okay. hear me out.

for once, i think i've got a great idea.

see, in the philippines, women are expected to select. men collect relationships: the girl they just bed, the girl for display, the girl they bring home to mom, the girl they take out to gimmicks, the girl they talk to in dark secluded places simply because their girlfriends are phony barbie dolls but they can't bear to be seen with the funny, interesting, witty girl who just happens to look a wee bit like jessica zafra. women can't have that. in a country where the bastard daughter of a priest happens to be the epitome of beauty, grace, and everything that a man should want in a woman, girls are taught early on about how lovely it would be if you were to marry your first boyfriend.

some are lucky to meet "the one" so soon.

others, like me, aren't so lucky.

and so while the question of why you don't have a boyfriend yet is quite irritating, it is equally irritating if people note that you've changed boyfriends for the nth time. they raise eyebrows, squint their eyes at you, and shake their heads in disbelief.

sometimes, you can even see a word flash before their eyes.

w-h-o-r-e.

and so we learn to lie, hide relationships, or pretend some men never really exactly happened in our lives.

and in true catholic fashion, feel guilty about it. very guilty.

now, being one of those women who has had several relationships, good and bad, in her past, i've decided that there must be a solution to this, that somehow, i can look someone straight in the eye and say, "yes, pat is my first boyfriend."

see, in math counting theory, you have to assign one number per object being counted. pat=one.

in math you can go forward. but we won't want that, right, cause if we do that, pat would not be boyfriend number one.

there are three ways of counting: counting on, counting backwards, and skip counting.

if we count on, again, pat won't be boyfriend number one. if we skip count, definitely pat will not be number one, it might be pat=1,234,567 and we definitely don't want that.

we can however count backwards, now there's the possibility of pat=one.

and then you remember that numbers don't end in zero, numbers can go into negatives, and we all agree that ex-boyfriends no matter how much we loved them then are definitely no-nos right now. no=negative therefore ex-boyfriend=negative number.

therefore if i want pat=one, i must count backwards from one to determine what number a particular ex-boyfriend was, for example, the martian=-1.

and pat will always be boyfriend number one.

i make wishes, a lot of them.

i wish for jimmy choo shoes and narrower feet. i wish i had dainty toenails instead of the weird ones i have. i wish my hair would be shampoo-commercial worthy and that i find "dawn" the only bading who did no wrong to my hair.

but they're wishes and wishes like the ones i make rarely come true, especially since i don't have a fairy godmother.

still, sometimes, i get odd wishes coming true.

for example, way back in 2001, in my second semester in law school, i wished for a break. i wished for a break where i can sleep all day for a week and not feel guilty about it.

true enough, i got it.

one week, slept all i could without feeling guilty. the only thing was that it came in the form of chicken pox.

almost a month ago, in the middle of a three-hour traffic with the special birthday cupcakes i got for the pilot near melting point already and my nerves frayed like anything, i wished for things around me to just stop being difficult. i wished that either my masters degree just finished itself or that my work just get a wee bit lighter, or that law school become less of a burden. i wished that i don't break down, not when law school has almost ended, but that i see things through.

last week, my boss called me to her office, and she told me that i can forget about my thesis.

i nearly choked.

i've always been afraid of the consequences. me having to pay for what they spent on me as a scholar, me losing my job, me being a failure.

except that it turned out i didn't have to worry about anything, except the fact that i'll never get to add M.A. after my name. i'm being set free. the only thing they ask of me is that i fix everything before i leave in march.

and that i consider their offer to teach this summer.

god works in mysterious ways. but he does work.

and sometimes, that's all one needs to keep the faith.

i've got the morning routine of gnat and sometimes that gets me worried.

see my internal plumbing tells me i'm a girl, and so does my intense love for shoes, bags, and shopping in general. before i fell madly in love with the pilot, i used to rubberneck when a good-looking guy passes by. i do like pink and flowers and frilly stuff. so i know, i am a girl.

but my morning routine, especially compared to that of my roommate, gets me worried.

i can be ready in 30 minutes. leisurely preparation for me would be 45 minutes, tops. to straighten my hair in the morning using a flat iron would take another 15 minutes, and 15 minutes only because i get tired and bored after 15 minutes so usually i end up with one side flat and the other side fluffy. i've got my morning routine down to a science.

my dear roommate, on the other hand, takes eons. today, we both had to be more or less ready by six. she woke up at four. i woke up at 5:30. she was still wrapped in a towel by 6. i was out the door by six. i was too lost in dreamworld to figure out what she did exactly between the time she woke up and the time i woke up, but i know that although we entered the bathroom the same time, by the time she was done, all i had to put on were my shoes.

one day maybe i'll just bubble up if i get caught in a downpour. but as long as i make sure i scrub properly even those places where the sun don't shine, i think i'm okay.

i haven't received any complaints. yet.

too much of l.a. law (yeah, i am old enough to have watched l.a. law on television), ally mcbeal, the practice, and legally blonde has convinced me that i was meant to be a lawyer. add to that the fact that i got through lae (law aptitude exam) and the interview with nary a hitch plus the next four years of more or less uneventful life as a student in the college and you've got a girl who was sort of excited (but majorly scared still) to do her first court appearance.

dress suit. check.
stockings. check.
pumps. check.
case folder. check.
questions for direct examination. check.
supervising lawyer. check.

and oh. MAJORLY POWERFUL DEODORANT TO STOP ARMPIT SWEATGLANDS FROM DRIPPING DUE TO TENSION. check. check. check.

but god.

i stuttered.
i stammered.
i forgot grammatical rules i've had down pat since grade school.
i blinked so many times it felt like i was making googoo eyes with the judge.
i forgot my alphabet during the marking of exhibits that the clerk of court had to remind me that what comes after "d" is "e" and not "f".

still, i think it turned out okay.

i may not be a kick-ass lawyer, at least not yet, but i do have got the loud voice to match the one of the defense lawyer down pat.

so yeah, the lakers lost.

so what if everyone - non-lakers fans included - have been telling me that the finals is just a perfunctory affair cause whoever really wins the spurs-lakers game would be the champions?

so what if they have a powerhouse for a line-up?

my boys lost. and i'm feeling really down, pretty much the same way i felt after the phoenix suns lost.

bleah.

go figure.

i'll just go buy shoes. shoes are always a good thing.