doesn’t make you a real man, dude.

2:38 am. just woke up from a very sticky, uncomfortable sleep.

i’ll explain.

five hours ago, i told my mama that my hands hurt like hell. my wrists particularly.. she asked our help, lalaine to massage my arms. 20 minutes later, i had oil all over both my arms and felt sore from the kneading and whatnot. then lalaine said, “dae ka pede magkarigos ate”.

argghh!!! i forgot about that. i should have taken a bath first. is that even medically supported? pasma i learned from my friends is not daa. pero oh well, can’t argue with a 15-year-old girl.

so at 10pm, i begrudgingly went to bed. thank god the headache is gone. it’s been an unusually hot day that the AC seemed to be doing nothing…to either my headache or my temper.

so at almost 3am, i am awake and bothering tere about true blood and torrents. goodluck kung makatrabaho akong tultol sa aga.

shit, my back hurts like a bitch scorned.

taggy was right. i now understand you tere (pirmi akong late mahumaling, i know…story of my life…hehe)… i did sort of fall in love with edward on the midnight sun draft.

though i still say…..ben barnes.

oh  be still my heart. hehe…

= frustrated my project hasn’t gotten off the ground yet. turns out it’s not as easy to do business with former neighbors whom you’ve never spoken a kind word to - until now….decades later.

= squinting my eyes, scratching my head and trying my damn hardest to get back to work (which i haven’t even started yet actually, just opened some patient list), and failing miserably. i will work tomorrow. there. problem solved.

= whoa, that glen medeiros song i used to sing along to when i was a little kid is playing on the radio.  “you wananowbanaw how much i love you”. i had to invent some lyrics then. this song takes me back to mabolo, the rilis, the patos under the bamboo floors, the balance beams that took you to each house threshold, and the smell of sawdust in the air as my babysitter aka uncle skillfully used his spokeshave by the shed.

= teapot testing my resolve to not throw things at her again — singing in her choir tone and volume. the most annoying sound i have ever heard my entire life. EVER.

= buds running a fever but still refuses to be apart from her computer at this hour. stubborn ass girl.

= done with the twilight saga except for the midnight sun draft. should i read that as well, i wonder. is that gonna change my mind about the movie being poorly casted? okay, i sort of don’t hate bella as much now, but i hate that i still have to see kristen stewart and her bitchy eyebrows in all the installments.  i’m still  not feeling R-patz either.  i would like to think ben barnes (sigh….) would have made a better edward than that kill-bill-director-lookalike (i can’t resist, peace! hehe.) also, i say kick nikki reed out of the cast.  one barako-looking cullen is enough.

= waiting for the sugar rush after eating 3 kitkat bars and 2 packs of gummy bears. my ears are probably ringing but the radio’s drowning the sensation.

= looking forward to a long weekend (one doctor already said it’s a holiday on tuesday, but i’d never really know until then).

= wondering how cathy is going to celebrate her birthday tomorrow.  she hates growing older. says she just wants to bury herself under the sheets and not come out until her birthday has passed. what’s this aversion to adding to our years anyway? take out the numbers and we’re still as young as we feel (pep talk in preparation for MY own upcoming birthday).  anyways, i hope she spends it surrounded by happy people and lovely presents (minus one from me ta pag-uli mo na lang). happy birthday cathy! miss you na and love you. (i have NEVER said that to you ha, check your pulse…. and yes, it’s just this aging shit that’s making me all mushy…hehe). icecream’s on me when you get back home.

it’s really getting on my nerves.

estrada all geared up for 2010 presidency. getting all peacocky on his interviews again.

i am going out from under this anarchic rock and getting registered this time…just so i can be one of those who’ll cast a vote against him.

stupid political advisers. stupid avid supporters.

10:33 am and still no bossing. i wonder where she’d gone to.

i wonder if  “skinship” is a known word and i’m the only one who needed to look it up. i keep hearing it in the korean dramas ive seen. urban dictionary says it’s a konglish (korean enligsh) term for a relationship that primarily focuses on the exploration of the skin.  i wonder if im the only one who finds this a weird word.

i wonder if i’ll ever stop feeling uncomfortable about being set up. thanks luns for thinking along that line, pero shy kaya tlga ako.heheh..

i wonder when i’ll start liking bella swan as i read through the twilight saga (new moon palang ako taggy ta ngunyan pa lang ako nagpoon magbasa ulit). i never liked that she’s overly dramatic and thinks she can’t live without that man. sheesh.

i wonder if my internet connections would ever be okay again.

i wonder if i can go out tonight so i can stock up on my pancit canton, chips and chocolates.

hay…

i wonder if i have enough time for a nap before bossing comes back. shhh…..

