It doesn't take much to make me happy. (: And I like that even if we don't see each other for five days, I have two days to look forward to at the end of the week.

***

Some of my cousins came over today because it's my cousin's 15th birthday today. After the candle-blowing and cake-eating, I realized how much I don't know my cousins from my mom's side. We barely spoke two words to each other. And it's not that I didn't want to talk to them or anything like that. We just.. well, didn't know what to talk about with each other.

"Ilang taon ka na ba?"

mouths "Eight." with her lips and proceeds to spoon up her pancit.

Silence.

"Uh, wow. Ang tanda mo na pala."

The end.

I wish I knew more about them. Or maybe why our relationship has turned into that. I remember as kids, we used to have a whole lot of things to talk about. No wait, as kids we just.. played. Er.

My youngest brother and I were watching TV while eating lunch and there was a kid singing One Moment in Time. I remember that song, because I have a cassette tape of it. Haha! It was a song for the Olympics, if I remember right. Whenever we had people over, I'd sing it to the visitors. I don't think I even sang well, but they always appreciated the effort. d:

And then, there was my lambada routine. Haha! I'm sure I posted the picture maybe once in one of my sites. I have no idea where the heck I learned how to dance the lambada. I even had a "costume" of some sort. It kept a lot of my mom's friends entertained.

After that dancing bit, I enrolled in piano lessons at Yamaha and my parents bought a piano so I could practice. Never mind that we had to panic everytime it rained (we used to live in Marikina way back when flood was still a natural occurrence there) because the piano would get wet. I impressed (at that time, I thought I did) visitors with Thompson pieces. Haha!

Don't you remember your parents being so proud of you and showing you off every chance they got? "O anak, show tita your dance." Haha! And of course, you didn't know any better. You went ahead and danced lambada and cried after because the scab of your bakuna peeled off from all the dancing.

***

Threen! Activate the comments on your blog. Hehe d: And thanks! I just remembered that one time when we were talking about goals after the ministry. It's like one step up the ladder, huh? (:

Mush. Just a warning to those who'd rather not read this. d: I didn't think I'd be doing this again. It's so high school! Haha, but what the hey, I love making mix cds and it occurred to me that it's our first month on Monday. [collective wow here] So I picked out songs from my ever-growing mp3 list that I felt meant something in our relationship. And well what do you know, the list had a grand total of 17 songs! (: I'm so lame, I even made a cover for the CD. I put snippets of lyrics of the songs and made the titles bold. Whee! I hope he likes it. Isn't this so high school? Next thing you know, I'll be making a scrapbook, highlighting every single thing we've done. From the first date, to the first movie together, and so on. Hahaha!

After a whole year of looking for my photocopies of poems from Sir Neil's (ooh now known as Dr. Garcia) class, I finally found the whole bunch under my desk. They were carefully placed inside a brown enveloped neatly labeled as "CW120". I wanted to give myself a slap on the forehead. Why didn't I think of looking through that stack of brown envelopes anyway?! So I'm having the Anthology that Sir put together for us bound in SC - 2 years after I got them! Haha!

Glück, Plath, Rilke, Neruda

I was reading through the thick pile, and I've realized that I should immerse myself in poetry if I really want to write poems. It was only last year that I made a real effort to actually read poems by different authors. Quill will be so proud of me. d:

I also found a photocopy of Carlos Bulosan's A Stun of Jewels, a collection of poetry. I really like his writing style. I have another anthology from the same class. This time of Filipino authors, writing in English. I should sit down and take a look through those some time.

* * *

It's my genius brother's birthday today. He's 19. Wow. It seems only yesterday that we used to fight and hit each other with remote controls. Oh how I miss the high kicks and jabs. I kid. Happy birthday to the most intelligent person in this household. After me. Just kidding. Haha! He really is the smartest person around here. d:

I really don't know what's the deal with my cousin. It's like she makes it her obligation to think of more ways to piss me off. I'm sorry to say, it isn't working anymore. I used to get mad, or worse: cry, whenever she'd send me one of her hate messages. I didn't expect to get any from her since we saw each other a couple of days ago at my grandfather's wake and burial. I guess it didn't help that we didn't talk to each other, much less say hello. But anyway. So today, I got a message from a number that wasn't listed in my phonebook. The sender was asking what the article in PDI was about because a friend told him/her about it. I asked who the sender was first. And then, "she" said she was the girlfriend of my boyfriend and that they have gotten back together. She said that I should stop bothering him, or some other lame attempt at pissing me off. I deleted the message and couldn't help but laugh. COME ON. It amazes me how she thinks up all these stupid stories. She even invents names. It's a whole conspiracy. Haha. At least she gets to work up her imagination at my expense. All for the love of storytelling, why not.

