not like I faint every time we touch...

you're humming to yourself, aren't you? vanilla skies...white picket fences in your eyes...

***

segue muna ako sa walang kinalaman...we were singing for the Good Friday mass and we were tasked to do the "Crowd" role in the Passion Gospel kasi kulang sa missalette at hindi nalagay sa powerpoint guide for the congregation. A resourceful choirmate copied the lines on his cellphone via text so we could all participate, and everything went well until we asked Simon Peter:

"You are not one of His disciples, are you not?"

waaah! feel na feel ko pa naman!

bow. now back to the program...

***

You know how it is when you tell someone about a crush and then all of a sudden the excitement disappears and you feel nothing at all anymore?

Ayun. That's what happened to me and my little story. Buti naman. Sa ka-iintriga ng mga tao namatay tuloy at mukhang hindi na mabubuhay pa ulit...perhaps it's also the non-fun of it being so secret, so unusual and so out-of-myself (to this day, nobody got to know who he was, and even if I named him no one would still know him!) that let the air out of the puny day-old balloon that was the almost-crush of my post-adolescent life.

In the spirit of things I even talked to P about bumping into an old classmate's website -- well, actually, I proactively searched for the guy on friendster (lekat na friendster talaga o!) and found him and his blog there. After reading some old entries I really got to thinking that perhaps we could've been friends if I allowed myself to go up to him and introduce myself. Back then in school, he seemed like the mysterious, stuck-in-books, reserved type. I figured, he probably wouldn't be the least bit interested in me. Reading about him now gave me a clearer picture of him and made me think otherwise...kapal noh? But I mean that in all platonic honesty. He's got not a few similarities to a bunch of guys I was close to before, and given my vulnerability at the time, it was highly likely that I would've even seriously fallen for him if I got to know him better (heck, I remember gushing about his name! his name sounded like music to my ears! I would tell my non-school chums about him like a child, as though he were an imaginary friend!). He was like my Damon Bradley that I would someday meet and who knows, would turn out to be my destiny...syempre uso noon ang "Only You" kaya gumaya naman daw ako!

But fate took an interesting turn and made me fall for the friend I least expected to fall for. He would laugh at my jokes and didn't mind me swooning over someone else I knew nothing about save for a name I peeked at from the attendance list. At the end of that class we'd go to SM North Edsa to watch funny, corny and downright trashy movies together and enjoyed every minute of all of them. We camped out in ISMED to watch a meteor shower, marveled at the city lights viewed atop Kelly Heights one blackout night, explored the mystical books and trinkets at Aura Cafe while being the only audience (unmindful and unattentive at that) of Ciudad who was playing unfamiliar originals. He was my tag-along-anywhere buddy.
And he remains to be the one I dream of going with everywhere.

So now, after 6 years of committed contentment, I chance upon the goofy pictures and published times of the guy I wore short shorts and high-heeled sandals for in class. Well?
I'm still contented.

Hahaha. Crushes.

Sometimes the one who doesn't make your heart skip a beat turns out to be the one that keeps it beating for the rest of your life.

quid est veritas?

Happy Easter to you all!

The quote above is a Vulgate ("street") Latin translation of Pontius Pilate's question to Jesus: "What is truth?". I thought about a lot of "truths" during the Holy Week, especially at the Paschal Triduum:

1. Palm Sunday - went to a recollection and mostly prayed using the Ignatian method known as contemplation, or imagining a scene from Scripture and putting oneself as one of the characters. We focused on the Last Supper scene and I was particularly moved by the insight that everyone, not only Jesus and the Twelve, but even the female cooks and handmaidens, were blessed and given importance. Then, I watched The Gospel of Judas on National Geographic and pondered on the possibility that Jesus Himself asked Judas Iscariot to prepare for His suffering and ultimate death in order to "sacrifice the man that clothes" Him. Again, there was an interesting insight from the show: even then, during the early days, there have been many interpretations of Christianity, and the discovery of this text gives us the idea that there once had been a group of Christians who thought that the relationship between Jesus Christ and Judas was significant, and that they were able to celebrate and glorify the existence of Judas.
   
2. Holy Wednesday - went out to dinner with a few people at the branch and expressed our thoughts on the officer reshuffle at the back office. I felt it was timely, given the fact that it's Holy Week and we should think about forgiveness. Some of us thought otherwise and felt she deserved the Calvary she got herself into. Anyway, it will end with her transferring and I'm hopeful that her life will be less, uh, dramatic.
   
3. Maundy Thursday - gone to Bulacan for the family Pasyon or Pabasa and finished chanting at about 5pm. After singing the Tagalog verses, I had an appreciation for the sensual (meant here as intense use of the five senses) nature of the language and how it creates such vivid images of the last days of Christ. It's senakulo on paper! At the same time, it made me think about why it had to be so; it was a form of inculturation, and scriptural scenes had to be interpreted in such a way that it would fit into the mold of the Filipino epic song, with familiar elements such as the "good triumphs over evil" theme, mystical events and legends.
   
4. Good Friday - went to and sang for the Friday service at Gesu (Mass and Way of the Cross). Dad went with Ate to a different service (a Spiritist session) in Malabon to hear reflections on the holy days. He came home asking me about the Gospel of Judas, the Da Vinci Code, and was so excited about the possibility that more people would embrace the philosophy that has fascinated him all his life. This got me thinking: all my life, the religion I furiously defended was carved from readings approved by elders (who insisted the world was flat and prosecuted anyone who thought otherwise), and mindlessly disregarded all other references which they found difficult to understand and thus difficult to teach to common people whom they wanted to recruit into the flock. There have been a lot of other perspectives labeled as heresy, thrown to and lost in the wind, and those which remained to this day are still scoffed at, like my dad's, only because it's not included in the canonical gospels and they don't practice it within the fundamental faith.
5. Black Saturday - watched a rerun of The Passion Recut, and over lunch Kuya volunteered to buy a pirated DVD of the movie instead of having to watch it right now. I told him, "Kumusta naman ang pagbili ng pirated DVD ng Banal na Kasulatan, noh?", to which he replied, "Eh kumusta din naman na nakakita ka pa ng difference sa pagbili ng pirated DVD ng regular movie at Banal na Kasulatan?" -- nga naman.
   
