I Am The Walrus

This day in birthday history….

1977 - was a Tuesday, I think. My father violated every traffic rule there is to drive the rickety Mercedes Benz (a hand-me-down, we’re not rich) from Marikina to Manila with his pregnant, humongous wife at the backseat and his mother-in-law telling him to calm the hell down. At 10.30 pm, the only child they ever had to raise came out into the world.

1987 - I came home from school and I told my mother that I treated my friends to dirty ice cream at the school yard. Naks! Yabang!

1990 - At thirteen, I received my first birthday gift from my first ever suitor. I still know his name but I can’t seem to remember what he gave me. I know there was a card with declaration of love and really bad grammar. Last I heard, he held up taxi cabs. I wish I was kidding.

1991 - Got Archie comics from a suitor I really wasn’t interested in but the shameless display of his affection for me was entertaining (and annoying to my friend-at-that-time-and-boyfriend-two-years-later).

1993 - I was supposed to prepare a small party at home. SMALL, meaning tiny, meaning for close friends, meaning ten people max. But no. I dragged about TWENTY-FIVE people from school to my home (one of which I only met that day), not really thinking if my mother had prepared enough food. However, they all managed to be fed and everyone was happy.

This was also the first birthday I had where I was in a relationship and we were crazy in love.

1994 - Block party, the end of my first semester at UP. We had donuts. My very-close-and-quite-attractive-guy friend came in with a long stemmed rose and handed it over to me for everyone in my block to see. I was never able to figure out what that meant (and what all the other questionable gestures that he did that semester meant) and then we parted ways next sem. I didn’t hear from him for almost fifteen years and then this summer I found him. On a magazine ad. Imagine that.

1995 - Ah, who could forget my 18th birthday and the devastating storm that it was. No, I’m not being metaphoric. There was a storm. A huge-ass storm. The kind that causes brown-outs for long periods of time (which happened in the middle of my party). The kind that makes my fifty or so guests stranded and bored, sprawled on our living room carpet (which they did).

Although, it was nice to have all of my friends come together at one party, even if its was Armageddon outside.

1996 - Second birthday with second significant relationship. (Not that it was second in significance, it was just the second chronologically. ) I think this is the one where he brought me flowers to my Psych class (and I kind of heard that he was going to do that so I didn’t go to class haha).

1999 - First birthday in GMA. My then-boss, Liezl, bought me ice cream. It was such a big deal to me. I got teary-eyed.

2001 - First birthday without a significant relationship. Luhoo…seherrrr. Not really. I watched Fast and the Furious with my parents.

2002 - Called up my boyfriend in the US before I went to bed. And a woman answered his phone. Happy Birthday.

2003- Let’s forget about all those stupid boyfriends. This was the first year I celebrated my birthday with my son. I can’t seem to remember right now what we did exactly, but I know we have a picture in front of the Megamall skating rink.

2006 - A day after Milenyo, all ATMs were down. I had money but I couldn’t get to it. Wonderful.

2007 - My 30th birthday was pretty cool. And well-spent. I prepared for this momentous event —- I shed the weight, I bought clothes, I saved some money. I ended up with four different celebrations: dancing with my GMA friends, pizza with my college friends, pasta at home with my highschool friends, and Chinese with my family.

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Kunyari Emmys….

I’ve had a sucky September but I’m still grateful.

I’m grateful for my parents. I have awesome parents, you know. I don’t think I could ever get through the insanity that is the thirty-one years of my life if it hadn’t been for them. If you have parents half as wonderful as mine, love them. Love them with everything you have.

I’m grateful for Cojie. My son is wonderful. So many things could have gone wrong from the time he was gestating in my emotionally distressed body, to the time he was born, to all those times he got sick and was hospitalized, but he’s fine. He’s doing great in school, he’s happy, he’s healthy, he’s funny as hell. I can’t ask for anything more from a son.

I’m grateful for GMA. Oh God, you have no idea. I don’t know what I’d be doing right now if I wasn’t working for television. (I’m also grateful for ABS-CBN. For just being. GMA won’t be as fun without them.) As I am grateful for everyone in GMA. We’re quite a great cast of characters.

I’m grateful for the rest of my family and my friends who are as good as family. I am so, so blessed with the best kind of people as friends. Family is fine, there’s genes involved, but friends who just come into your life and are concerned for you even if they’re not obligated to? That’s almost miraculous.

Miraculous, yeah. I think when God made me and my friends (circa the seventies hehe) he looked at us as babies and said “Ok, she’s going to be funny, so she needs somebody who laughs a lot.” or “This one’s going to laugh at every opportunity so she needs someone funny”.