I finally got published. And I'm extremely happy about it especially because it's a gift for my mom. For all the times she felt like she didn't matter. I know she liked it. She didn't have to say it. It showed in the way she smiled this morning. (: Here's the original piece:

"Half-Mommy's Girl"

I’ve always labeled myself as a daddy’s girl. The first poem of mine that ever got published in a book was about my father. I’ve realized, I write a lot about my father and not enough about my mother. And although my daddy’s birthday is a day before mothers’ day, let me take this time to shift the limelight to my mother and write about the woman who, for nine long months, carried my soul inside her.

She’s definitely one of my favorite people in the world. Most of the time, anyway. How she manages to keep this household together is still a mystery to me. She complains about how we don’t know the value of money and how we should stop asking her for things. But this is the same woman who takes her family to the mall and makes sure that everyone goes home with something. This is the same woman, who makes sure the pantry is filled with our favorite food. The same woman who used to bring us to National Bookstore after school and let us get as many books as we like.

All of my brothers and I have our own little stories about our mommy. Our mother scoffs at stage parents, when in fact she’s one herself. She’s ever the proud mother, announcing to her friends that his son has won an award. “My eldest, he’s the guitarist of the year, you know.” She always reprimands my older brother because he gets home so late from gigs. But she’s the first to say, “Oh my son’s part of a rock band. Buy their album!” She’s the hardest to please when it comes to academics. “What, a 2.5? Ok, better luck next time,” that’s what she told my younger brother who was just a freshman in UP. “Cum Laude lang?” she told me, when I told her about graduating. The next minute though, you’ll hear her tell someone about how his son passed both Ateneo and UP. “BAA is a double quota course!” Or how her daughter graduated with honors from UP. She’ll be asked by my youngest brother if she loves him and she won’t answer. In another attempt, my younger brother will text her “I love you, mom.” To which she’ll reply, “Luv u 2”

There are more of those that I’ve got locked in memory. And sometimes I worry if I’ll start forgetting them.

My relationship with my mom is far from perfect. I used to think we’d reach some sort of Rory-Lorelai Gilmore state in some point in our lives. There are a lot of things we don’t agree on. But at the end of the day, I know she’s still the one who’ll go into my room to close the lights before I go to bed. In the morning, she’ll be the one to close the aircon, prompting me to wake up. She’ll be the one experimenting in the kitchen once in a blue moon and will cook something over and over once she gets it perfect. She'll be the one with the bead jewelry empire in the near future who will make me pretty jewelry and hairbands on a whim.

She’ll always be my mother. And if there have been things I’ve done that hurt her, I’m sorry. I don't mean to. I never mean to.

I love you, mom. I can be a mommy’s girl, too.

They didn't change much. They separated it into more paragraphs and I think changed "soul" to "me". It was on the front page of that section. Wow. My mom says she's having it framed. Haha.

I ♥ the new look of blogger. I love the new templates (isn't it obvious?). It kind of makes me want to redo my site. (Which I haven't really touched in a long time. No more new 55 graphics!)

I'm trying to log in to my mom's domain so I can change the nameserver. I can't seem to remember my login information. I don't know where I saved it, or wrote it down, or whatever. Nyar. It'll have to wait `til tomorrow. I'm sleeping.

Looks like this is where I'll be posting more of my nonsense. Everyday.

The thing is, I never meant for her to feel that way. I didn't want her to feel left out, or that my dad and I are ganging up on her. I'd never do that! But she makes it difficult for me to be open to her about my relationship. She gets mad when I ask for permission to go out. She puts up this front when he comes over, so I think, maybe she really does like him.

So today, she's mad at me. I asked for permission to go have dinner with him and his family and she goes off saying, "Why don't you just ask your dad? What do you need me for?" I told her I was meaning to tell her, really. But I was scared. The last time I told her I had a boyfriend, she cried. What do you expect? But I was planning to tell her. My dad just beat me to it. And now, I just feel like crap. And even Ton feels bad. God. And it's all my fault.

I really hope things finally fall into place. She hates me. /: Or the situation. Or whatever. There's just too much tension between us. I can't even talk to her without feeling like she's going to burst into another sermon. I love my mom but sometimes she gives me reason to just stay away.

Hay.