"Do you use a (panty) liner?"

Since Jon started working in trade marketing, he seems to have touched onto his more feminine side. He has become the go to guy for the advice on milk baths, lotions (Aveno), and napkins (I quote, "Have you heard of Sisters? Maganda yun and cheap!"). It has also made him the king of most inappropriate questions ever. Although it's not something the promise of product samples can't fix.

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Jemai had just returned from his grad trip to Paris, where he was able to hear Sharapova's grunting from the bleachers at the French Open (hate him!). As his pasalubong, he gave moi a pocket Moleskine, something I've wanted for a long time but just never had the will to shell out cash for.

On our way back to the real world from spending the day at Nine Waves with Cris, Paul, Yna, Greg, Edgar, Jon, and a very late Jonar, we agreed that the worst thing about going to Europe is that when you get back to your third world country home, everything just feels so blah. Nothing seems as beautiful as Paris with its free pooper scooper stations in parks, or the Renaissance paintings at the Hermitage, or even something as quaint as drinking a warm beer at a London pub. You miss the smell of rain on the old roads, or the whishing sound of the street cleaner, or the meaningful conversations with random locals. It seems as if even their street food kicks ours in the balls. I still remember buying sugar crusted belgian waffles topped with strawberries and whipped cream at the market in Sweden, I miss the still warm waffle cones topped with mounds of ice cream, or the blue collar fish and chips served in cones of old newsprint, and even Milan's pizza-by-the-pound. In Europe, it feels like people constantly take moments to live and to breathe in what makes life richer. I miss that. Visiting countries in Southeast Asia and even the US doesn't make me wish the place I called home were somewhere else, but visiting the cosmopolitan areas of Europe does. And having Jemai back recounting his Paris adventures somehow makes me feel that all over again.

Tags: me
Current Mood: contemplative

At Cris's invitation, we spent the day at Nine Waves to celebrate her grad and Paul Lim's birthday last monday. Attendance was low - Me, Yna, Cris, Paul Lim & Cris (duh!), Jemai, Jon, Greg, and a very late Jonar - which meant more food for everyone, and lunch was on Cris.

For a wave pool resort located in the middle of nowhere, er, San Mateo, it wasn't bad, amenities-wise. If one finds themselves desperate to at least imagine themselves at the beach with waves splashing, this is the place to be, only a good 30 minutes from Philcoa. Warning though, the wave pool is only turned on when there are 25 or more people in the pool (and then turned off when there's suddenly less). And the level of service is quite horrible, and there is the unavoidable and very noticeable blaring of the Nine Waves jingle every fifteen or so minutes. While it may sound like the refuge of the desperate, with the presence of desirable company (as there was today), it becomes almost fancy.

Tags: me, summer
Current Mood: okay

I was in Alabang last week for what perhaps is the
most paranoid Pre-employment exam ever. I arrived
extra early because I wanted keep the  duration of my
fast as short as possible. My last meal was at 8pm of
the previous evening and by 7am, I was starving. How
anorexics manage is a wonder. (This another indicator
of why I will never be stick thin). I was expecting it
to take only a couple of hours, but I was at the
Clinic from 830am to 2. It would have probably been an
hour shorter if it didn't take me so long to submit a
sample for the drug test. No it's not because I've on
something, but they wanted me to fill two whole sample
containers at just one go. As if that were not enough,
I had to do it in plain sight of the attending nurse,
behind a sliding door which turned out to be made of
glass. What pressure!

I'm extremely paranoid about my health. It's because I
don't want to die a painful death. And because i don't
want to die early (I'm still holding out for the age
of the teleport). And mostly because I don't want to
miss out on certain things in life just because I have
a condition that tells me not to. Plus, as Pbear says,
I'm really too cute to die. Haha.

Anyway, the medical exam had a tad bit more tests than
your typical X-Ray, Drug Test, and Pee Test. The
nurses took an ECG, an audiogram, and that
breathe-in-breathe-out test I used to take when I was
a kid with bad asthma. That kind of freaked me out for
a bit because for a split second I thought, "What if I
have a congenital heart condition and I only have a
few years to live?" or "What if all that eating has
ballooned my stomach and now my lungs have no space to
breathe?" or "What if someone snuck drugs into my
punch and now they think I'm a junkie?". Okay, the
last one was overreaching.

(It's funny, because sometimes the things you're
paranoid about are not the things that happen, and the
things you didn't worry about at all are the ones that
do.)

