Inspirability

is my family's raffle curse over? i seem to be on this weird winning streak the past couple of months: the jun-jun shirt from a blog raffle; the white chocolate cheesecake from lori's tea party; and an ice age 2 movie ticket (singapore theaters only) for buying diego at takashimaya.

my newest win is this lovely book called inspirability by matt pashkow (who refers to himself as pash, in the tradition of cher and madonna). i won it at the full-day workshop our department had on the art of broadcast promotions, courtesy of the promax bda roadshow.

the speaker was jeff rustia, an ultra-cool, mulleted (yes, the 80s hairdo) fil-canadian creative director. jeff runs a company called front, which -- i'm amazed -- lives entirely off branding tv networks. no dog food commercials, no corporate stationery. just pure broadcast promo.

learning about front (and the other entities like it) was such a shocker. it's like finding incontrovertible proof that the afterlife truly exists, i.e., there's actually somewhere i can go -- somewhere i can, and should, aspire to go -- after my life in this world.

grimace and the hot lolo

jeff threw trivia questions every now and again, complete with prizes, to check if we were listening (don't know if he does this for everyone, but it's certainly very pinoy). this decadent book (with its sexy, swirly designs and run-your-fingertips-over-it-every-ten-minutes faux-suede hardcover) was a prize for his final question. it wasn't a tough question, but i got it pretty much for two reasons.

one, i was wearing my bright purple sweater -- i stood out from all the people who shot to their feet to answer. the assistant made to spot the first to get up literally blurted out "i saw grimace purple!" color works!

two, the answer was jeremy irons. i could not have missed that for all the world. i love jeremy irons! he's equal only to sean connery on my hot lolo list. in one promo spot we viewed, he narrated a few lines of d.h. lawrence, and i could have ID'd his voice within two words in my sleep. it's so, so, sexy. shameless confession: i went through a recent phase where i listened to "be prepared" from the lion king almost every day.

conversations

anyway, the book. i leafed through it it until i fell asleep last night, and it's great. it's one of those books you can pore over for hours, read again and again, seek out when you're stuck, and suddenly toss aside to do something else because you've just gotten all fired up by something you read.

inspirability contains conversations with forty top graphic designers (none of whom my provincial self knows, of course) on what inspires them, complete with handwritten (and -doodled) survey forms and snapshots of their workspaces. i have yet to truly pore over it, but it was great to find little snippets of insight from these really talented people that resonated with me. i'll share some with you.

"... i don't need inspiration, i just need the fucking pressure."

-- erik spiekermann, typographic designer/font developer

"escape forces you to shut down and get rid of all the bothersome things which have a tendency to make you kind of narrow-minded and prejudicial... and you go back to that point, a kind of open innocence where everything is meaninful and everything has a chance in your mind."

-- mike salisbury, branding expert

"i collect ephemera. [this is a beautiful, empowering new name for all the junk i have in my room and can't bear to throw away -- d.] i've got a storage room... filled with boxes and boxes of inspiration. you would have a blast looking through this stuff. it's just craziness. everything from bottles and jars, to signs, photographs and toys. i don't know what i'm going to do with it yet."

-- david schimmel, creative director

the only thing i don't like about it so far are pash's interjections. it's as if i can't absorb and react to the designers' statements, or find them brilliant, all by myself... he has to help me.

and every time i read one of his comments, i hear a distinct voice speaking them in my mind. it's kind of a cross between oprah and martin short as the bridal planner in father of the bride. do you hear it too? (emphasis mine.)

"mmm. i really like the way you just said that."
"i love it, what a great perspective."
"wow, what an interesting answer. definitely."
"i think it's absolutely true."

what inspires you me?

travel! going on a trip - whether it's to a foreign country or riding the mrt to work.

books with pictures. reading the griffin and sabine trilogy sent me into weeks and weeks of sketching, collage-making and visual journaling. reading the sandman for the very first time was a total mind-boost. and i love taschen books, which are about 90 percent images and about 10 percent text.

working with creative people. like most of my officemates are.

what inspires you?

Singapore snaps

my (stolen) long weekend, in pictures.

thursday

clear skies on the boyf's birthday. (i flew jetstar, as always.)

the customary black pepper crab dinner at jumbo (our spotless white shirts speak of our crab-eating mastery). should probably try the competition, no signboard, on my next trip.

my birthday boy opening one of his three presents from me (wrapped in superman-print paper, as he firmly believes he is superman).

friday

a homecooked meal by the kitchen god himself caps a hard day of lounging, tanning and pre-shopping!

our hearty dinner: pepper beef hamburger with corn on the cob. yum!

saturday

lunch that pressures you to "hurry!! mix them up!" (last line of copy reads: "why? you will see it!")

the boyf instructs me in the art of DIY mongolian at pepper lunch at the takashimaya basement.

a momentous occasion in the life of a young woman: the first chanel! bronzing powder and lipgloss from taka. *hyperventilates*

the one that got away -- the perfect chanel smoky eye shadow that just had to be out of stock after i spent half an hour convincing myself that i could afford it! gah! bakit kasi tinest pa sa akin, out of stock naman pala! *slaps chanel counter girl silly*

my new workdesk guardian, diego!

my first taste of soba -- cold japanese buckwheat noodles. a delicate break from the heavy, flavorful dishes that i usually order. love the texture.

a perfect nightcap at home: crash on vcd over warmed dessert wine from the nurnberg christkindles market, and...

heaven in a little embossed box: world-famous chocolates from royce'! these babies are packed with dry ice for one to enjoy within five hours of purchase (unless you get them to a freezer, that is), plus a tiny plastic spatula to keep untainted by greedy, unworthy human hands. one bite simply opened my mind to the wondrous genius of creation, both divine and human. that's pretty profound for a 12-dollar pack of chocolate. ;-)

(related reading: check out lori's post on the joys of royce'.)

sunday

after dreaming, chilling and cooing over ikea's great sale... we had to fight it out at the checkout counters with, oh, about 80 percent of the singaporean population. the boyf (proud owner of a new ikea bookcase) really wanted to go back for that 9-dollar tool set.

