Well, Then

In lieu of my Sunday rendezvous, I have had bouts of self-doubt that occur in closer and closer intervals. I even sent Niki a message that said, "Here's a guy who thinks I'm wonderful. Hindi kaya nagkamali lang siya? (Don't you think he made a mistake?)".

But everything went pretty well.

Dum dee dum.

Plunge Into the Blue

I am meeting Moe's mother and two of his brothers, Patrick and Benedict, on Sunday. Yes, I am nail-bitingly nervous. Nothing else has occupied my thoughts for the past few days.

It started out when I jokingly told him that I will skip class and hang out at his place in Cainta instead. He mentioned this to Inay and she said, "Ipakilala mo naman sa akin si Kodi."

Of course his family knows about my existence. One, he spends some nights at my place. Heck, even he spent New Year's eve with me. You know how it is in the Philippines. Every holiday must be spent with the family. However, I pouted and said that I have no one to kiss at midnight and he suddenly decided to stay with me. He reasoned, "I can't kiss my brothers, Kods." Two, he walks around with this grin plastered on his face. Three, they saw the Joe Satriani signature guitar strap that I gave him for Christmas. Four, as our relatonship progressed, he told them about me.

Men are afflicted with poor story-telling skills. They only give you a general idea of what happened. Women, on the other hand, go into detail and can even quote everything that was said. So every time I squeeze Moe for information about what he and Inay or any of his brothers talked about when they were discussing me, he sums everything up in a sentence.

To give you an idea as to how good I am at quoting people, these are some of Moe's one-liners:

• "Sinabi ko na meron na ngang Koy at sabi ni Patrick (his brother) na, 'O, di na pala ninyo kailangan gumawa.'"



• "Alam naman nila na masaya ako kahit nakaupo lang ako sa isang tabi at walang sinasabi."



• "Sabi ko kay Inay na napakasaya ko kapag kasama kita."



• "Nakita kasi niya na tumitingin ako sa dictionary. Sabi niya na mag-aral ako para mahabol kita."



• "Sabi ko na napakagaling mo."



• "Sabi ko kay Inay, "'Nay, si Kodi na yata."

Pressure, pressure.

Yes, I love Moe. I've looked hard and waited too long to find a guy like him. And I know how important these people are to him and it only makes sense to have things come full circle. I'm still thinking about what to wear and what (underline the correct answer: cake, sushi, wine, flowers) to take to his place. Most importantly, what will they think of me? My friends told me to be myself. However, I have always been an, ahem, acquired taste.

The anticipation is worse than that psycho thriller movie that I watched last Saturday. I'm the kind of person who jumps off a ledge and plunges headfirst into freezing water instead of submerging herself inch by inch. I wish it'll be Sunday soon so that I can get this over and done with.

One-Oh-One

Five Courses That Can Improve My Existence

1. HNTBB (How Not To Be A Bitch) 101. For close-to-hopeless cases only. This includes learning how to keep your mouth shut when you want to tell your manager that you can't work with him because you dislike him, making good first impressions in select cases wherein the reputation that you want to get rid of miraculously did not precede you, knowing how to crack jokes and making people know that you are joking and not bitching at them, and showing that you really care even though the person that you are speaking with has an IQ that is still less than yours even though it has been multiplied by two. Course may be repeated a number of times until you have accepted that you were wired to be Public Enemy Number One.



2. HNTLF (How Not To Lose Friends) 101. A co-requisite of HNTBB 101. This includes keeping a running poll and journal of how many friends you still have, tips on what to say about your friends and stories to tell when talking about them to strangers or his mere acquaintances, ways to avoid sleeping with your friends and/or people who are important to them, knowing where to draw the line and not crossing it deliberately or by accident (i.e. being the key factor to a taboo topic such as gender and sexuality), and how to keep in touch with those you have not offended yet but live in a galaxy far, far away.



3. Nutrition Facts 101. A rigid course that includes really watching your carbohydrate intake while on a low-carb diet, not going for that eleventh cocktail drink, sticking to water instead of that sugar-laced drink in a bottle, knowing why a bag of chips cannot be considered a meal, finding the correct pill cocktail to nurse different degrees of hangovers, losing all that flab around your waist without relying on a laxative to work instant but short-term miracles, and reasons why just having sex or walking around the office is not an effective exercise program as enrolling in a gym or jogging every morning.



4. CDOC (Cutting Down On Covetousness) 101. Includes exercises on talking yourself out of buying that aquamarine Levi's shirt with a cow printed on it and that Nike braided Brazil Futbol belt when your closet is overflowing, drawing the line on buying just one pair of Steve Madden shoes instead of five, buying clothes at shops like Hang Ten or Human and liking it, daily exercises on learning how to categorize material things into the following categories: Needs (e.g. food), Wants (e.g. Cole Haans), and Irrelevant To Existence (But Can Certainly Make Life Worth Living <----- please erase this!!! e.g. four handcuffs and kinky dice), and not to think about shopping at all because covetousness takes place in the mind.



