"God, just get married already!!! And then maybe J. will stop talking about you," the Code Monkey's friend picks on me through MSN.

I laugh and assure her that I will tell him off.

"Actually, he might not stop talking about you even then. He's been going on and on about April this, April that."

Looking back, I now feel like I should have seen this as a sign of impending doom.

The Code Monkey and I have become one of those boring couples who cannot talk about anything else except each other!!!

But it can't be helped. He is just too geeky and cute to not talk about. *makes cooing noises*

The motorcycle still scares the hell out of me when the Daddy drives me to where I wait for public transport. For five minutes, I get obscenely heightened senses that enables me to hear the slightest difference in the way the motorcycle normally sounds. This, when a person sitting right beside me needs to poke me to get my attention after having lost his/her voice calling out my name.

The Daddy has given up on raising our fifty-something chickens in their makeshift run. He has taken them back to my grandparents' place where they have proper soil to scratch on. Boneless Chicken passed away about a month ago after having been stepped on so many freaking times by her notorious sisters. The two gay teenage roosters have recently discovered that they possess crowing powers. I am thinking of getting them a voice teacher, they have incredibly raspy voices.

I owe my professor a final paper for Chaucer class and I have decided to take a break from postgrad studies this semester. There is a fifty percent chance that I will not pick up where I left off next academic year. I will let the coin decide for me when the right time comes.

We are at home being sick and being bored. The Mummy has just called my friend to tell her that I might not be able to attend her birthday dinner. I ask the Mummy if the story she told me about my grandparents was real.

"I don't know exactly because I wasn't born then of course," the Mummy says, "but everyone was talking about it. Aunts and uncles told me the same thing so I guess it's true."

I demand that she tell me the story from the beginning. So she does.

Mama was exceptional for a small town girl. She had fair skin, small hands, small feet and a really small waist. As with most heroines from old Filipino films, she was also very smart and graduated valedictorian of her class. She was the belle of the ball, only she never went to balls because she was conservative and traditional. Her family also doesn't want her out in the sun too much because her skin was so fair but they made up for it. She was extremely spoiled.

Papa was a military commander. He was imposing even at 5'10 (I still think he's much taller than 5'10 but mum says he's 5'10 and I am not in the mood to argue). With features that make him look brooding and fierce at the same time. Fierce like a soldier not fierce in the contemporary fashion sense. They knew him as Commander Igorot -- because he was in charge of a band of bahag-clad Igorots among other soldiers.

He was her antithesis. She was fair and petite. He was dark and built like a soldier.

Mama's family owned a rice milling shop thing. She was making her way down from the shop when the army-issued jeep Papa was riding on passed by. He saw her and looked at her with those dark brooding eyes. One of his Igorot men were driving the jeep, of course, so he was free to follow her with his gaze, even turning around in his seat (I imagine) as the jeep sped away.

The next three days saw Papa trying to win Mama's heart. He deliberately postponed being wherever he needed to be to get an answer from her. Unfortunately, Mama couldn't say yes to him because she was set to be married to someone else... who eventually became city mayor.

In the middle of her wedding, Papa showed up at the church with his band of bahag-clad Igorot men (who, I am told, carried spears). He walked up to her, picked her up, carried her to the jeep and drove away. The brideless groom stood there, appalled.

"Stupid groom lost his bride, couldn't do anything about it. Wimp," The Mummy ends her story.

"What, he just stood there?"

"That's what they told me."

I contemplate for a second. Mama would have become first lady of a city in Nueva Ecija if she married her first betrothed. I laugh inwardly at the thought of a city mayor who had been pawned on his wedding day. My grandfather is teh ultimate roxxorz. I cannot erase the image of bahag-clad Igorot men with spears barging in the church and my grandfather calmly walking from amongst them to the altar from my mind. It is too... amusing.

"It's going to sound unbelievable if you blog about this, you know."

"Yeah. It would be like Joy Luck Club or something... except with LOLcats telling the story."

"Heehee. Bahag-clad Igorots. Heehee."

"Heehee." We giggle like dweebs.

"If she had married that mayor guy though, she would've pushed him. But she wouldn't be as spoiled as Papa spoiled her. She had bargaining power. It was like 'you carried me off now you need to make me happy.'"

And happy she was with Papa. He spoiled her like there was no tomorrow. Even when they were all wrinkly and old, he kept saying how much he loves Mama and how beautiful she still is. He was the biggest fan of her food. Every Sunday, he'd powder Mama's feet and put on her stockings for her. He'd walk on the road so she can walk on the sidewalk and pretend that she was much taller than she actually was.