Diagnosis in. Everything is normal. Well, not
everything. For one my cholesterol is above normal,
but in my blood's defense, last year was my feasib
schoolyear, dose, and included a good two months of
lechon debauchery (it seems to be the gift of choice
nowadays). My lungs aren't in
three-nonstop-rounds-around-acad-oval shape anymore.
(I have to go back to letting it experience what it's
like to actually breathe in a whole lot of air because
it has to). I have mild hearing loss, (Damn you,
loudspeakers at my events!) which could explain why
I'm tone deaf, but maybe I just did the audiogram
thingy wrong. Oh, and I have an infection, but I they
made me take a pill for that.

I feel bad that I'm not at the peak of health. But
that's really my fault. I've always looked at "getting
fat" as a weight issue. And while I tend to obsess
about it one blog entry at a time, I've never thought
of it as that big a deal because that's just me: one
moment  I'm tanned (or not tanned) athlete crazy about
the best running shoes, backpack, attire, and sports
date and another moment, I'm a couch potato drowning
in FTv. But now, the truth is, I've been waiting a
whole lotta time to get out of this fitness rut. And
it's always been one step forward in that direction
and two steps back.

Reading this over, I sound like some crazy woman. Or a
heroin addict. But this restaurant-eating-couch-potato
lifestyle is really my addiction. And like some
junkie, I'm kind of blaming it on certain people
(Let's stop eating steak, and cupcakes at Serendra,
and half dozen Krispy Kreme with coffee breakfasts!).
Really, I've been trying to ease myself into being
healthy, but the last time that worked for any addict
was... never. I'm going cold, cold, cold turkey.
Without the buttery giblet gravy.

Tags: me
Current Location: ate joanne's office
Current Mood: determined

I'm going to be depressed, I just know it.

It's too early to be up on a saturday. Attention, all friends: Don't call at 4:30 am. Calls in the morning are reserved for emergencies - car trouble, I-may-be-pregnant calls, my-girlfriend-dumped-me-calls, and coyote ugly happened to me calls. So now, I'm awake three hours early, and praning. I hate waiting, especially for bad news bears. (Be ready for bear).

People always tell me, "Don't sweat the small stuff". I can't. It's because the small things do matter. And sometimes, many times, the small things manage to become big things, and you find yourself at a low.

Please Lord, just give me this. I promise to eat more fish. And to laugh more.

Tags: me
Current Location: at the edge
Current Mood: anxious

After a year off being pissed off at the Hollywood machine for Pirates 2 (Sobrang bitin! Nakakainis!), I saw the last installment of Pirates of the Caribbean last week with Aina. I don't know what the critics are saying, but I loved it. I thought it was weird that Johnny Depp kept on having hallucinations and sorry for Elizabeth and Will (I wanted a much happier ending than Will getting what is essentially conjugal visits once every ten years), but otherwise it was entertainment. Earlier, we ran into Dad at Cibo and we were lucky he footed the bill. I am going broke at the moment.

Mom and I had lunch at Tony Roma's yesterday where she blamed me the whole time about how bad the food was - the Marinara had 3 teeny shrimps and the salad was a bit too tart - and actually made me pay for our lunch. Gah! Whatever happened to being a dependent until September?!

Anyway, pretty much same old, same old last week. I'm actually looking forward to working, if only to have something to do other than laze around the house.

Tags: me, summer
Current Mood: blah

Finally. I like this. It feels like I'm moving forward.

Tags: me, summer
Current Mood: hopeful

The problem with me is I so easily develop irrational paranoia (or is that contradictory?, like, is any form of paranoia irrational, hence the term?).

Lemme check it out: Paranoia is an excessive anxiety or fear which is considered irrational and excessive, perhaps to the point of being a psychosis. Paranoia is distinct from phobias where there is an irrational and persistent fear (generally without blame) of certain situations, objects, animals, activities, or social settings.

So I'm irrational, and for me there's really no difference between what I'm constantly paranoid about or things (mostly big, sea animals) I'm afraid of. Some worthy cases in point:

1. I refuse to go into a body of water meters off the shoreline without some proof of certification that there are NO SHARKS in the water. Blame that on replays of Jaws on Channel 9.
2. I also refuse to associate myself with the worst kind of sharks - the ones living out of the water and pretending to be human. I still blame that on Jaws. I don't care if Discovery says they're grossly misunderstood creatures of the deep.
3. I hardly believe that GOOD THINGS CAN HAPPEN or as quoted from Hosseini's Kite Runner, "There is a way to be good again." But good things do happen to me all the time, I'm not necessarily Miss Lucky (I have yet to win the Lotto, but maybe that's because I never buy tickets), but I have to smack myself every now and then just to remind myself how good I have it.
4. I get swayed by statistics. For example, I'm not walking into any Australian waters any time soon. If Steve Erwin, Mister-I-Can-Handle-All-Forms-Of-Animals-With-My-Bare-Hands can die at the hands of a stingray, then I most certainly can.
5. My pets dying. I sometimes have weird dreams where they die, and I wake up the next morning determined to give them the best last meal.
6. Hobbies. Let's just say, no matter how interested I am. I have serious commitment issues.