if last week was my diarrhea from hell: celebrity edition week, this week it’s insomnia 2.0: back with a vengeance. it’s been months since i’ve last had this.  i thought i finally had it down. stop thinking about waking up early the next day. anxiety is your number one enemy. stop worrying. i was doing fine, sleeping nearly eight hours each night (dawa pirming late sa trabaho..hehe)..

until the weekend work that lasted til 5am happened. then everything got screwed. haven’t had a decent sleep since then.

haissh…. i’ve tried the warm milk, the warm bath, trying to turn in as early as 9pm…to no avail. i only start feeling mr. sandman’s dust during the day. when i try to sneak in a little catnap at lunch time, i dream about a doctor demanding to have me fired!

what to do? what to do?!

tonight, mama gave me two 25-mg meclizines. yes, antiemetic, antivertigo pills for traveling. she says it works magic for her.

now, if my room starts looking like raymond bus and my sister starts behaving like an obnoxious seatmate, i might actually fall asleep tonight.

marequest daw ako. next week: amnesia!

tinapay: “cathy asked me today if okay lang daa o corny na she wants to find an all-consuming love.”

bajoy: rolls her eyes “ano ba yan”.

tinapay: “i said it’s okay. who doesn’t want an all-consuming, butas-bulsa kind of love anyway?”

bajoy: “i hope i find my all-consuming love soon para gabus na desisyon ko nakabase na duman, saen ako maistar, anong trabaho ko, everything will fall into place, and id find my place in this world na”.

tinapay: “garo compass?”.

bajoy: “iyo. pero dapat makahanap muna kita na at least may spark”.

tinapay: “iyo, maski watusi lang, ok na yan.”

bajoy: “tapos sunod na si all-consuming love”

tinapay: “pano palan joy kun you have a series of all-consuming loves? bako man daw yan mapagalon? at the end, upos kana kayan.”

bajoy: “dae, may buildup man yan ata. si mga naenot banayad lang. si panghuri all-consuming na”.

tinapay: “saka ta not everything in life is in that precise order?”

bajoy: “ay panget man yan.”

tinapay: “let’s ask the love guru aka cathy lugod.”

       — end of conversation—–

im definitely not amused.

please no more. please, i feel so weak na.

please let me see hard, fully formed shit.

hahaha….that sounded funny in my head.

now, it just sounds disgusting.

roll eyes here.

tere has told me about photoscape a month ago and ive only now just gotten around to tinkering with it and it’s great! bye-bye pimples and raccoon eyes! pipo can eat my dust na. hahaha…. (joke, oh great photographer) i have no artistic eye like he does, but i’ll practice. try it y’all (the six people who read this blog

mayung magkontra tab!

napurnada sine time gawa ng problema sa bangko.

walang pera.

buti na lang may internet.

korean drama time. (at may tira pa palang trabaho, hala, lagot!)

my cousin, auntie, and i went out for coffee tonight and we got to reminiscing the old times… our parents’ old times.

thanks to my aunt, i now have something to rebut my mother with when she gets all “i’m so above all that crappy lovey mushy crap”.

short version of the story: when my tatay was courting mama, he’d take my aunt who was probably seven then and walk from mabolo to lerma (where my mama lived). on the way there, they’d have to pass the railroad and my father, being the kurips he was, would start picking every flower he’d see. one particular plant grew almost the entire stretch of the railroad track though. this one plant, he’d always pick flowers from. now, knowing my father and his complete disregard for aesthetics, it couldn’t have been because he thought these flowers looked cute. he was plain kurips.  he didn’t have much choice since these were the only ones available for the picking.

so he’d lovingly gather these flowers and give them to mama each time he makes akyat ligaw.

which flower was it? get your notepads out because this actually works, living proof here telling you.

it’s the flower from the makahiya plant.

the picture here actually looks okay, almost pretty even….well, maybe because it’s magnified 10 times! do you know how tiny these flowers are? i wonder how many of these boogers my tatay used to pick and how he’d present them. knowing my father, i’d guess he’d just stuff them inside a tiny plastic bag and hand them to mama like a slice of dinailan. “ho, burak”.

for a daughter who never thought of her parents being the tiniest bit romantic with each other, playing this scene in my head made me laugh so hard, i almost had  choco drink coming out of my nose!

flowers are, after all, flowers. throughout history, they have proven to weaken a woman’s defenses, sweeten her disposition, and even melt her frozen heart. (okay, that doesn’t apply to every girl living beyond the 19th century, but please take off your feminist robe just this once and admit that it is nice to receive flowers once in a while .)

