wow. almost a year since i last posted here. can u believe that? u know, i've got so many blogs now. i don't know why i keep making blogs anyway. i guess u could say i'm fickle when it comes to these things. well. i still like the way i can freely edit my blogdrive page. i can personalize it and make it MINE.

i'll be updating my sidebar soon. got a few plans for it...

more changes. for some reason i no longer liked the previous look.

now ain't this funny? after tons of changes and customizations and hours of learning basic CSS and HTML solely through observation and trial & error, i end up reverting back to my blog's first template.

um... do you think it's a little too glittery?

i am fond of glitters these days.

currently listening to: Sick Cycle Carousel by Lifehouse

If a friend had not skyped me today and asked me if I had a date for tomorrow, frickin' Valentine's day would have come and gone and I would not have noticed.

Oh, you think it's quite impossible not to notice? OK, let me change that last part to " I would have been vaguely aware of the sudden profusion of pink and red balloons, the unusual abundance of chocolates, and the mysterious actions of flower-toting moony individuals, and say to myself in consternation: What the hell? It ain't Valentine's day yet, is it?"

Duh.

But don't get me wrong. I'm no cold, hard b*tch. I was a romantic. Err...OK, so I still am (damn, why'd I frickin' admit that???). But I'm no longer the hopeless, moony, daydreaming, oh-sweep-me-off-my-feet romantic. No.

I did dream.
I have loved.
And hoped -- perhaps too much.
I've been hurt.
Scarred.
But I learned.
And I've grown.

I realized that before I go and fall in love with some other person, I must first fall in love with myself. That I must not desperately look for some stranger to accept me and want me and understand me like no one else does, because that only means that I have not learned to embrace the totality of ME. That I must not look for affirmation from another human for things that I cannot affirm for myself.

I learned to go deeper inside myself and get in touch with the emotions that matter most, and grew from the experience. I learned that I will never be satisfied with what other people think or say unless I first satisy myself.

Valentine's day will always be a special, special day, but no more childish dreams and foolish hopes. In their place is celebration of self and of love, real raw love, of friends, of family, of life.

Sheesha, shisha, narghile, hashish -- and whatever else it's called -- has become imprinted in my memory side by side with tequila and a singed mattress.

It was hilarious, though we were a bit peeved at having been charged for burning the "expensive" mattress. Ah, the cursed mattress!

It happened last Saturday at a place called Alibaba Sheesha Bar. We had been eyeing the place for weeks in our quest to challenge our tongues and tummies with never-before-tried cuisine (fear factor inspired challenges aside). So we finally got together last Saturday and went to said place for a rather late dinner. We each ordered one of their Middle Eastern dishes; I had a mixed-rice dish called, if I remember correctly, Machbous Shrimp. There was this exquisite weird flavor to it. In fairness, their food was quite good. It was a little while later when things started to heat up. Several more friends and acquaintances came. Beer started going round, and a bottle of tequila appeared out of nowhere. We ordered sheesha. I wanted the coffee flavor, mhuyheN wanted rose, and another girl wanted mint. We finally agreed on mint, but for some reason the girl who served us gave us rose, which we only discovered when we started puffing on the hookah hose. The wicked aftertaste made me feel like I had just chewed potpourri. But we puffed away anyway.

Two shots of tequila, two glasses of beer, and several puffs later, at around 2AM, our unforgettable moment happened. A friend pulled a little too hard on the hose and knocked the hookah -- hose, coals, and all -- off the table. Someone shrieked, I stared at several hot coals that landed on me, which mhuyheN frantically brushed off, and the next thing we knew there was a coin-sized blackened hole in the mattress cover.

The owner of the establishment glared disagreeably at the singed mattress, and then charged us 150 pesos for the damage. One hundred fifty for a tiny burnt hole! We paid up, of course. So much for our sheesha experience.

EDIT: Menger has complained at having become a nameless friend, so now I proclaim to all of blogdom that it was he who knocked down the hookah.

Here are ten random lines that struck me today. I purposefully am not including which songs they come from, so you can at least have fun guessing.

1. Too bad the things that make you mad are my favorite things.

2. Your every breath could be your last 'coz they will break your heart in two.

3. I sat in regret for all the things I've done, for all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged.

4. If the world would fall apart in a fiction-worthy wind, I wouldn't change a thing now that you're here.

5. Where can you run to escape from yourself? Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?

6. Could I, could I keep dreaming for a little while longer?

7. We don't have to stay friends, let's pretend to be enemies.

8. I hope there's someone out there who can bring me back to you.

9. Your eyes are an undiscovered ocean far away.

10. Tell me stories, tell me more; make me feel guilty for being bored.