catch 23: birthday wishlist

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
--Chili Davis

since i'll be turning 23 in less than five months, i might as well share my birthday wishlist as early as now.

friends, real and otherwise (mwahahaha!), if you feel in your heart that you truly (madly and deeply?) want to give me a birthday gift this year, just choose:

balloons
not a balloon but balloons -- don't forget the s! i want them in pastel colors and in fancy shapes and in sizes that are niether too big nor too small. they can't be too big because they might take too much space and i might not be able to keep them in my room nor be able to carry them. they can't be too small either because i might not see them at all, hahaha!

make sure there's a yellow balloon, okay?

letters and/or greeting cards
it'll be december and it's easy to pick a card and write a line or two at that time of the year. i'm not really too picky when it comes to these things, but i prefer letters over commercial greeting cards -- i like to see effort.

and hey, these are the things that will surely stay with me even long after i've read them.

compilation of the mp3's of songs that i like...
...or i might like. you get to choose the songs, burn them in a cd, and give the cd to me. i would appreciate it if you could include the lyrics... hahaha! i'm not too demanding, really.

...or you could insist on giving me an iPod. i promise, i won't complain. i really won't.

chronicles of narnia by c.s. lewis
i'd like to buy my own copies... but if you prefer buying them for me, i wouldn't mind. i'd say, by all means go and buy them for me. i'll repay you by mentioning you in my last will and testament -- that is if i get around to writing one!

a bunch of tootsie rolls
i'm not really into chocolatey things but i just want to see tootsie rolls again. it would be better if you could throw into the package a bar or two of cloud nine or big bang, cheez curls, lipps candy, hebe, haw flakes and big boy or bazooka (with the fortune ticket!) bubble gums. yeah, it's gonna be a pabaon for my trip down memory lane.

if you could include that people power cheesy treat (with the sticker inside), i'd be too overwhelmed!

an orange waterproof jacket
i like jackets and i'd like to have an orange jacket -- i imagine it would be bright enough to make my eyes hurt if i stare at it for more than an hour. it should have a hood -- an orange waterproof jacket just ain't that good without a hood.

of course, choose one that fits me.

a serving of Haagen Dazs ice cream
i'm not asking for an entire container, i'm just asking for a scoop. haagen dazs. haagen dazs. i want my haagen dazs.

birthday candles
no, no, no... i don't want a single birthday candle that says 23. i prefer 23 birthday candles -- not a candle less and certainly not a candle more. i know how to count, so i'll find out if you cheat! hehehe... definitely, they shouldn't be in black or death violet or any other goth color. they don't necessarily have to be on a cake. see, i only want the candles.

uhm... what else did i miss?

if none of the ones listed above appeal to your good nature, you can also choose to give me whichever of the following: a set of colored pencils, a box of sakura poster colors, graphic pen and tablet, canon slimcam, videocam, house and lot, another huge hugga-bear, white-sand beach, world peace, round trip ticket to batanes or singapore, apple notebook...

...or thoughtful greetings. just remember. i'm easy to please.

the sweet pill

Remedium amoris -- The cure for love is still in most cases that ancient radical medicine: love in return.
-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Daybreak

through thick, through thin...

Where there are friends, there is wealth.
--Titus Muccius Plautus

we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun... but since i don't want you to sing THE song, i'm not gonna say "the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time" nor "the wine and the song like the seasons have all gone". hehehe...

the times we've had, the countless places that we've been to, the swimming pools, beaches, waterfalls and forests where we've played, the bottles we've overturned, the songs we've sung, and the dreams we've shared... they're not gone. they're not out of season. they are still with us... just like our friendship and its echoes of laughter...