but maybe my mother didn’t really find the microscopic petals pretty. maybe she didn’t really like its grassy smell or its prickly thorns. maybe she just appreciated the effort my father had put in to get her those flowers. or maybe she really didn’t see into my father’s kaadimuhanan. maybe she just really liked him.
so now when my mother gets on her high horse and yaps about how easy some girls of this generation are, i’d have this to say,

“hmp, ika nani nadara sa burak kan turog-turog!”

sometimes i like pushing myself. to find out how long i can last without a decent sleep and what damages the lack thereof does to my body.  it’s one of my idiotic attempts at self discovery.

im now doing that. i have probably slept a total of seven hours in a 72-hour period. just done with the weekend work. traveled miles and miles to arrive at this conclusion, “sleep is effing important.” i wish they could come out with a pill one day that offers all the benefits of a nine-hour sleep.

daytrip nightmare again. no bestfriend to keep me entertained this time. alone again naturally. hehehe…..

i am attracted by cheap, cheap things.

 whenever i see the word “bargain”, i palpitate and convulse a little.  the “% off”  gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. i walk like a zombie towards anything that says “SALE” or “buy one take one”.

i was passing by booksale today and i saw huge sale signs at the entrance. i thought, hmmm…..baka they have cookbooks on sale din (which we now have dozens of, all from sales by the way)… then i saw the 10-peso hardbound books on display. thick books with glossy covers. some even have really cute pictures on them. i frenziedly went through the collection, read some synopses, picked a bunch i found interesting, then exitedly texted tere about the sale. later on, as i was riding the tricycle, i realized, “readers don’t care about cheap books. they look for their favorite authors or a particular genre. tere probably wouldn’t mind spending 500 pesos on her favorite bestseller. you’re the only one excited about hardbound books penned by nobodies”.

admittedly, i am not much of a reader, not by my brother’s standards at least (who by the way reads international political commentaries to the paper used to pack tinapa. voracious doesn’t even come close to desribing the kind of reader he is). anyways, the thought of getting six books on a single purchase is  a bit uncharactestic of me. i don’t read much but my cheapness drove me to buy six books! how sick is that? i now have a 101 on pilates, three spy murder novels, and a couple others about dragons and dressmaking with really cute pictures on them. NOW, im obligated to read. maybe i’d pick up on reading again. who knows?

this recurring ailment of mine had me pondering as i was going home, am i just a bargain addict? or am i really that cheap?

to further illustrate the extent of my cheapness…let me present a few facts to you.

fact #1:  i probably have five ukay trench coats, i got each for 50 to 100 pesos. all of them nicely folded inside my drawer. each worn once the most.  i pray for hailstorm every now and then because otherwise, id probably never get to wear them again.

fact #2:  my poor, worn out sneakers are way passed their “do not resuscitate” status. i should have replaced them two years ago, but i can’t bring myself to. they were expensive by my standards to begin with, so by calculation, they still have a year of service left, give or take.

fact #3: i have a dozen broken watches (one of my favorite things in the world, you’d think i wouldn’t mind stretching a little, right?).

fact #4: my desktop is still unable to be used because im too cheap to pay for some “toad’s repair services” when i could sweet talk one of my little cousins to do it for me.

it’s a long list i tell you, so it gets boring.

now, to the dissection of this complex disease. i usually rationalize, nakakatipid ako. i am stretching my money’s worth by buying thrice the number of items i could get compared to a single purchase of a regularly priced “quality” product, because if one of them broke nga naman, i still have two. pretty childish, huh? but that’s how i always see it. plus, i have a very short “like” span, so buying less pricey, inferior-quality products that are bound to break after a few uses is a much reasonable thing to do than getting an expensive, heirloom quality product i’d get tired of next month.

i have also theorized, cheapness is heriditary. i just take after my father. everything he did in his heyday screamed “cheap!”. let me paint you a picture. cathy’s mom, who owns a banana stall sa market, would painstakingly set aside the almost rotten bananas for one particular customer - my tatay. just because they’re practically free. also, when i was a kid, i remember, he’d take us to his school sa sabang. on foot. from calauag. i probably went twice, then i begged mama to never let me go with him again. for years, we had to bother our poor neighbors for drinking water because he was too cheap to apply for NAWASA.

so there.

i know my reasoning is pretty lame though.

just read this article i found on cheapness….. it pretty much sums up everything there is to know about cheapness and overcoming it. ako, im going to get off my cheap ass and leaf through the cheap books i just bought. 

really, i do.

though i don’t see them that often because of our busy schedules, on rare times that we do get together, i say that to myself (often followed by a long tsskkkkkk).

they individually came from separate periods of my life but amazingly enough, it seems as if they one day decided to meet up behind my back, put their heads together, and agreed on one thing: “pair tinapay up with someone…anyone“.

