• Ate Marcy, one of my cousins. She'll probably not read this unless she starts getting online more often.
  
• Jovan, who technically greeted first at 12:03 AM.
  
• Karlos "Spooky" de Mesa, of Driver Down and Biscochong Halimaw, who will be playing this Saturday.
  
• "Zig Pogi" (it says that on my phone at his insistence).
• Marco Harder!
• Jac Lim, whom I still owe cab fare and a glomp back. >.>
• My blockmate Elena Bautista.
• Selena and Kathy, who texted virtually at the same time. "Magkasama kayo, no?" I asked, and apparently they weren't together. Dun-dun-dun!
• Mika Fabella, my Swanling. ;)
• Tita Marian, Rej's mom.
• Eileen Ang, who should get back to blogging.
  
• My blockmate Alex Villafania, who's probably interviewed some of you guys for his Inquirer tech and hobby articles.
• Lianne, whom I met only once (courtesy of Mika) and was nice enough to send a greeting.
• Magnolia, whom I miss.
• Annwen, her husband Apa, and their newborn son, Diego.
• Reitch, who was so harassed the whole day, but still managed to text at 11:00 PM. Nakatulog ka na ba ng maayos?

• Tricia Yruma-Mori, all the way from Japan. Hope you're enjoying your vacation, dear.
• Hanah, who will, one way or another, come here to party when she visits from the Land of Offshore Bank Accounts and Shady Deals.
• Marco, who covered two of the many bases.
• Nick, who will hopefully be feeling better by this weekend.
• Franny, fresh from The Night Monkeys launch.
• Jimple. If the Bikol Region ever instituted a Poet Laureate, he'd be it.
• Raya Martin, the more famous of the Martin brothers. Labyu Mayo!
• Ina Cosio, whom I haven't seen in ages.
• Jason Caballa, musician and new Multiply friend.
• Luna and her dedicated blog post. Now I have to live up to being 'fabulous'.
• Joon Guillen.
• Paolo Manalo, via PM. Thanks again!
  
• Aldus, with his flattering tribute on the Manox Multiply site.
• Az, who also shares this birthday with me, Princess Diana, Pamela Anderson Lee, and Canada. Labo!
• Cos Colluela and his snarkiness.
• Rom, whom I hope has the butterfly sheets she was looking for.
• Grace, who can always get kittens from us if she misses being owned by them.

• Dat, who also sent an e-card.
• Karlos de Mesa, who's new to Facebook and this whole online community thing!
• Jovan and Ava, who sent Peanuts greetings. Did you guys know my parents got together over Charlie Schultz?
• Emma Therese Maglaque, from the bowels of law school. (Tama ba?)
  
• Lia Bulaong, blockmate. Oo, putangina. Matanda na ako. Pweh.
• Jia Mendoza, Manox fan since 2003!
• Iana the gymnast. We should play Twister again!
• Rocky, who also gave me a boot.
• Janette Toral, blogger, consultant, Facebook contact.
  
• Osama bin-Alec, as he will be called once he flies to Abu Dhabi, the Land of Cute Kittens.
• Fellow half-Indian Klassy, who instinctively remembers my birthday for some reason.
• Macy. We'll be with you in spirit this Saturday. We'll take goood care of Aids.
• Ralph de Ocampo, from wherever in the world he may be.
• Edsel, of the early-morning party shift. And Musings of a Cigarette-smoking Man.
• And Fizz, Ava's friend from Maryknoll (hahaha!).

• Joy Reyes of Floating-Point Architecture fame.
• Lizelle, Mylee's sister, whom I hope arrived safely in L.A.
  
• Ian Roxas, first thing in the morning.
• My dad, Paul Kurrien, Sr. All the way from Bangalore, where he took a break from overseeing sewer repair in his church to call me. No, he's not a preacher-man. There's no Carly Simon song here. Move along now.
• Marc Laureano of the impeccable timing, calling right after my yoga class from New Zealand.
• Jon Sideño, Binondo toughie, Captain of the Defiant, and plyer of booze.
• Lorie, who should be back in Singapore by now.
  

• Shey. Who will sleep over.
• Joon Guillen. In French.
• Ron. Hey there, sexy back.
• Macy, with her huge-ass greeting (size 32 font!).
• Pauline Anne Escalante, a friend and batchmate from KontraGaPi.
• Karen Simbulan, Attorney-at-Law. Very busy!
• Marion Santos and her drive-by greeting.
• Jaunjie, ah este, Virgilind Villanueva-Pallarca, blockmate, old friend, and now, neighbor.
• Joelle Florence Patrice Jacinto. Kailangan buo.
• Mikah, who was thoughtful and sadistic enough to call me "Junjun".
• Chiqui, who, like most people, called me the Ancient Indian.
• Gigi of Via Astris, who thinks Paolo may not be able to comply with the no-shoes rule.
• Hanah. Planstado na ba ang uniform for tomorrow?
• Abbey, who doesn't look her age at all.
• Zig, covering more than one base.
• Alec. Thanks for finding the time in the middle of your turnover.
• Carl. Ah este, si Nick pala.
• Paraluman Cruz, also relaying greetings from Popo. Bastos pa rin ba?
• Charlene Valdez, Attorney-at-Law. Shite, so many lawyer friends.
  
