and introducing...

it was part luck and part good decision. somehow, i was firm enough not to join my first friends at work in their 2am - 11am shift. i insisted in getting the 9pm - 6am shift. as it turned out, i became part of the most crazy and most fun team in our account, later known as:

TEAM BANGALORE (Off to Bangalore, 7May2005)

(Ruffles, Corey, Jim, Geb, Ann, Sunshine, Jayvee, Francis)

(George Stregan Jr.)

(Baby Bear : taking the picture hehe hapi bertdey!)

(Next Stop: Sri Lanka!)

*sigh

i always say, i'll know when i'm ready for a lifetime when it comes. i thought it has. but i guess, i'm not ready yet...

An April Fool

went down to
catch the elevator.
And in between,
the small talk and
the laughter, wished,
I'm not the only
April fool
tonight...

360 degrees

it took me about 360 days to turn my life around...what a thought...

"swept away"

going down the elevator of my office building has always been a treat. not only am i going to a place where i can smoke but i also get to hear the sounds of the guards of the graveyard shift. if i get lucky, i share the elevator with someone...

I never had anything happen so fast
I took one look and I shattered like glass
I guess I let it show 'cause your smile told me you knew
That you're everything I ever wanted at once
There's no holding this heart when it knows what it wants
And I never wanted anything more than to know you

I was swept away
No one in the world but you and I
Gotta find a way to make you feel the way that I do
I was swept away
Without a warning
Like night when the morning begins the day
I was swept away

And so it begins
This journey of love
The summer wind carries us to places all our own
The words of a look
The language of touch
The way that you want me means so much
And I never wanted anything more than to love you

Seeing my tomorrows in your eyes
I was swept away

I hope I wake up soon
I'm a victim of that crazy moon

The very first time you said my name
I knew it would never sound the same
Something about me is changed forever

text message from a friend:

(from a book she read)

there's no use in loving someone you can only wake up to by chance.

Norah Jones Live!

Araneta Coliseum March 12, 2005

i forgot to put an entry for this...

i want to wake up with the rain
falling on a tin roof
while i'm safe there in your arms

so, all i ask is for you to...

norah jones sang about 20 songs straight without intermission, including my favorite song, humble me. i just wish i can watch her perform again in smaller venue while drinking wine by candlelight...

Ever had the exact same dream twice?

(yeah, that's what i thought so, too.)

after 2 months,

i finally knew what to tell the jeepney driver when he'd ask me where i would go down.

for the longest time, i knew where i was going. i just couldn't tell other people, who didn't know, where it is exactly. i guess, now, i can.

On Written on the Body

As Jeanette Winterson puts it.

I wanted to look again, (I am always looking again) at love's ability to shatter and heal simultaneously. Loving someone else destroys our ideas of who we are and what we want. Priorities change, friends change, houses change, we change. Part of the strangeness of being human is our need of boundaries, parameters, definitions, explanations, and our need for them to be overturned. For most people, only the positives of love and faith (and a child is both), or the negatives of disaster and disease, achieve this. Death comes too late. The final shattering affects others, but not ourselves.

Why is the measure of love...loss?

and when will i ever get it right?

"this year"

watched serendipity, again, this morning before sleeping, so, here's the song of the day:
by chantal kreviazuk

This year,
is gonna be incredible
This year,
is gonna be the one
All the planets are lining up for me
This year,
I'm gonna have fun
This year,
I'll paint my masterpiece
This year,
I'll be recognized
I can feel like I'll fall in love for real
This year,
this year
January,
I'll learn to fly
February,
love's gonna find me
March, April, May,
I'll get carried away
Oh, oh...
This year,
I'll reach the pinnacle
This year,
I'll get to the top
People will ask where she gets that energy
This year,
I'm never gonna stop
January,
I'll learn to fly
February,
love's gonna find me
March, April, May,
I'll get carried away
Oh, oh, oh, oh...
This year,
is gonna be incredible
This year,
is gonna be the one
All the planets are lining up for me
This year,
I'm gonna have fun
I'm gonna have fun
Just watch me now
This year...

text message for a friend who's feeling blue:

get some rest. then, start your day like it's a totally new day, like it's the only day of the year. that way, you don't bring the bad things from yesterday and also, you can make sure tomorrow's gonna be ok.

it has been a mystery to me how to do what Ralph Waldo Emerson had written to write it on your heart like it's the last day of the year.

now, i can.

dem subic extreme adventure

dem back in 1994 with asti spumanti.


11 years later, still with joey cuervo, and still at it.

it was a great weekend. my back is still sore.

coming off from work at 6am last saturday morning, i went home then caught the 8:30am bus to olongapo city. still without sleep, i managed to eat my fave shredded sweet corn in double happiness (pangalan pa lang, champion na!), get to olongapo in one piece (take note: not two-piece, hehe), met up with dem and s.o.'s (first overnight w/ boyfriends), and went straight to subic extreme adventure beside j.e.s.t. (jungle survival camp).

we immediately saw the hanging bridge and tried our luck crossing it (grabe, fear factor ito!). there were pics of other activities, unfortunately, walk-ins are limited to 2 hanging bridges + 3 zip lines. only 5 of us went on to do it. the first zip line wasn't that exciting but the long bridge after that was (buti na lang! dapat pa naka-connect ka dun sa cable kasi pag nahulog ka, gudlak sa yo).

after us was another group. at may isang merlie na nag-iinarte. sigaw ng sigaw. aaah manong ayoko aaaah wag nyo akong bitawan pleeeease! and finally, when she let go, she shouted, aaaaaaaahhh ay, ang saraaaap! bwiset! sarap itulak. good thing we were tied to a tree, like dogs. hehehe

the long zip line and the zip line going for the ground felt a lot better but my back snapped. hey, it was worth it. try it out at least once in your lifetime.

and what's the catch?-- the free trek going up. in every step, my knee met with my chin. uhuh no kidding. no wonder we got hungry afterwards. and so, we went straight to our fave cafe in subic and ate nacho grande, 1 pasta, and a huge pizza (you want proof?!). hehehe

we took our time, laughed at our pics, and went for go-kart racing at 7pm (me still without sleep. maglulupasay na sana ako sa bleachers). what can i say? i felt the need, the need for speed. it was a race and i won! hehehe at about 40kph. for karting, i know that's fast and it was definitely a treat to those who didn't join us.

tired...and hungry again, we went back to our hosts' apartment and finally, i slept. and woke up with joey cuervo. hehehe di pa ako bote pare, lah-shing pa!!!

at an average age of 26, it was as if we were kids again.

i feel so alive... just the way i like it.

Running out of by-the-way's...

what else is there to say?

wala ka na naman today.

russian buttons, bachelor's buttons, cornflower...

this flower by any other name would still smell as sweet.



cheers to the flower of friendships. happy russian button feast, dem!

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,-
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

Rainer Maria Rilke

(Translated by Stephen Mitchell)


you do find things you need (and want) when you least expect them...

My fortune cookie says:

The road to happiness is finding contentment with what you have.


i will patiently live my life one small miracle at a time.

(about a hundred down, and millions to go...)

Best Birthday Greeting

happy b-day! pinagluto kita ng cake, kinain namin agad. tink yu! ~inday puns

11 years of friendship, loves lost, loves gained, and then some

All for dem, more for us.

you'd know you're starting to be mature when all cliches about the good things in life start to make sense.