So yeah, I don’t usually involve myself in popularity contests like this, but I’m doing this out of the abundance of my heart, for one of the smartest bastards I’ve ever met in my professional career. Not that Mikey needs more votes, as it seems now, he’s got a bunch of people rooting for him already. And not like Mikey needs more recognition and fame, after all, he is THE rising internet star.

But I’m still making my vote count, because I know there’s more to Mikey than his egoistic, non-sensical, and perverted blog. He’s actually a good friend, someone you can trust, *ehem* once in a while. Even though he owes me a lot of money from all those Mcdo and Wendys deliveries that he thinks I forgot already. And even though he steals stuff from my desk, like my ipod connector or my tissue roll, when I’m not looking. I know he does it just for fun, because he doesn’t need my stuff, nor borrow money from me or anyone because he’s rich, as evidenced by his payslips lying around the managers’ area, bearing all the money he gets paid for for plurking and surfing youtube at work the whole day.

So yeah, I vote for Mikey. :)

And no, I won’t tell how much his monthly income is. (Then again, shoot me an email and I will probably consider sending you a scanned copy of his payslip, in exchange for Sonja’s cupcakes. Or Krispy Kreme.)

List of sponsors after the hump. I mean, jump.

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If I could get another chance
Another walk, another dance with him
I’d play a song that would never, ever end
How I’d love, love, love to dance with my father again

Googling the few lines I remembered, I found out that the song was “Dance with My Father Again” by a certain Tamyra Gray. Clicked Limewire. Searched. Downloaded. In a few minutes I had the song looped in iTunes.

It probably goes without saying that there was a lot of tears involved while this was happening. Being alone in the condo/apartment which I just recently moved in to (will blog more about this in a bit), it was easier to just cry that time (than hold back), get it over and done with, and be ready to smile again for when my Mom and kuya picked me up.

Father’s Day has passed again. I didn’t anticipate that I would be sentimental about it, but just like last year, there was this inevitable longing to have someone to hug and say, “Happy Father’s Day, Daddy, I love you” to. The traditional Father’s Day tribute at church had once again made me hide my swollen eyes under my sunglasses.

There’s not a day that I don’t miss Daddy, and there are moments, such as celebrating Father’s Day, and hearing songs such as “Dance with my Father Again”, when the pain of (physically) losing him just tugs deep into my heart again. And I’m little by little learning to accept that this is how it’s going to be the rest of my life.

(Following Liz’s lead, however late.) Here’s for you, Dad. :)

Also, my one wish, encapsulated in the few lines of this song: “If I could steal one final glance, One final step, one final dance with him, I’d play a song that would never, ever end, How I’d love, love, love to dance with my father again..”

Dance with my Father Again sung by Tamyra Gray

I should have just let it go unannounced, eh? After all, most of you probably know me for my infamous disappearing acts. Hehe. Don’t worry, I’m alive and well, I’m happy (never been happier), and I’m not about to commit suicide (or anything like that). I’ve just been pretty busy with a lot of things lately I sometimes wish there’s more to a day than 24 hours.

And I’m not about to put in writing the details of my absurdly demanding schedule. This post is intended simply to redirect you to where the action is. I haven’t completely disappeared from the blogosphere, as a matter of fact I’ve been blogging a lot here, there, and everywhere. And you can also find me playing with images, and documenting my life in pixels, just click away and you’ll see.

Meanwhile, Guitarchic.net is taking a pseudo-break, until.. I say so. :P BRB.

*Gracias to A Softer World for the words on the above image.

Last year, when I turned 23, I remember blogging about some of the reasons why I was glad I was turning 23. Now, I feel as if there’s a big leap somewhere between years 23 and 24. Suddenly, you feel old. Titos and Titas would come up to you and say, “I got married that age!” College people from church would ask you how old you are and when you tell them you’re 24, they would stare blankly at you, pause for a few moments, and say, “uhm, hindi nga Ate?”. So yeah people. I’m 24! Bring it on!

At first glance, there’s really not much of a difference — I’m still the same Riz, with the same surname (lol), and the same height, and the same God holding my life together. Still the same daddy’s girl who loves hugging people (fine, not ALL people), whose wardrobe’s 60% pink, who dreams of going to Oz, and of a happily ever after.