• Adam, while probably surrounded by his seven balikbayan boxes.
• Hectooor! (I've never cracked that joke. Had to do it once.)
• Ryllah, who greeted before she flew for Singapore. Hope you had a safe flight!

• My housemates Dante, Rej, and Oneal, who got me a heavy cast-iron pan that will NEVER (JAMAIS! NUNCA!) be washed with detergent. Only hot water and a brush. I have christened it The Hittite.
  

I'd never gotten anything higher than 134 in other online tests, leading to serious doubts as to how I got into UP in the first place. And now this. Of course, I also didn't know what I scored in the IQ section of the UPCAT. Anyway, since it's shockingly high, I'll post it. Baka may maniwala.

While it's still June 4th:

On this day, in 1783, Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, the sons of a paper-manufacturing family in France, flew the first hot-air balloon in the world. The contraption flew the length of 1.2 miles and had an estimated altitude of 5,200 to 6,600 feet. Months later, they repeated this experiment for the benefit of Louis XVI of France, this time with a sheep, a duck, and a rooster.

The Mongolfier brothers are two of the first inventors I'd learned of. I loved reading about flight as a kid, and images of those first inventions reflected the wonder I felt--and probably what the inventors themselves felt, too. The image of rejects from the cast of the Musicians of Bremen taking to the sky in a contraption of blue taffeta for the benefit of a bewigged king may look comic now--something out of a Terry Gilliam animation--but back then, what kind of awe and wonder did it inspire?

Source: Wikipedia

"I have dreamed nightly of your face and walked the streets of my daily life with the rhythms of your writing singing in my silent brain. I have called you my Muse, and so you are, or might be, a messenger from some urgent place of the spirit where essential poetry sings and sings. I could call you, with even greater truth -- my Love -- there, it is said -- for I most certainly love you and in all ways possible to man and most fiercely. It is a love for which there is no place in this world -- a love my diminished reason tells me can and will do neither of us any good, a love I tried to hide cunningly from, to protect you from, with all the ingenuity at my command. (Except complete silence, you will rightly say, which was out of my power.) ...

"... What do I ask? you will enquire in your precise and yet mocking way -- cutting down my protestations to precise proposals. I do not know -- how can I know? I only cast myself upon your mercy, not to be cut off, not scanted with a single famished kiss, not yet, not now. Can we not find a small space, for a limited time -- in which to marvel that we have found each other?"

* * *

Been rereading A.S. Byatt's Possession. It echoes the male passions for exploration, science, and art, (as one might read in the work of Coleridge or Wordsworth) and the female anxieties voiced through myths, folk tales and cautionary bedtime stories. Everything's held together by a belt tightened by the cutbacks on academic funding in Thatcher's Britain and contrasted with a better-funded American academe bent on fetishizing and mummifying dead poets. The book speaks in many voices: narrative, diary, letters, poems, all modes following different characters; it boggles the mind how Byatt managed to hold it all in her head, and even moreso to set it all down on paper.

Oh, to write something with a fraction of this brilliance.

Despite my best efforts, my yoga mat almost always gets slippery with sweat within the first 20 minutes of our sessions. I wipe my sweaty hands and forearms on my shorts, hastily pass the sleeve of my t-shirt across my forhead, change where I place my hands on the mat so the perspiration from my elbows doesn't roll down my arms whenever I plant my palms flat on the rubbery surface, but all of this is to no avail.

It drips down my chin and through the goatee if I'm face down on the mat, regardless of whether I'm lying on my chest or holding the floor away with my arms, and it soaks through my shirt if I lie on my back. Standing with my palms clasped in prayer only lets it drip down from my elbows, as if they were leaky gutters in a light summer shower.

My mat has to be sticky for me to do the poses properly, since I have to focus on them rather than on trying not to slip one way or another. But that's not to be. Maybe the real challenge is in finding one's balance even when one's own bodily fluids conspire against this very goal.

Last week, we were told to shift to one of the warrior poses. Unlike in the picture above, there was no open air or sun to speak of, only five bright lamps glaring down at me and my class from around 30 feet above. My arm moved in the way of one of those lights, and presented me with this sight: steam rising from my forearm.

"That's not how you do it!" his mother-in-law scolded, interposing herself between him and his new bride.

"Here, let me show you how to do it."

* * *

Based on a conversation at Roseroland in Parañaque on Saturday, May 24, 2008.

Picture depicts Sansevieria trifasciata, also known as the snake plant, or by its more popular common name, mother-in-law's tongue.

Grabbed from Avavoo.

Strange wording, "wired for creativity". Biglang nagkaroon ng expectations.

"'But Mr. Knightley does not want to marry. I am sure he has not the least idea of it. Do not put it into his head. Why should he marry? He is as happy as possible by himself; with his farm, and his sheep, and his library, and all the parish to manage; and he is extremely fond of his brother's children. He has no occasion to marry, either to fill up his time or his heart.'"

* * *

Jane Austen + Blackadder = Naughty Thoughts

Must read someone else now.

If you've ever befriended someone to get closer to someone else, or were the object of such machinations, this one's for you:

"'Good heaven!' cried Mr. Elton, 'what can be the meaning of this? Miss Smith? I have never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existence; never paid her any attentions, but as your friend; never cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very sorry, extremely sorry. But, Miss Smith, indeed! Oh, Miss Woodhouse, who can think of Miss Smith when Miss Woodhouse is near?'"

* * *

This is what happens when one embarks on rereading Emma. *sigh*