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Went to Divisoria yesterday with Mom and got the yellow version of my Shox at Tutuban at 40% off. What a steal!

Tags: me, ridonculous, summer
Current Mood: lazy

Last night, my mom got me to accompany her to the subdivision's quarterly Ladies Night, an activity that was sure to reach the heights of Stepford-wifeness. Luckily, Marga and Peng were also appendages to their moms, and the evening was not as bad as I predicted. Unfortunately, age did not exclude us from getting to know games with the other ladies, and I found myself having to memorize everyone's names, ages, and addresses in order to win a game for my assigned team (we didn't). My mom was the big winner of the evening, she brought home seven items from the White Elephant pile. Even I won something, Marga and I got prizes for being the youngest participants. (I think there were more prizes than there were guests.)

I can't imagine ever being that age (that where my kids are old enough to legally drown themselves in alcohol) and doing something like being part of a group's beautification committee, or getting to the point where crowd pleasing jokes are mainly jokes about my age. I do look forward to being a "lady of leisure" as Tita Glenda calls herself or maybe even planning my children's weddings while I spend weekends at the farm. Ang layo pa nun, and what I want will change. Till then, I'm content with potluck dinners, being my mom's occasional appendage (I'll alway's be my mom's daughter), talking about future prospects with friends, and the occasional wedding fantasy (yep, even if I'm pretty much single, and strangely enough, okay with it). Hey, everyone's got the right to dream, don't they?

Tags: me, summer
Current Mood: content

Last night, open bar at Silver City. Open bar at Tisha's. And yet my alcohol consumption can be recorded as 1 glass apple vodka, and one shot of Gran Matador. I know I'm getting old because 1) Im so over the alcoholic phase regardless of the availability of free alcohol 2) My earlier dinner conversation at Sugi for Rhett's birthday celeb consisted of a debate over Obama, how Americans can't, no matter how much they want to, leave Afghanistan, and how crazy it is that Trillanes will actually become a senator of this republic (Ermmm, didn't he cause some civil unrest a couple of years ago which left me, my family, and dog stranded outside Manila?) 3) Late night conversation at Joy's birthday party with Pia, Gino, Raffy (or Ruffle, as I call him), Nina, and Arnold was all about investing for your retirement. Im not complaining. It's great to wake up the morning after two birthdays and not have a nasty headache to contend with for the whole day.

Over dinner at Sugi, I congratulated Faye on her impending nuptials (8/8/08). She is as bubbly as can be. Snippet of our conversation -

Kim: What's your dream wedding?
Faye: Gusto ko parang Matrix.
Kim: Huh?!

The dinner was great (but the Hamachi was a bit too fishy for my taste). Mostly, we teased Jing and Rhett endlessly. You know where two guys are way too close and they show it, and it's just funny because you know they're both straight it's just that they've gotten to that level of friendship where they're comfortable with being almost girlish when it comes to certain things. Example -

Jing: I wasn't going to come, you know. You didn't greet me on my birthday.
Rhett: I was going to be really pissed off if you didn't. This morning I felt bad.
Jing: Yeah, well, my last birthday I waited for your call and you didn't greet me.

This went on for about ten minutes, until Faye and I pointed out that it was a bit gayer than their usual.

Joy's birthday party pictures are in Tisha's multiply.

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The potbelly is a chick magnet!

Tags: me, summer
Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: the annoying beeps of the World of Warcraft

In typical "me" fashion, I greeted Rhett a day in advance for his birthday, which brought about the yearly contemplating on the meaning of it all a day in advance. Not even the Steak au Poivre at Palato Fino or an afternoon of Jeopardy reruns could shake him out of the  crunch. What is it with birthdays? Don't worry, I'm thinking of a plan to turn you into not a pansy.

Speaking of birthdays, Happy birthday Joy! See ya later!

I don't feel as bored today as yesterday. Its turned into a cross between paranoia, hopefulness, and an i-need-a-haircut.
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Let's not sugar coat it. When you decide to pick a girl because of acceptable risks, it's settling. Heed your own advice, "Shoot for the stars".

Tags: me
Current Mood: indescribable