But looking deeper, I know that I’m a very different person from how I was a year ago. For one, I’m one year away from turning 25 (que horror!), and a whole year of drama was added to my life — defining moments, new set of people, new job (which is not so new anymore), new opportunities, bigger responsibilities. Twentyfour years made me this, and I’m glad. :) I just hope that when people look at my life now, they’d appreciate what they see — “some bruises here and there”, but still going, still thriving, still trying (and hoping) to make a difference one day at a time.

On a lighter note, a few interesting things happened this week: I had (1) an intimate birthday celebration at Fontana; (2) a lot of sweet surprises when I came back to work, day after my birthday; (3) a date with an agnostic (whose identity I shall keep anonymous as requested hehe); (4) a pseudo-date with my highschool best friend; (5) a get-together with three of my most favorite people in college, Jam, Drew, & Iking; (6) pizza party (photos to follow) with my most favorite people in the world (I know, I’m soo full of superlatives lately); (7) a new guitar (!!!) I named “Jar”, which I got as a birthday gift *swoon* and..

(7) Tadaaah! A new addition to my growing list of cyber estates. ;)

So to wrap up my week-long birthday bonanza, I invite you to hop to CLICK HAPPY, my pseudo-photoblog (not really photojournalistic but simply a space to store photos that speak a thousand words, or something like that), partly inspired by Liz’s Whats and Woots, but mostly my way of freezing memories when I’m not in the mood to be wordy. ;)

So go go go. And know more about those sweet surprises, and Jar, there. ;)

• Jeffrey Zamora has invited you to be his sister. (When he’s my high school best friend. Sister?? No way. :P)
• Andrew Aleta has invited you to be his second cousin. (When he’s my college friend/orgmate.)
• Nikos Sanchez has invited you to be his distant relative. (When he’s my brother.)
• Gino Carteciano has invited you to be his online buddy. (When he’s my online stalker, not buddy. LOL. Peace baddie!)
• Josiah’s Catering has invited you to be his business partner. (Uhh, okay.)
• MyKid’s World has invited you to be her business partner. (Acceptable.)
• Noemi Dado has invited you to be her friend. (Finally. Something that actually matched! Then again, it’s the safest network connection other than “online buddy”.)
  
• Chel Quitoriano has invited you to be her sorority sister. (When she’s a Twitter friend, and the wife of a blogger friend.)

And well, 2 out of the 10 invites, I declined, so I won’t mention them anymore. Heehee.

Looking at my multiply connections, I realized that I currently have 4 sorority sisters, 3 life partners, 2 fiances, 1 fraternity brother, 1 mother, 1 boyfriend, 1 neighbor, 1 distant relative (in the form of my brother) and 1 ex-husband.

Multiply is funny that way. With their limited network relationship options, you have no choice but to tag your enemy your “Friend” (then again, why would you add your enemy to your network? hehe), or your friend’s friend your “Online Buddy”, or your roommate your “Neighbor”, or your friend’s mother your “Mother”.

On the other hand, some people are just too papansin (in a cute kind of way) or maybe too bored, that they’d opt to choose the weirdest of connections. Hence, your friend’s little brother becomes your “Ex-husband”. Or your other friend’s (also) little brother your “Boyfriend.” Then your brother becomes your “Distant Relative”. And your high school seatmate becomes your “Fraternity Brother”. And your college buddy becomes your “Life Partner”.

Life would have been easier if Multiply invents more specific connections. (Like, “Stalker” or “Boyfriend Wannabe” or “Friend’s Little Brother”). Or, why not leave an option where you can just type in the specific relationship yourself so you can say “Tita” instead of “Mother”, or “Blogger Friend” / “Twitter Follower” instead of “Online Buddy”. It’s much easier that way. :P

It’s just like the infamous Friendster Status. Why o why would they force us to choose between five options only (Single, In a Relationship, Domestic Partner, Married, It’s complicated) when there are gazillion statuses in the world! What about Exclusively Dating? or Waiting for Mr. Right? or Looking But Not Really? or Single But Not Available? or Engaged? Because of their limited options, the world is suddenly full of complicated relationships and dosmetic partnerships and people pretending to be in a relationship. Hehe. And look, “It’s Complicated” is already patented to Friendster. Tamo nga naman. They now own the phrase “It’s Complicated”??! :D