5. SILYIVW (Saying I Love You In Various Ways) 101. A crash course for you to keep the guy/girl that you have (if you have one to begin with) until Valentine's Day, at the earliest. This course will help you come up with innovative ideas on different types of kisses and hugs that you can send online or through text messaging, the right things and the right gestures at the right moment and not to rely on your instincts, fresh and naughty ways to turn him/her on, the correct gift to give his/her mother when you are invited to dinner for a Kodak moment with his family, being beautiful in the morning or after a long day at the office, and saying "I love you" in millions of other ways so that he will not get bored. This course will not allow both people of a relationship to enroll in one class because this might lead to the dissipation of the magic we are trying to create.

It's fun to have classmates. Do you want to join me?

C'est La Vie

They said that you need to be careful what you wish for because it might come true.

For the past three weeks, giddy, elated, enraptured, delighted, overjoyed, excited, inspired, stimulated, uplifted, gratified, gladdened, and pleased are just understatements to describe what I have been feeling.

I feel like a kid, a lovesick schoolgirl, and a sinner that has been absolved of his wrongdoings.

The Queen and Her Spawn

Moe sent me this picture of myself and Koy yesterday. This was shot a couple of weekends ago when we traced our figures, like the outlines of bodies in a crime scene, on the street outside our house. We pretended that we were run over by our neighbor's van (the one that you see at the left part of the picture). And when we got tired, we drew pictures in front of our house. But that was before Koy latched on to Moe's camera and turned into a shutterbug, taking pictures of a stray cat.

Justice League

Moe and I work different shifts. By the time he's ending his day, mine's just about to begin.

One morning, he fell asleep while we were conversing through one of the wonders that a mobile phone has to offer - SMS. I really don't mind. I mean, I'm not the type of girl who detests the fact that her boyfriend will not tell her every single detail of his day, including the what he ate for lunch. Nor will I create a fuss if he falls asleep without saying good night.

I was surprised that my phone beeped after a couple of hours.

____________________________________________________________

From Moe Cow

10 January 2008

10:08:28am

Name: Van a.k.a. Cow

Crime: Sleeping without notice

Verdict: Guilty

____________________________________________________________

To Moe Cow

Hahaha! Back to bed, Van. Kiss you.

____________________________________________________________

From Moe Cow

10 January 2008

12:10:35pm

Name: Van a.k.a. Cow

Crime: Sleeping without notice

Verdict: Guilty

Sentence: Back to bed with kisses

____________________________________________________________

To Moe Cow

What a justice system, huh? Here are more kisses plus hugs for a more severe punishment.

____________________________________________________________

From Moe Cow

Your honor, can you raise my punishment to an exile with the judge?

____________________________________________________________

To Moe Cow

How long do you want your sentence to be? You can only be exiled with the judge for eternity or forever.

____________________________________________________________

From Moe Cow

I'll only ask for parole after eternity ends.

5 Milestones For 2007

1. Calling It Quits. I ended a six-year relationship with my son's father. I guess that it lasted so long since we were parents to a sweet little boy. We did not have much in common except for the fact that we loved two things: jazz and Chikoy. I've read in Girl In Hyacinth Blue that if two people love the same thing, then it means that they love each other, even just a little bit.

Things were between the two of us were rough and whatever love we had for each other became diminished and neglected as time passed. And the fact that he was abusive - physically and sexually - did not help things. So given the general equation of things, I decided not to grow old wanting something more.

Like what Julia Roberts said in Steel Magnolias, "I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special."


2. Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire. In order for me to get rid of Koy's father, I decided to get into another relationship. Sh*tty, f*cked up idea. What made it even a lot sh*ttier is the fact that the guy, who happened to be someone I grew up with, turned out to suffer from psychosis - delusional jealousy. I was subject to a lot of mental anguish, which lead me to nearly punch the living daylights out of him and imagining myself hanging from the loft of my house.

Thank goodness the scars from that episode faded after a couple of months and the worst thing that can happen to me when I look back to it is to have some cold shivers running down my spine.


3. Schoolboy. My son started regular school. After over a year of occupational and speech therapy, Koy is now in kindergarten. He fell in love with his teacher and finally found writing actvities interesting.

The day my son started school, my mom congratulated me for being a school parent. She said that she hopes that she remembers every naughty thing I did back in high school.

What she doesn't know won't hurt her.


4. Trainer-Slash-Stude. No matter how a career somewhere else - may it be another department or another call center or another industry - or forsaking everything to be a farmgirl or to go back to school, I still am in the training room. So far, I still cannot picture myself elsewhere. I have decided to continue working here yet work on the next phase of my life. So it's back to the university for me while still working as a trainer this 2008.

5. My Something Special. Getting into a relationship was never part of my plan. So many things have happened in 2007 yet there are still so many loose ends to fix and I told myself that I needed to find me first. It's because my biggest sin is basing my self-worth on how much people value me as a person.

But one day last November, love meandered into my life. I've been ecstatic for close to two months now, which is more than anyone can ever ask for (it's supposed to be for just thirty minutes, right?).

Yes. Waiting can be tiring but it is such a good idea.

My 100th Post

My hundreth post is a celebration of my life and my blog. A lot of bloggers have done 100 Things About Me so I decided to chop it into interesting (I think) posts for the month of January.