08:19: i've been watching the news since the 26th. i've stopped. i feel so helpless watching the body count rise from an undetermined number to hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands... now it's over 117,000. i hate not being able to do anything. donate, sure, but i can only give so much. hardly seems like any help at all.

i heard on the news that the earthquake actually caused the planet to shift its axis. i remember reading some doomsday prophecy about a violent earthquake that will cause the earth to tilt back 23 degrees back to an upright position. i don't think this quake caused it to move the full 23 1/2 degrees... but it seemed so farfetched at the time. now the possibility has become all too real.

and by some stroke of luck, it happened on the side of an island where the resulting waves could not have reached us. had the quake's epicenter been farther east, our islands would have been too small and far apart to have stood a chance. i feel terribly lucky we're here, and terribly sorry i can do little for those who are there.

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06:24: home from dinner with my best friends. it started out ok. good food, good conversation, jokes, exchanging presents... real fun. it turned sour when he called while we were hanging out after dinner and he insisted on showing up. he was making whiny little girl choose between us and him. she didn't even put up a fight. her choice was obvious. she said she would leave and we could stay and enjoy the rest of the night. too late. the night was already ruined. when we made it clear that we were leaving, she felt like we were making her choose as well. we weren't forcing a choice. if anything, we were avoiding confrontation. but sooner or later, it would still come down to that one choice. how very garion. well, child of light, you've made your choice. so be it.

at dinner, i began to believe that we could still salvage this friendship. that we could coexist. give us our time and keep the bull crap away while she's with us. big fat flipping chance. this is how it was before, and it's the way it's gonna be now. eight years hasn't changed him, but i thought it would be enough to change her. i hadn't said anything up until tonight, but i think i made it perfectly clear how i feel about him coming back. none of us wanted to see him and we all left before he could even get there. i didn't say goodbye to whiny or anything. i just got my stuff from the car and walked away. i'd like to think that this will go away somehow. or that i can live with it. it won't. i can't. i've lost a friend today.

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04:40: christmas lunch didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped. my poor niece had been throwing up since 7am. she couldn't keep anything down and continued to throw up in the restaurant and back at home. apparently, both she and her nanny got some sort of stomach flu. i wanted to stay home and keep her company, but i was needed elsewhere.

after lunch with my family, i was called to rescue christmas at bitter little girls's house. she was upset over whiny little girl and her hated cousin, and she refused to leave her room to join the party. her mom pleaded with me to come over and talk her out of her mood.
oy. drama, drama, drama. in these past few weeks, everything we couldn't say in actuality we watched being verbalized at the starting over house right before josie packed up and left. bitter little girl would be rain, i would be amy, and whiny little girl would be josie. it's no wonder bitter just snapped.
armed with my irresistible cat, fitz, i made my way to their house. it took about an hour before i could convince her to stop making the rest of the house feel guilty for wanting to have a good christmas while she was miserable. i also convinvced her, for our friend's sake, to come to our friend's birthday dinner on the 28th. i think fitz's puss in boots eyes did the trick. i just hope the dinner goes well.

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08:32: among the bitter little girl's relatives, only her aunt moved back to japan. her aunt and her youngest cousin, yuki, are here for christmas. we took them out for some fun last night. yuki loves being in manila. everything is a new experience for her. i can't believe how much she's grown! when i last saw her, she was rian's age and could speak no english. now she's 14, has eyesight worse than mine, is battling acne, can speak some english (though she's shy about it), and sings english songs (mostly by blue). she wants to meet wev because she sees the band's cd's in tower records. hehe.


wev refuses to let me be a hermit tonight, so he suggested that i go and spend christmas eve at kizzi's. i had forgotten that vanni's brothers have all moved to the states, so they won't be having any big thing on her side of the family. we can still chat with my sister while i'm there, i figure. and they have this season's "precious", too! happy happy joy joy!

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16:02: christmas is coming. sniff.

when we were kids, christmas eve was always the best night of the year. all my cousins would come over. we would have this monster of a feast and spend a good hour just sitting around and talking, waiting until we were comfortable enough with our over-inflated bellies to be moving around the house again. long after everyone had gone home, we would stay up and open presents. my mom would insist that we open the presents carefully, making sure not to tear the wrapper. did much for our eq, ya? we'd finish way past sunrise and still have unopened presents for christmas day. come 10am, no one would want to get up and go to my mom's side of the family for christmas lunch. nyahahahaha! it was always a blast. a huge chunk of the fun was having four brothers and a sister and such cool parents. christmas has always been about family. that's probably why, now, i feel christmas is not for me.

i've been dreading the 24th. ...i've got nothing to do. everyone will be at their in-laws in the south. i'll be alone. or worse... with my mom. i know i just said my parents were cool, but my mom doesn't seem to get the idea that i do not like spending the holidays with people who are introduced to me with a detailed explanation of why they are my relatives. i do not know these people!!! yes, they're a nice bunch, and yes, it can be fun, but come on! they have their own lives and they do their own thing. i'm just the outsider living vicariously. it's pathetic.
sigh.

i think that this year, i shall insist that my mom go out and have a good time while i stay home. cable tv and the dvd player will be my best friends. besides, i'd hate to have my cat spend her first christmas alone.

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18:25: and so i begin another day of hell that runs for more than 24 hours. but it's the kind of hell that i don't mind all that much. still, i'll be missing my nephew's birthday. my brother must hate me. i think i've missed his last 3 or 4 birthdays. what can i do? december is a busy season and i always find out about his parties a little too late. i'll make it up to the kid somehow. play football or something. i'm starting to turn into that "parent" who is never at kiddie birthday parties because of work. that's just awful.
meantime, i haven't had a good music fix in a while. since i'm missing pink floyd night at 70s tomorrow, i thought i'd drop by to see loquy at peligro before going to the hotel. no dice because of someone's shitheadedness, my brother had to cancel the gig. sigh. so be it. have to pack for hell now.

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22:22: world aids day


to my friend who apparently has learned nothing in the past 8 years,

we always seemed old for our age, but circumstances forced us to grow up faster than we would have wanted. i only hope you've grown up, too. you constantly ask for our approval over every little thing, but no one ever could, can, or ever will force you to do things you have already decided on. funny how when it was something this serious, you didn't ask us. probably because you knew we'd disapprove. not that it matters much to you. so please don't blame us for not being there. you're 24. you know good from bad. you don't need us to tell you that.
please don't make the same mistakes. you've got bigger responsibilities and so much more to lose now. and i don't want to know, but for eru's sake, practice safe sex.

you're on your own.

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