I cannot wrap my head around the idea of Papa being extremely intimidating and scary enough to get away with what he did. I remember him as being extremely gentle and funny. A bit firm sometimes with other people maybe, but I've always had trouble picturing him as a military commander.

I ponder on these thoughts while I watch a show about dragons on Animal Planet.

"So... dragons are real...?" I ask The Mummy.

"Oh yes, they are. They're still around."

I want to believe her but can't help but think there's sarcasm in there somewhere.

"But it's on Animal Planet, it must be a serious documentary. On the other hand, the show's called from Dragons: Myths to Reality. And they hired bad actors to act as explorers and discoverers of the frozen dragon carcass," I try to weigh the circumstances.

The show is too vague. I cannot tell whether it is serious like those tearjerker documentaries about female skunks from the Discovery Channel or whether it is an attempt to poke fun at viewers who like dragons.

I give up and throw my hands up in the air. Animal Planet should stop screwing with their viewers.

True, I am yet again in bed with a minor case of the common cold but this only means that I now have an excuse to be a proper needy girlfriend.

I am a girlfriend. I am a girlfriend.

I am now a girlfriend. Sort of.

The idea refuses to sink into my system no matter how many times I repeat it to myself. The concept sounds incredibly alien but for the first time in such a long time, I am truly happy.

In the near future, I get an overwhelming sense of deja vu:

The Code Monkey tucks me in bed and gives me a bell to ring for when I want anything. I explain to him that bell-ringing is a foreign and horrible verb to me. I explain that it is something that only antagonists from noontime soaps do and even then, the idea is met with raised eyebrows and disapproving tsk tsk tsks. He explains that everyone in their family gets a bell to ring when they get sick. I argue and tell him that ringing the bell reminds me of Lurch saying 'you rang?'

But it is either the bell or he stays in bed with me and we risk him catching whatever it is that I have. He gives me a kiss on the forehead and leaves the room.

Like a proper needy girlfriend, I ring the bell and ask that he stay with me until I get better.

I get better and apologise for being needy. He smiles, strokes my hair and tells me to never apologise for that sort of thing because it makes him feel good to be needed.

----

I ask the Mummy how long she knew the Daddy before they got married. If I remember right, she said it was a little over a year. It hasn't been that long ago when I asked, I just wasn't paying that much attention. Understandably so as it is always gross and disgusting to talk about matters such as these with one's parents. Especially so with my parents.

"He always took me to the Wildlife Park and the Quezon City Circle," she says.

"Wildlife Park?" I scoff.

"Yes. I was either the wildlife or the park."

"Hah."

"So anyway. One day, we were sitting and talking at the foot of the Quezon monument. I told him that if I didn't get married the following year, there was a big chance that I would never get married. He proudly told me that he wasn't planning to get married for at least three more years."

The Mummy pauses for effect and continues, "I thought to myself, 'hah that's what you think.'"

It was 1984. He was 27. She was 24 with a four-year old daughter. A year later, they got married.

Another year later, I was born.

The Mummy asks me at 1.45 to get her cigarettes and sugar from the bakery/corner store. I try to evade her request as I have already mentally prepared myself to spend a couple of hours watching a movie in bed. She uses the 'I'm a tired Mummy' card on me however so I put on decent clothes and grab a jacket.

There is a boy topping up his phone credit at the bakery. I approach the glass shelves and wait for the boy to finish talking to the girl tending the store. I look at the glass shelves to see if anything looks good enough to munch on while I watch a movie. My eyes inadvertently glance at the boys shoes. He is wearing white trainers (or are they called basketball shoes? I never know quite what to call the shoes men wear) made of semi-shiny material. The shoes look expensive. White socks are peeking out from the shoes. Bronzed legs are attached to the socks. From the corner of my eyes, I see that he is wearing shorts that go down a few centimetres down his knees.

I look at my own feet and worn-out slippers. I silently pray that no one looks down at my legs and notices that I haven't shaved my legs since the other day. I conclude that the boy is probably semi-rich and snooty so I avoid looking at his face.

I worry that he might catch me looking at him. I do not like semi-rich and snooty boys looking back at me... at least not when I'm wearing an unflattering hoodie and my hair is a mess.

I feel him lean against the shop's metal rail things and look at me. I ignore him.

"Omigod you live here?" he says in a voice that sounds uncannily like he's about to subject someone to a lame pickup line.

I stop breathing for a second and wonder if he's talking to me. It takes me a few seconds to realise that he can't be talking to the two old random bums loitering about in front of the shop. I slowly look at him with a questioning look and recognise him as a classmate from a class I took during my first year in UP. We were both transfer students.

I slightly whack him on the arm, unable to say something coherent. He asks me where I live in the area. I tell him where and tell him that I remember he lives nearby. He is neighbours with a high school batchmate.

