a quarter of a century

26 Jan, 2026

it was my birthday a couple of days ago, on the twenty second.

every year i stay up until midnight to pat myself on the back for surviving another year on planet earth then go about my day. this year, i have done the exact same thing but i've also written a blog post about it.

i had my joint birthday party last weekend on the seventeenth with my friend, camille. we hosted a wild west murder mystery party over the afternoon and hired a lovely young magician as an intermission number. our "good" guests almost didn't figure out who the murderers were because they put all their trust into someone whose theory was wrong. our murderers could've gotten away with it, i think, if one of them didn't die in a classic high noon shootout and more of the players were open to being morally ambiguous. it was really fun to host though :)

in the evening, some of my friends either stayed late or slept over. we bought some takeout smash burgers, fries, and alcohol before we settled down to binge all of heated rivalry in one evening. i've always been a fan of rivalry-based ships, so the gay hockey show was very easy for me to enjoy¹. i think i have to apologize to my neighbors for how loud we were that night. also, hudson williams is actively trying to homewreck my marriage with robert redford? someone tell him to stop being sexy smoking cigarettes all over my social media feeds PLEASE!!!

the day after, we grabbed brunch at a restaurant i'm very fond of. i ordered fresh cheese pasta with laing (taro leaves cooked in coconut milk) butter and spiced black tea with blackcurrant. we took a nice walk afterwards to visit a newly opened matcha bar, where i ordered a pistachio matcha latte and misha ordered a london fog matcha latte. i think this might be my new favorite matcha in the city! i really liked how the pistachio cream was a little salty.

i spent the rest of that sunday afternoon with misha and her mom. we went shopping for tita's (filipino for aunt/ie, also used with elders you're not related to) wedding outfit since she'll be flying out to attend one in february.

the evening right before my birthday, i watched one of my favorite movies (some like it hot) with my friends. i'm really hoping everyone actually had fun with it and wasn't just telling me they liked it because they know it's one of my favorite movies. if you're interested in the idea of two male musicians running away from the mafia by crossdressing in an all female band and befriending an extremely beautiful marilyn monroe, i recommend checking it out! it's very silly and i promise the humor is nowhere close to offensive even by today's standards.

on the actual day of my birthday, i had to go to the office because it's the one day of the week my team is required to show up. i filed for a birthday leave but i prefer filing those on friday or monday to give myself a long weekend. everyone was really nice about my outfit and makeup, so i guess that kind of made up for it. again, i hope they weren't just saying that because they knew it was my birthday. they gave me a pistachio cheesecake to celebrate. if it wasn't obvious enough already, i really like pistachios :)

later that night, i had dinner with my family in a restaurant that was very recently awarded a michelin bib gourmand. i had eaten there prior and really enjoyed the food so i suggested celebrating there as my family was yet to try it. it was not far from my office too, which was convenient. see the above images for all of the food we ordered: duck breast dinakdakan, jamon croquetas with carolina reaper-infused honey, pulpo, beef belly kaldereta, oxtail kare-kare, soft-shell crab with squid ink sotanghon, tsokolate mousse with shortbread and cream, tres leches with leche flan and mangoes, corn sorbetes with polvoron, along with my cocktail: a delightful mix of gin, blackcurrant, and cinnamon. i also ran into a friend who was in the area! they were drinking at the bar just below the restaurant i was dining at. it was nice to receive an irl greeting from one of my best friends :)

in some like it hot, marilyn monroe's character sugar says the line "you know, i'm gonna be 25 in june. that's a quarter of a century. makes a girl think!" which is where the title of this post comes from. and it's true, it really does make a girl think. i think having my birthday in january makes me extra reflective at the start of the year, for better or for worse.

there are things i worry about often — like if i'm making the most out of my life or not. i'm not doing anything huge or world changing like many of my same-aged peers with articles written about them are, but i'm having fun and i think that's what might be most important. in some ways i feel sooo much older, but in other ways i still feel like i'm fifteen. my twenties feel like such an interesting time. there's so much figuring out to do. i'm looking forward to it though.

until next time,
gabby <3

#personal #slice of life