6. Easter Vigil - read the Second Reading -- a loong narration of the Parting of the Red Sea, and sang the responsorial psalm. Also liked Fr. Arnel's homily on salvation history -- that God has been redeeming His people since the Old Testament, and ultimately sacrifices His Son and resurrects Him in the New Testament, but they still don't get the fact that they have been saved many times over! Fr. Arnel began with telling the Oprah episode where everyone in the audience got a brand new car and found themselves stunned and dumbfounded before it dawned on them that something so wonderful had been unbelievably presented to them. I also bumped into an old friend which started another buzz of gossip in the family car on the way home (but it's not about me!)...I guess one person's suffering is another's redemption.
   

Well, that's about it. I gotta catch some zzzz's as I'm off to a baptism in Antipolo this morning! I wonder who else is invited in our little group....

sige, patulan ang tag...

got this from Ria.

4 jobs I've had in my life:
a. Personal Banking Officer - current
b. Recruitment Assistant
c. HR Systems Assistant
d. Children's choir teacher (this is not the PYC, btw. I handled kids from 8-12 yrs old -- got paid, too. Awa ng Diyos a lot of them are now in the PYC and I feel sooooo old!!!!)

4 films I can watch over and over:
a. Forget Paris
b. Mga Kwento ni Lola Basyang
c. Big Time
d. Awakenings

4 places I have lived (in):
a. Tierra Pura, QC - current
b. SFDM, QC
c. Miriam College (heck, from nursery to senior high dun na ako e!)
d. hmm. wala na e.

4 TV programs I love to watch: (as in 4 programs my sister lets me watch)
a. Pinoy Big Brother hahahaha (grabe na si Bianca - affected daw ba ako?)
b. Extra Challenge
c. Katoque on QTV Ch11 - ang saya panoorin yung mga young urban chefs (so ano tawag sa kanila? "yuchies"? "yuffies"? hehehehe ampanget)
d. Magandang Umaga Pilipinas - syempre love your own! Wok with Chan ang drama ni kuya na nagbalik-South Beach Diet after having to gain weight in Zsazsa Zaturnnah..

4 places I would have visited had I had the money:
a. the Himalayas
b. the moon (para malaman ko kung hoax ang Apollo 11)
c. New Zealand
d. Palawan (hehehe at least ito palagay ko mapupuntahan ko talaga kung mga 2 months akong hindi gumamit ng credit card...)

4 websites i visit daily:
a. Yahoo! Mail - for yahoogroups updates
b. Gmail - ganun din
c. Yahoo! - somehow I haven't acquired the habit of using Google as a search engine. Parang mas gumagana ito for me.
d. any link on the sites above that catches my fancy

4 of my favorite foods:
a. kahit anong iluto ng nanay ko
b. nissin yakisoba chicken flavor (yung blue) - halos daily breakfast ko sa office, along with
c. pugon pinoy pandesal - found in congressional ave qc beside Mommy's Pancit Malabon and a few blocks away from Circle C mall na katabi ng Cherry Fooderama -- OA ba sa directions? I swear you have to try it! still at 2 bucks apiece, it's great kahit walang palaman...eons better than the pan de manila variety
d. max's fried chicken

4 places where I would want to die:
a. at home, from a terminal illness that hasn't affected any of my senses para slow and dramatic ang aking paglipas wahahaha
b. other than that, anywhere else basta patay ako agad at hindi ako mahihirapan
c. note lang, parang ayoko yata mamatay in my husband's arms...kawawa naman siya naunahan ko pa...unless sabay kami mamamatay at malalaki na yung mga anak namin

4 people (living/dead) who you want to meet:
a. The Creator - nga naman.
b. some guy i shared a class with in college whom i never had the guts to introduce myself to
c. my paternal grandfather - napanood niyang mabaril si Rizal sa Bagumbayan, now Luneta (yep, my lolo was alive and of age during the Spanish period)
d. my paternal grandmother, whose cooking was legendary in Malabon

4 Places Ive been on Vacation (the last four)
a. Batangas
b. Tagaytay
c. Hong Kong
d. Bangkok, Thailand

4 Places I would Rather Be Right Now
a. with P
b. in heaven - yeah, i know it's not a place but a state of being, but, well, taken loosely...
c. happily retired with my retirement pay invested well enough to live off the returns - speaking of state of being, ito na rin
d. just home without worrying about earning enough

4 People I Wanna Tag (naku, hirap nito...not too many people read my blog, so...)
a. jen-c (mauto kaya ulit?)
b. jowi (ayan nakabawi rin!)
c. joa
d. kathy t

and when i'm feeling blue, and i want you...

In the midst of meeting my month target, an office crisis and freak clients gravitating towards my desk every other hour this week, I found myself giggling like a high school freshman talking to a boy over the phone for the first time.
magaling ka kung na-click mo ito.

Perhaps it was because it reminded me of how I used to crush on the quiet ones. Ah, ewan. Basta alam ko wala itong kinalaman whatsoever sa aking couplehood. wahahaha! ang defensive.

O sha. shine na!