...and yesterday (july 17, 2005) can attest to that.


tiny souvenirs of a well-spent, fun-filled & pocket-friendly sunday afternoon
of jerk, val, miez, randz and naoms
we had ping pong, we had laughter. we had food, we had laughter. we walked, we had laughter. we took a rest, we had laughter. we had food, we had laughter. we played billiards, we had laughter... just like the old times... just like when we were in iligan.

for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, in luzon, in visayas, or in mindanao, and probably even in the most unlikely portions of the universe... through thick, through thin, stik pa rin!

less than three years ago, we, the p6peeps, had iligan, naawan, lanao, ozamis, tangub, oroquieta, calamba, zamboanga, and cebu. now, we have metro manila...

kay mga laagan lagi! =)

what is this i'm feeling?

i've always thought i'm made of tougher stuff. guess what. i'm not so sure of that anymore -- now that i've found my match. at least, now that i think i've really found my match.

Aasa ka na ang dalangi'y gagabay sa yong damdamin
Ngunit saan ka dadalhin ng hangin at agos?
nostalgia sucks.

could this be brought about by quarter life crisis? or could this be another bout with depression? sheeeeeeeeez, how many more must i endure? double sheeeeeeeeez, i'm tired of holding back my tears and i don't wanna cry anymore... but the emotional being in me is trying to surface again. i think i've cried more in the past two years than i ever did during my first twenty years on this planet.



if only pictures like these were enough to chase away my homesickness...
grrr... and the questions keep haunting me! can't people just stop asking and spare me the agony of saying "i don't know"?

Alam mong bawat pusong nagmamahal
Dumarating sa sangandaan
Ngayong narito ka kailangang magpasya
Aling landas ang susundin ng puso?
Saan ka liligaya, saan mabibigo?
Saan ka tutungo?
what must i do? ma! i wish...


i wish i was home.
i know... i ought to stop whining. i shouldn't drown the world with my troubles for the problems out there are far greater than whatever ails me...

for now, excuse me. i have to give in -- i'll go and cry my heart out. it's the only easy way i know i have to do to have my strength back.


*words in italics are lyrics of the song sangandaan (words by jose lacaba and set to music by d. achaoso)

of yellow cab pizza sundays & friends

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.
-- Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

july's yellow cab sunday crowd: manman, sealdz, yoni, val and janjan

first, my story.

here we go, again...

i got so sick one day. i didn't have the strength to go out of my room. i couldn't accompany cinema buddy to the movies and i couldn't eat out. there i was... befriending my bed, hugging my blanket and my pillows, feeling alone and forgotten. this happened many, many, many months ago.

STOP! where's the yellow cab? this is about yellow cab pizza, not about you being so sick one day.

stop ka rin!

as i was saying, i got sick. i was alone in my room many miles away from home. i had no one to look after me every now and then to check if i was still breathing or what. i thought i was forgotten... i was not. cinema buddy was an angel that day, she checked on me and decided to be of help.

since it was a weekend and going out was out of the question because of my condition, we went for the next best thing... we ordered yellow cab pizza from their katips branch and had movie-watching/pizza-eating session inside my room 'til the wee hours. cinema buddy's comfy mat and my bed tray proved to be useful for our make-shift entertainment system. hehehe.

...and that's the story of my first taste of yellow cab pizza.

as for the sundays... i don't know when we started having yellow cab pizza sundays. it's a "tradition" that my friends and i never really planned to have until we realized it was already one. (medyo malabo ba?)

to unwind and lose the feeling of toxicity, we usually go out for fun and interesting conversations on weekends and eat somewhere... and "tradition" dictates that at least one sunday of each month is yellow cab pizza sunday -- either in katips, in visayas avenue or anywhere.

the branch in visayas ave is our favorite yellow cab place. the ambience -- al fresco -- on the second floor is the main reason why we like being there. everytime we're there, we ogle over the yellow motorbikes parked outside. more than the pizza, more than the chicken wings, more than the pasta, i love the color yellow and cinema buddy likes the yellow motorbikes, hahaha!

so, it was just fitting that cinema buddy's birthday fell on a sunday this year and as a birthday treat, she shouldered our yellow cab tab for this month's first yellow cab pizza sunday!!!

cute pics. nice poses. beautiful people. i have nothing else to say except... happy birthday, shalldie!

a home to return to

wonderful place + wonderful people + wonderful experience = home