Oh well, going back to Multiply, there’s always “Friend” and “Online Buddy” anyway. I guess all relationships can boil to those two lest you can’t find anything specific. ;)

So.. you have a multiply account? Add me up. Let’s see what relationship you’ll tag of me. ;)

Kudos to the developers of Twitter for creating something grand out of something non-sense. I like how Jayvee put it:

It can be so useless to the point that its engaging. I remember my old literature professor talking about how useless literature and the arts can be — but then he added that “in the most useless of things can you find the most profound lessons.”

Oh, and Mikey, (surprisingly) said something profound about it too (congrats dude, you managed to write a whole sentence without the curse words):

..in a vastly tech-driven, socially dysfunctional world where people would rather touch plastic keys than converse with other people, Twitter’s value proposition is a rather attractive one.

Twitter brought me back to those mIRC days in highschool when you would login anytime within the day just to see if your friends were online and to let them know what you’re doing. Social-networking wise, Twitter’s just like YM, and Gtalk, difference is, you won’t have to rely on chat logs and message archives to recall conversations, plus, there’s no flooding too (in a sense).

And it’s much like blogging, only you blog one-liners at a time — something that works for me coz I usually get a lot of thoughts within the day, which I don’t get to blog about anymore ‘coz I’m too lazy to string them all together.

Ultimately, it’s just nice to announce to the world (and to no one in particular most of the time) what you’re doing and/or what you’re thinking about any given time. For me, it helps me preserve moments as they come — I love freezing moments. Like scribbling non-sense at the back of my math notebook when I wasn’t in the mood to listen to the lecture. Or doodling snippets on my planner for easier recall of what happened when. Or sketching sunsets and guitars and swirls and little hearts and flowers on my notebook in the middle of a meeting with the boss. A bit far off already but, well, yeah, something to that effect. :P

So hey, if you’re on Twitter, add me, add me. If you don’t have a Twitter yet, what are you waiting for? Sign up and ADD ME. :D

• I love you Daddy
• Last Day with Dad (repost)
• A Song for Daddy (song composed by Mikks)
• Thank You from the Sanchezes

And then there are people who helped me by sharing their own testimonies/stories too:

• Ang Hindi Malilimutang Bigote by Marian
• I Cried by Hobbes
• Let the Tears Flow by Xaris
• In Memory of our Pastor Bob by Pat
• A Tribute to Our Great Pastor by Ninong Dave for
• Pastor Bob’s Last Night by Ninong Dave
• Goodnight Pastor Bob by Ninong Dave
• Being Still (To Rhiza) by Sheila

Thanks, everyone. Reading your blogs brought me (and my family) enormous amount of comfort and joy. Thank you. I’m sure, somewhere up there, Dad’s smiling and reading your blogs too.

P.S. You posted something about my Daddy too but it’s not here? Let me know so I can send you some link love. ♥

Why? Beats me. Hehe. In any case, thanks, Liz! And the lovely crew of New Maria. More power (to us)! :)

A few weeks ago, I joined the group mainly because Joni was there–and I think I’ve been pretty obvious about how big an influence that girl is to me pfft hehe–as well as a couple of female webmasters I’ve always admired and reverred. As I kept on reiterating back there at PinkSEO, I’m an advocate of girl power, of women making a difference and being exceptional at what they do. And with NewMaria’s concept, registering wasn’t a hard choice to make.

# New Maria is a non-profit web site with a purpose to showcase Modern Filipina talents in writing, web designing, software developing/programming.

# New Maria is a Modern Filipina, someone who got the confidence to show to the world her skills and talent.

So here I am, one of the newest members of New Maria (and proudly too). If you’re a girl, and you think you have what it takes, come, join New Maria NOW. c”,)

* * *

Now this one’s from out of the blue. I have a decision to make before this day ends (er, more specifically, before Megamall closes tonight): Ang hamster ba, pag mag-isa, nalulungkot din?