all of them have one way or another tried to give me a gentle push or a forceful shove into that potential someone’s path. they probably share the same frustration at watching me prance around by myself all the time (which i really don’t find anything wrong with by the way).

my bestfriend, though a perfectly cautious person when it comes to “meddling” into other people’s affairs, has more than once tried to “introduce” me to a co-worker whom we happen to bump into at the grocery and later on would scold me for not paying attention when the introductions were being made. she would say i could’ve at least tried to feign interest and manage more than just a curt nod. (next time bes, i’ll try to curtsy or beso just to shock you, hehehe).

guy friends on the other hand skip the introduction part and give me their bud’s number (from the newly broken up to this dude they know from high school or that guy across their house…anyone with a freaking cellphone!).. and of course, their approach to this whole thing is still macho …”yan ha, dae ko kaya aram kun ano baya hanap mo, bsta itext mo lang yan para dae ka man mabored. tapos malay mo”. hehehe….sweet no? guys are after all guys…. they can’t be bothered with the mushy stuffs, but at least they try to navigate through these situations strategically.

cathy, on the other hand, has taken it upon herself to bombard me with daily tips on how to get a guy, how i should look like to get a guy,  where i can get a guy, what to say when there’s a guy around… basically anything that has something to do with guys. i’m enjoying our almost daily repartee and i am taking notes, mind you,  but really, i haven’t seen you in action cat. how is the apprentice going to follow in the master’s footsteps if she hasn’t even been showcased these so-called talents? sige daw, pasikatan mo daw ako pag-uli mo.
now, tere….she shares the same goal as the rest. she likes to see me ride off into the sunset with someone, but she has got to take the award for the funniest, sometimes embarrassing approaches at accomplishing this goal.

okay, story sharing time. while we were in caramoan, the tricycle we were riding in had to stop at the checkpoint where a bunch of soldiers in uniform asked us the usual questions. “masaen po kamo?” and the likes. we were then cleared to proceed to our destination and just as the tricycle was about to rev up, tere shocked everyone by asking the soldier “single ka po?”. i knew right there and then what she was going to say next, but i just bit my cheek to keep from laughing. i was right. she next pointed at me and practically told the soldier to hit me with a club, throw me over his shoulders, and carry me to the boondocks (hehehe….joke lang, she just said, “siya po single man”…to which the soldier must have thought “o, labot ko man kayan”)…anyways, looking down and too embarrassed to say anything to the soldier, i hastily told our driver to hurry up as it was getting late. end of story. pheuw! just one of the cute, embarrassing, scary, and funny ordeals tere puts me through. heck, if it were probably up to her, she’d sell me to anyone who’d take me. no, scratch that, she’d pay any guy to take me. she’s really that sweet (and so devoid of subtlety oftentimes! heheh).

so there. i really appreciate all the efforts my friends are making just so i wouldn’t end up at villa marillac. i love them all. and don’t worry you guys. i really don’t like villa marillac.

just came back from the best weekend getaway ive EVER had.

i don’t even mind na gabus atang parte kan hawak ko nagraralagitok na sa pagal.

i can’t decide if it’s because caramoan is that fun or my backpacking buddies are the coolest bunch…it’s a tossup i guess.

and another item exed on my to-do-before-i-die list, i got do some wallclimbing! and no ropes pati! hababa man sana, pero so steep, i kept telling myself, “u could crack your head open on those sharp rocks tinapay, what the hell are you trying to prove?” thankfully though,  i just had cuts on my hands and feet but my skull’s still intact.

one more thing i found surprising was how much i enjoyed the rocky, almost violent, could-toss-you-off-the-boat part of the boatride. i still eyed the cluster of lifevests ever so often, but i thought it was almost like riding a carousel.  (weird for a person who wouldn’t even cross the bicol river in a baruto, adi?).

anyways, yan cat ha, may lugar na kitang dudumanan kun saen mo kami pedeng ilibre ni joyee. reasonable prices nya promise.
dali na ngani kan pag-uli ta gusto ko nang magri-leave nin sarong semana…… 

one proof of that funny, funny day..

in case you’re wondering, that’s me with the least guts. the one who wanted to be engulfed by the tides right there and then….hehehe…

it’s kind of liberating really. and a bit itchy.
but of course, we didnt spend the entire time in our birthday suits (si paige lang may karapatan ta birthday niya tlga..hehe)….

“Gurang-gurang kana madayaon ka pa giraray!”

faint, garbled phrases.

“Saen mo man yan kinua? poon talaga kaidto hanggang ngunyan, puro daya aram mo!”

irritated mumbling.

“Ho! tira mo na! yan naman daya ulit ikaag mo.”

a loud hmpf….

—my mama and tatay playing scrabble early in the morning. such amusing repartee.