I ask him if he has graduated and he says he had. He asks me if I've graduated and I tell him that I just did last April. He congratulates me and says "This is sooo making small talk" and makes a weird hand gesture. The gesture is similar to the kind Hawaiians do when they say 'mahalo.'

"Hehe yeah. At nearly two in the morning."

The girls tending to the shop and the two random bums ogle us. The boy's rich-college-kid accent and the fact that someone who regularly buys bread from the bakery in nearly-tattered clothes (or flowery cotton dusters) is conversing with him in English seems to be more than a shock to them.

He asks me why I'm still awake and if I don't have work tomorrow. I tell him about what I do. He is confused so he asks me what undergrad degree I finished. It eventually becomes clear to him that Creative Writing is not equal to SEO. I tell him I just got home from work an hour ago and he informs me that he has come home from a party.

I want to tell him that clearly, his life is much more exciting than mine but I remember that I am actually at the bakery to get something for the Mummy.

"Pabili nga ng isang kahang Philip at saka 1/2 na asukal..."

"At saka isang Tanduay," he kids me and smiles.

"Haha nah, I'm not drinking. I need to sleep. I have to go to the dentist tomorrow," I say. The sudden shift back to English startles me a bit. For some reason, speaking in English in the presence of the girls who tend the shop feels strange. I have always made it a point to speak in Filipino when I'm outside the house talking to people who are not friends nor family. The incongruity between flowery cotton housedress and near-elegant English is immeasurable.

"Ahh for the braces. Hehe. Where do you live here again?"

I tell him which street I live in again. My house is less than five minutes away from his, he should know this, I think.

It dawns upon me that he doesn't remember that we once shared a cab home one rainy afternoon four years ago. He also doesn't remember that we often end up riding in the same public transport in undergrad. He doesn't remember that we stopped talking after that one class we took as it is normal for students in UP to forget classmates they once were close to after the semester is over. He probably does not remember where he knows me from and he probably doesn't even remember my name.

I realise that I don't remember his name either. He has topped up but does not move to leave. I take the cigarettes and sugar from the girl at the shop and start walking away. He walks with me for a bit and tells me that my high school batchmate (his neighbour) is in Haiti now, speaking perfect French.

"I wondered if you were talking to me when you spoke awhile ago," I admit.

"Hehe yeah. You must have thought I was a weirdo trying to talk to you."

"Yeah, I thought 'omg who is this creep' hehe."

We bid each other good night and take care at the corner across the bakery.

I walk back to the house thinking of how absurd talking to him is after all the times we ignored each other on campus.

I pass by a group of people drinking in the front yard of my neighbour's house. One of them makes a sexist and rude remark assumingly pertaining to me.

The gay person being picked on says in Filipino, "What would I do with a girl? I'm not lesbian!"

"Of course you can have anything you want, piggie," the Code Monkey tells me.

I clap my hands with glee, throw my arms around him, and squeal as I think of what lies ahead of us.

"Bunnyyyyyyyy!!!"

"Yes, dear?" the Code Monkey exits his game to pay attention to me.

"I want a tiger!" I announce with a grin.

"Uhm, that's a bit much piggie. People aren't allowed to keep them as pets."

"But... but it's a win-win situation. You like cats and tigers are big cats," I say with big sad kitten eyes for effect.

"Yeah but not ones that can eat me. It would use me as a chew toy."

"No it won't! Pleaseeeeee?"

"Awww, I can't resist you but our yard isn't big enough and it's not legal..."

I sob.

"'Kay..."

I sob some more.

"Can we get pizza instead?"

"Hehe of course," he says, hugging me.

"Can I name the pizza Fred?"

"If you want to. But are you really going to eat a pizza you named?"

"Of course not, when you name something you get attached to it."

"So we are keeping the pizza in the fridge until he grows hair and becomes all fuzzy?"

"Yes!!!" I grin widely. Clearly, he understands me.

"Why do you want a pizza for a pet anyway?"

"Uhm because I can't have a tiger?"

"But they aren't even remotely similar. I'll be more than enough pet for you, I'll rawr at you if you want."

"But you're not orange and stripey."

"Haha you're just strange."

"Piggie wants a tiger. Can't keep a tiger. Can't keep Fred." I sob some more.

"Well unfortunately, this time piggie's going to be disappointed. We can keep Fred though," he comforts me. "I'll get him a mini fridge to live in so he can be a bachelor, then we can invite a girlfriend for him and they can have lots of little baby pizzas."

"Haha."

"What?"

"You're weird. A pizza girlfriend and little pizza babies? Haha. Really now, bunny?" I smack the side of my right leg and laugh uncontrollably.