I’m grateful for Tina Landon, Billy Blanks and Shawn T for helping me get off my fat ass every night.

I’m grateful for my pop culture influences — Rowling, Zafra, Carter/Mulder/Scully, Brown, Harris, Booth/Brennan, Delko/Duquesne, Scofield/Tancredi, NBC, CBS, Fox…. eh, just look at my bookshelf.

I’m grateful for Fruit Magic. Yes, Fruit Magic. There’s a concoction there, called Nutty Oaty. Banana plus peanut butter plus oats plus protein powder. It’s disgusting yet wonderful at the same time.

I’m grateful for the schools that molded me into the demented person that I am — the Roosevelt in the Marikina, the Macho in the San Mateo, and the Unibersidad ng Pilipinas in the Diliman.

I’m grateful for prayer. I’ve never been the devout Catholic I was eight years ago (singing in the church choir? can you believe it?). But I’ve held on to prayer. I’ve lifted everything to God — from something as puny as which route to take on the way to work or something as jumongous as splitting up with the father of my child. And my prayers have been answered, everytime. EVERYTIME, I’m telling you. It’s not about asking for things. God’s not a genie. It’s just about surrender. “Here’s the deal. I don’t know what to do about it. I’m leaving it up to you”. You know what, when it’s like that — just total surrender — it works out better than you expected.

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2008 - Woke up at around 9am with about 20 messages from my adoring fans haha. Gotta love my GMA friends — we’re text-trigger-happy.

Worked out at around 11am (arms and abs). Had lunch at 12nn. Took a bath. Headed to the nearest mall. Nothing major, just bought vegetables for dinner, and the aforementioned Nutty Oaty. (My stomach’s having a party right now)

Went home. Took Cojie and we walked to the nearest bakery to buy those sugar-dredged donuts that he loves. Made dinner (chicken mami. don’t laugh, I make great soups). Wrote down this blog. In a few minutes, I’m going to do the dishes, wash my face, brush my teeth, and watch the fifth season premier of CSI:New York. (Yes! I have it! I’m also grateful for a software called Shareaza. And Smart Broadband).

Nice and quiet, just the way I like it.

My weekend was run by numbers.  My family and I were like in a casino waiting for the sphygmomanometer (did I spell it right?) to roll the dice and give us the magic number. Anything higher than 140 over 100 spelt disaster for us. And it was that kind of a day since Sunday.

My mother, the world’s most reliable person, had headaches all week long. Thinking it was the freaking weather and a common cold, she would down Neozeps every day. We learned later on that this drug can cause high blood pressure to people afflicted with hypertension. (Yes, people, throw out them Neozeps. Water and sleep and you’re fine.)

When she hit 180 over 100, I took my wallet, my phone and an umbrella and my mom and we made our way to the nearest hospital. Her blood pressure wouldn’t go lower than 140 over 100, so the ER doctor had no choice but to have her admitted.

I remember a friend of mine back in my Math Club days calling me the biggest worrier on the planet (”You like worrying, don’t you?”) and now I can prove to him that I’m not — I am only the SPAWN of the biggest worrier on the planet. Apparently the idea of an airconditioned room, a day off her chores, and visits from friends and family would only aggravate her condition. My mom just worried and worried and worried.

Each time she would stare into a blank wall, I imagine a thought bubble on her head.

“Cojie’s assignment’s due today”

“I wonder if Ajie still has money for Cojie’s tuition fee”

“Papa’s meds are only until Friday”

“Will my HMO card cover this expense? that expense?”

“Who’s going to do the laundry on Thursday?”

She also developed a phobia of the sphygmo. Especially if her own cardiologist took her blood pressure. We spent almost four days in the hospital — supposedly just three, but on the third day, after a whole day of normalcy (in blood pressure terms), her cardiologist marches up to her, and she probably got excited at the thought of finally going home, that when he took her BP, it registered 170 over 100.

“Bukas na kayo umuwi”.

I felt like I was the only stable, thinking person in the household during those four trying days. My dad remained distant — he has a heart problem too. He tried to be light-hearted about it, making jokes, but I knew he found it difficult to visit my mom (I even think he would make excuses not to visit her) because it pained him to see her so weak. My mom’s sister, on the other hand, was the hysterical and emotional one, crying at every opportunity. Of course the two other boys in the household — my five-year-old son and my engineer-cousin Bojie — are, mentally, the same age.

