Wednesday, March 25, 2009

How I spent my 23rd birthday

Turning 23 on Quattro

On the night of the 20^th, I was so drained at the office trying to finish some parts of the deck supposedly due on that day but was extended the following day. Oh well, I just had to spend the whole day worrying whether the signatory of our visa document could sign so I can immediately ‘throw’ our applications out of my hand that I was not able to really work on what I was paid to do for that day, hehe.

So –I had my plans of going to my friend Apple’s wedding or meeting up with my friend Ye so we can have some little celebration. The latter pushed through, thank goodness. Thanks to my friends Ye and Lowell who really found time for me (awww..). They decided to meet up in Quattro already while I was working no-heartedly at the office. From time to time, I was checking up on them if they’re still more or less ok.

At around 9pm, I called it a day at the office, rode the tricycle, went to Quattro and saw Lowell and Francis. Wah. I went ahead of Ye pa pala, who anyway, came after around 15 minutes. We drank our muchos, asked Ye to choose our food (since she is the only one in the ‘gang’ who is not really a ‘manginginom’ so we gave her the honor of choosing whatever solid food we’re taking in our stomachs).

Madelle was on her way too. I initially thought it was coincidence that she was inviting me to Quattro also a few minutes earlier, but I found out from Francis that he texted her. Hehe, she did not know most likely that it was my pre-birthday small get-together.

So Madelle arrived, and sometime later --- Asi and Sherwin. Wah.. I was really surprised. Surprised in a good way, that is. =) I have more ‘visitors’ than expected. Three or four rounds of mucho mug, of toasting, kampais – then we were all set to go. Went to Starbucks after, had our extra sweet fraps (hmmm. coffee as post-beer drink, doesn’t work for me), extra sweet cakes (waahh.. how come everything seems to taste extra sweet after beer. Grr). Then went home. And upon waking up in the morning, I saw that my bag was loaded with white and brown sugars from Starbucks. Haha, gagong mga iyon. But when I asked them – those were my gifts to me. Para sweet. Engk engk. (kings and queen of corny-ness).

The 21st

So I spent the 21^st alone. Really. I could bask in the loneliness of that thought but then I had all those text messages to keep me sane the entire day. =) To everyone who remembered my birthday and took time to let me know that they did in whatever medium they have (SMS, YM, and social networking sites), thank you very very much.

And I had my hair cut and dyed. Hehe, I have been wanting to do this for months already and I made it happen on my birthday. Yey! But I kind of regret it now- because I look like a tomboy. Not that I have anything against tomboys. I just don’t think the boyish look fits me.

So I did some grocery (ugh, birthday or not, weekends are my errands day), received a video greeting from Mother Goose, Pop and Ayks (who made this funny remark “ano sasabihin ko?”), went home, waited for some friendly soul to save me from my birthday misery (just kidding) and ask me to go out or something (hmm. I am really not the ‘you’re invited to my birthday’ kind of person plus I don’t have a planned celebration also). Then eventually, I decided to go to this Meralco event Lowell had been talking to me about weeks back.

It turned out to be real fun! =p I was again an ampon because I was with Lowell’s friends from Mapua. Kuya John Lloyd was there also. Beer. Yey! Fireworks. Yey! And tons of aerobics dancing to burn those fats and beer belly away. It was really fun. Hay.. I had some videos of us grooving to 70s/80s songs. Haha, it was definitely a break from those gigs I usually go to wherein I just quietly sip my beer and let the noise drown my thoughts away. Sobrang makulit lang, haha. Plus the guys are really ‘game’ with the dancing and all, even the sun dance (if you’ve seen A Very Special Love and You Changed my Life, you will understand what I am talking about). [I’ve uploaded some videos here, just the less dizzying ones. I just realized how bad of a vidcam handler I can be, hehe =p.

Then we went to grab some pizza (yey! My Yellow Cab craving already satisfied) and burned those pizza calories away by laughing our hearts out at those alamat jokes of Lowell and Kuya Buge. Then home sweet home. I was dead tired from all those dancing. =p

Howkey – So I am having a really hard time trying to end/sum up this entry. But I guess what made this birthday special-ly happy is how I celebrated it with various people with whom I share differing degrees of relationships. (wow, that sounded weird). But yeah – I had a night with really good high school friends. I had a day with my self, my at peace self, with the salon stylists who just had so much to say about hair and coloring (believe me, the team who did my hair unusually really talked a lot. Most likely because the branch just opened up and they do not have much customers to talk with the entire day) plus of course, the virtual presence of everyone who texted, Facebook greeted me. I had a night with friends of my good friend, and hundreds of strangers but who came to one single place to simply have fun and act crazy.

There was no one primary party as I used to have when I was young. But there was a series of mini-parties with really beautiful people. And it made my birthday a really beautiful one.