This morning, I woke up in a residential condo unit in the Pasig area next to a woman whom I later identified as Maffy, my best friend/love of my life who I publicly announced my engagement to a couple of months ago–or was it? I honestly don’t know. If you ask me what the date is, I’d say it’s mid October, 2009 because that’s what it feels like and apparently, that’s about the last time I was cognizant of anything.

Between then and now, I have no recollection whatsoever of what happened to me. I have vague, fragmented memories that, when pieced together, does not form a cohesive story, let alone one that makes sense. Let me run these memories by you guys and hopefully, you can help me make sense of them:

Memory fragment 1: I’m married?!

This really doesn’t come much of a surprise to me as I know for a fact that I am engaged before I fell into the entire time warp shit I was in. But, it appears that I’ve now been married for three months. I found this photo while rummaging through iPhoto:

Based on this picture, the following people were in my wedding:

• Peter Juan
• Liz Lanuzo
• Lauren Dado
• TJ Cafuir
• Elymar Apao
• Jayvee Fernandez
• Rey Agapito
• Alvin Jimenez
• Luis Buenaventura
• Anne Gomez
• Noelle De Guzman
• Rico Mossesgeld
• Penny Monasterial
• The guy who played Mr. Peabody in Problem Child

I’m pretty sure I invited Pau to my wedding and even considered making him one of my secondary sponsors but, according to this picture, he didn’t make it. This is probably due to the long-standing family feud between my family and his that stemmed from a disputed hectare of land in Pangasinan. So Pau, I just want to say that it’s cool and, morally, you are obliged to share all the gold you find in that land seeing that I found it remember? During that time you and I were playing hide and seek with my lesbian leprechaun friend named Vangie? Okay?

I’m pretty sure I invited Marc too as I was considering him to be one of my groom’s men. I better find out what happened there. In fact, I better check and see if I even have a job.

So yeah, that’s totally boss and crazy weird at the same time. Boss because it feels like I didn’t have to go through all the stress usually associated with wedd–hold on, I think another memory is popping up…

Memory fragment 2: The 10% rule is bullshit

This is not so much a memory as it is knowledge. For some reason, I now know that when anyone says that 10% of the guests you invite to your wedding are not gonna show up, they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. I remember inviting 150 guests with the 10% rule in mind when the wife and I were doing the final reservation with the caterer and we ended up with 160 people attending the reception.

Don’t get me wrong, this turnout is great and I appreciate all your support, but the question that begs to be answered is: How can we have 110 people attending the actual ceremony and host 160 people in the reception? Where the fuck were the rest of you guys during the wedding ceremony? Come on!

Memory Fragment 3: I can now speak/write russian

Пища, с которой многие дорогие и лучше, чем мастурбация

Memory fragment 4: resourcefulness under duress

Because of the snafu caused by believing the 10% rule, I now know that some people will eat anything regardless of how questionable. So yeah, if the food you ate on my wedding tasted like shredded Chicken Joy topped with copious amounts of Karo Syrup and cigarette ash, that’s probably because it is. I had to have food delivered because some of you don’t know how to RSVP.

Memory fragment 5: Women (especially if they’re your wife) want you to lift the toilet seat when you take a piss but don’t want you to leave it up because, apparently, there are germs on the toilet seat so they can’t touch it but you, being a man and immune to germs, can.

I would expound on this memory if it weren’t too soon (got in a fight with the wife earlier about this one). But hey! The good news is that I’m back! And it looks like even if I blacked out or whatever, it looks like I am living an okay life. For the most part. I don’t see the point in going back in time to reliv–

thirty, flirty and thriving…thirty, flirty and thriving…thirty, flirty and thriving….thirty, flirty and thriving… WORK DAMMIT!

If I were to write about engagements around 4 years ago, I would’ve probably written it with my friend Kenneth’s engagement in mind.

Kenneth was one of my best friends in college who proposed to his girlfriend about the time we were about to graduate from business school. Although Kenneth was one of my closest friends, we’ve always had this strange, and at some points, frightening competitive friction going on between us. For one, we always tried to outdo one another academically and in “sports” (and of course, by “sports” I meant billiards; a sport I grudgingly lost to Kenneth back in 2002 during a local 9-ball championship. I did, however, exhibit a modicum of class by publicly congratulating him–a moment which reminded me a lot of that time Hulk Hogan lost to The Ultimate Warrior back in Wrestlemania VI).

At that time, I wouldn’t say I was in any hurry to get hitched but the fact that Kenneth, yet again, beat me to something desirable left me with a lot of jealousy and resentment.

Of course, Kenneth bought his then girlfriend an engagement ring. Actually, now that I think about it “engagement ring” was a huge misnomer given that the “ring” Kenneth gave his fiancee was more of a “14 karat gold band set with a really fucking expensive rock that is about the size of a baseball and probably costs the same as it would to feed a small African country for at least 5 years”

Back then, I thought to myself that since Kenneth gave his fiancee a majestic, expensive as hell ring, I needed to outdo him by giving my future fiancee an even more majestic and more expensive ring.

I actually, back then, had a pretty solid plan to procure said ring: I would fly to Pungo Andongo somewhere in Liberia where I shall mine the biggest diamond the world will ever see with my bare hands. I will hire a group of Kongo-speaking locals who would agree to help me only if I provide them with a crate of AA batteries and some old NBA trading cards (They love Detlef Schrempf in Liberia).

Once I get my hands on the gem I came to Liberia for, I will exfiltrate to Lusaka, Zambia with a human-smuggling caravan who have agreed to provide me with safe passage to Lusaka in exchange for allowing them to butcher and eat my Liberian guides. I might also need to give up my pants along with a box of candies I will bring with me to the trip plus a promise to give their leader one hell of a toothy blowjob (because I don’t know, I guess Zambians like it like that?). A fair trade if I may say so myself.

Upon flying back to Manila, I shall immediately find myself exceedingly attractive to the members of the opposite sex, every chick I meet would want to sexually pleasure me and marry me because, as wel all know, women only fall in love with men who possess two things: A giant penis and a huge-ass diamond. The penis, I can’t do anything about but I would have the world’s biggest diamond and that should be enough.

THAT was how I imagined I’d go about the entire engagement ring / engagement deal.

But last week, January 24, 2009, I invited Maffy, who has been my partner for almost two years and prior, was my best friend for almost six, to a quaint, intimate formal dinner in the middle of which, I dropped to my knees, opened a small black box containing a humble ring (with a rock that’s smaller than my bird–we’re talking REALLY small here guys just in case you still don’t have an idea) and asked her to marry me.

She said yes.

Sure, I may not have had the world’s biggest diamond with me. In fact, all I had were a lot of nervousness and anxiety. But guess what? I walked away from the entire thing with a promise from the love of my life that yes, she will spend the rest of her life with me.

And really, nothing could make me happier.