present day

remember, remember the 26th of september...

erai was the first person to greet me. i received a text message from her at exactly 12 midnight (at least from my time) that said: "hpi hpi hpi bday jai. mwuah". greetings poured in afterwards through texts, calls, picture messages, some from unexpected people. i was so sleepy but i replied to all of the texts. took me a while especially since some were awake enough to chitchat. i slept around 2am with the vibrate alert turned off.

from my family, my dad was the first one to greet, followed by yayie (my youngest sister), then jam (my younger sister), mama and finally nonoy (my bro). and then, of course, my favorite ninang, ninang mayet.

received a call from jennifer as i was walking to the tricycle stop, headed for work. yes, i decided to work on my birthday because there was nothing to do at home if had pto-ed. my ps2's in batangas and my dvd player won't play the dvd9's i bought over the weekend. anyways, jennifer is my wonderful ex-girlfriend who remains a great friend to me. i couldn't wait to get home to batangas to see her gift which she almost gave to me when i visited her and her son ishq.

this is ishq. but when he gets angry, he becomes....

incredible ishq!

i wore a red shirt that my mom gave to me. it says "zero" in front but not like the one that billy corgan wore in the bullet with butterfly wings video. it's for those people who'd greet people wearing red a happy birthday. at least now they were right. not too many knew my birthday, just my close friends from my account. my supervisor however sent an outlook email with the subject: attention and a picture of an indian smoke signal birthday greeting cc:-ed to everyone. so the newly informed immediately followed suit and filled up my inbox. remember shaila? she greeted me and we had a funny/naughty email conversation which i was gonna post here with her permission but i changed my mind upon realizing how long this post might become.

my break buddy, paul, and i had lunch at the usual place. i did not invite anyone to join us but if anyone else had come with us, it was my treat. i was prepared. but since no one came forward, i only paid for paul's meal. which was good. more beer for me later.

i had my hockey mask with me and wore it half of the time i was there. it's my birthday and i'll pretend to be jason voorhees if i want to.

im going on a chopping spree

when the avaya clock stuck six, paul and i were out of the building in a jiff. he had to go to pasig and get his van from his bro who refused to drive it to makati. i waited just outside peoplesupport for randell, my high school pal. when he arrived, we walked towards chunky boy where dindo already was. i introduced the two dudes to each other, pointing out that both of them were influenced me negatively. while waiting for the others to come, we hung out and grabbed a bite at a nearby sisigan, courtesy of me. arnie showed up after a while and after she had her meal, we returned to chunkyboy and order a bucket of san mig light. erai and her two friends, tin and imee, arrived soon. more introductions. more beer. paul (or the flash, as we call him) came late as always. randell sang some senti songs (dont know why). dindo sang his own version of stp's plush (chupa-me... chupa-me...) and fell off his chair. paul sang his version of eheads' pare ko (ginahasa mo lang ako...). imee sang bring me to life with dindo, who invented his own lyrics in the rap part. we finished around 2am. paul dropped each of us off with his van. when i got home, there was a couple of cakes on the table from nonoy and jc.

birthday breakdown:
greetings: 1 shoutout, 2 picture messages, 5 phone calls, 29 emails, 57 text messages (wasn't able to count verbal)
material gifts: human shirt (erai), film keychain (katia), hockey mask (erai), teddy bear (glenna), cakes (nonoy & jc) trivia book (katia), transformers pillow and customizable mug (jennifer)
beers consumed: 8
happy birthday song: 0
pictures taken: 0

i was so happy that day. i felt so, un-alone, so loved. it was one of those days i wish would never end. just keep looping over and over, like groundhog day. i'd sleep half-drunk and then be awoken by a text message greeting me a happy birthday again and again and again. um, and again. anyways, did anyone else celebrate their birthday on the same day? other than t.s. elliot? anyone?

the end.

p.s. another great gift: natalie portman's butt (wes anderson)
p.p.s. the two last two pics were taken a while ago in my room a few hours after i had a haircut.