It was up to me to keep my mom together, to give her hope, to make her happy, to lift her spirits. It was up to me to make sure the bills were covered. It was up to me to make sure that the household ran the same way as it always has when my mom left it. I have managed studies involving more than a hundred respondents, I’ve facilitated field interviews, I just did ten agency roadshows in the last two months — but this. This was the most difficult of all.

The pillars you used to lean on are now — very slowly — caving in. And you have to be the responsible one. Not just for one weekend. But from here on end.

And I felt my age — thirty-one. There’s no going back.

I have had a love affair with GMA for the last nine years. I call it a love affair because it’s the longest relationship I’ve had outside of my family. I call it a love affair because, like a love affair, it has brought me both wonderful memories and heartache. And yet, I would roll up my sleeves defending it to death at the slightest provocation (”Alam mo, mas magaling ang artista ng ABS” “Kapow!”)

People wonder how I can stay for this long especially since I’ve never worked for any other company since I left college. My HR friend even said that what I’m doing is an unhealthy career move. You should only stay at one job for a maximum of five years then move on.

Well, first of all, I love TV. I absolutely love it. Snotty literary giants have dismissed television for its passivity (”TV again?! Go read a book!”). But I’ve learned so much about how it runs that it makes me love the medium even more.

I love that a TV show, unlike a feature film, is something you can come home to at the end of the day, something you look forward to on a Wednesday night, something to prepare yogurt and Propel for as you plop yourself down in front of the TV set (or computer monitor, for the Limewire users). I love the anticipation of seeing Michael Scofield, Seeley Booth and Eric Delko like surrogates for a real date. That sounds kind of sad, sure, but well… you take what you can.

Being in the network also made me appreciate so much more how the system operates, that balance we have to strike in keeping our shows entertaining, keeping our news credible, hitting our advertising targets, making sure we achieve our net incomes — believe me, it’s hard, as one usually contradicts the other.

GMA is blessed with some of the most brilliant minds I have ever known in my lifetime— as they are equally blessed by being in GMA. And me being a number-cruncher, doing research? It makes it all more fulfilling. You get to dip your hand into marketing decisions, help make programming suggestions, stuff like that. Like I’ve said before, I’m a Squint in the lab and I help catch killers…. I mean advertisers.

So. I love what I’m doing. I love the company. And I know what I’m doing. That’s why I’m still here.

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Here’s the irony. I write this down after a completely sucky day at work. Not because I got scolded or I had a heated argument with someone. The day sucked because I had to tell the truth. It was a truth that could affect my relationships with people I’ve been working with for so long, people I practically grew up with.

“For the greater good”. Sure. But it still sucks sunction cups.

The last four weeks have been … well, I don’t want to be lost in translation, so I’ll use the more apt Filipino term….. NGARAGGGG. (Yup. Four G’s for four weeks).

In CSI terms, I’m like a lab tech. Scratch that, let’s use Bones as a reference point (Have you seen David Boreanaz? He is too beautiful for words….). In Bones terms, I’m a Squint. Most of the time, I stay at the office. But recent events and new responsibilities that came with the title gave me the privilege to get out on the field — something I’ve been wanting for so long but now making me realize that you really should be careful what you wish for.

Now, at least twice in a week, I’m out in the field, wearing corporate clothes, wearing make-up. This isn’t a permanent thing (I think) but I expect this to happen until the end of September. But, long story short, I’ve been out a lot.

Today, I was at Citibank Tower in Makati for a presentation to a pharmaceutical company. My portion of the presentation was over so I excused myself to go to the restroom. On my way there, a cutie Caucasian geeky looking guy (think Paul Adelstein of Private Practice, or season one of Prison Break) walked past me and smiled. So I smiled back. When I got to the restroom, I fixed my hair, my dress, wishing in my head “Please please please I hope he’s still outside”.

I step out of the restroom and who do I see? A former fling.

Now, I’ve had flings I dare not talk about but this one in particular still leaves a sting whenever I see him. It was a matter of one person not feeling as much affection as the other i.e. I likey him, he don’t likey me.

The last time he saw me, I was 160 lbs. This morning, he saw me, all glammed up for the presentation, make-up and hair tied up neatly, with the clickity-clack of flowery high-heels — and thirty pounds less.

You know what hurt? There was still nothing. Me still likey him. He still don’t likey me.

And there’s a moment of triumph when he acknowledged that I looked good but a moment of rejection right after when he bade me goodbye. I guess no matter how I look, I’ll always be a toad to at least one person in this world.

It destroys me sometimes. Stupid rain. I wish I could jog.