Rethinking Blogger

i'm cooking up a couple of pet projects for the next couple of months, and one of them is an overhaul of this blog. after two years of its existence, parang dapat karirin na ito! my sister asks: hindi pa ba karir ito? i look at some of my favorite pinoy blogs (such as those of lori, marketman, and anton), and say: NO!

some of the things i've done in preparation for the big revamp:

• signed up for a flickr account
• signed up for a wordpress blog for testing and comparison purposes
• created a temporary doppelganger of this blog on wordpress
• currently trying a .ph domain (free from i.ph) on for size

and some of the things i'm still struggling with:

• wordpress vs. blogger. or should i even move at all? if i could figure out how to make the changes i want on blogger (as other enterprising bloggers before me have done), i may very well stick it out here.
• is a .ph domain really worth it? (anton seems to think so. but i'm not totally sold on the idea yet.)
• writing my "about me" section. i write for a living and i've been yakking about myself on this blog for two years. so why am i stuck?

i'm back from my singapore flash vacay, by the way. i documented my trip as only a new digital camera owner can, which is obsessively. snaps to follow.

update: bah. after a week-and-a-half-long trial/investigation, i decided that i don't want and definitely cannot manage hosting my blog independently. and i don't like being stuck with wordpress's canned templates. so congratulations blogger, you may not support tags but it looks like i'm here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Pre-shopping: a discourse

"i think i'll do some pre-shopping."

i bet marlon was struggling not to raise an eyebrow when i told him how i was going to spend my afternoon. over lunch with him today, i realized i've come to take my annual singapore shopping jaunt (it can hardly be called a spree) very seriously. i'm a victim of the impulse buy and queen of the bargain find most of the year, except for this one time that i get to go shopping with no expense to marlon or myself.

it all starts with a set of department store vouchers, which marlon gets from the office for some reason or another (christmas bonus, work-related award, what have you) and promptly informs me about. we blather back and forth briefly about who gets to use the vouchers, and i graciously allow him to convince me to blow the whole wad on myself. i then draw up a wishlist, a thought process that is supplemented by a brief survey of my closet and dresser.

then, when i get here, there's pre-shopping. pre-shopping is a solo trip to the store in question, where i scout the goods -- just scout. no actual shopping is done, which might strike you as a waste of time and effort. but really! pre-shopping serves quite a number of worthy purposes, such as:

• budgeting the vouchers, thus preventing any embarrassment from running out of vouchers and/or cash
  
• allowing me some of the pleasure of shopping alone, which i actually prefer
  
• allowing marlon to preserve his patience and his sanity without having to give up the puffed-up satisfaction of being able to take me shopping (i'm serious! guys love to feel that they can spoil us without actually spoiling us!)
  
• preventing cranky afternoons and potential arguments, thereby keeping our relationship in relative bliss!

last year's shopping jaunt at robinson's took three days of pre-shopping, since i was a bum and had so much more time on my hands. this year, though, i spent only one afternoon scouting the goods at takashimaya.

it was an interesting experience. taka is more upscale, so they had all these... mommy brands. estee lauder, chanel, dior, clinique, bobbi brown. thought balloon: ack! i don't want to turn into my mom yet! i was pining away for the "younger" brands that i wanted to stock up on, like nars, mac, paula dorff, alison raffaele, plus my favorite, bourjois.

plus, only one of the makeup brands (estee) carried one of the items that i want, which is bronzer. most of the other makeup ladies politely turned me away and told me to come back "when the summer line comes in." which is in june a.k.a. philippine rainy season. ano ba yun? i felt so provincial with my two-season outlook on life. basta march, summer na! dapat may bronzer na kayo!

i also got much less attention (read: ignored) than the predominant types of takashimaya shoppers: badly sun-damaged caucasian women and reed-thin chinese women with very big logos on their bags. perhaps the tricycle on my team manila shirt is some kind of symbol that translates to low priority.

well, whatever. i'm going back tomorrow with marlon, and i more or less have a plan. let's hope i stick to it and don't blow my vouchers on a single pair of shoes from nine west. that would just be a total waste of pre-shopping.

Sayona-lah! Year 3

it's the boyf's birthday once again, and i am off to lah-lah land!

wow. my march singapore visit has now become an annual event. parang pilgrimage, haha.

apart from the much-deserved time off from work, i'm looking forward to my singapore trip not so much for the thrill of discovery as for the routine we've built up over the past three years. there are always new little variations here and there, but for the most part our mini-life in singapore revolves around the following:

the happy reunion at the airport. black pepper crab dinner at jumbo on the first night. the takashimaya shopping spree with vouchers from marlon's office. sleeping in on saturday morning. lazy brown-rice-and-tuna brunch in bed. marlon cooking for me. swimming and tanning (my favorite solitary desperate housewife activity). invading our one-dollar bookstore. drinks and indian food at boat quay.

just thinking about these inane rituals both warms and soothes me. they are ours, and they are a product of the three years we've spent together. and they make for a happy, tingly farewell.

see you all in a couple of days!

Mommy's day out

my mom turned 57 this week, and my sister and i decided to "book" her for a sunday junket to tagaytay. it was a weekend long overdue -- the last family trip we took together must have been in my sophomore year of high school, when we still had a car. my mom didn't even know that the tagaytay-sta. rosa route now exists! (she thinks the old way was faster.) but now that my sister has max, hopefully we'll get to take more girl-bonding trips together. thanks ate!

i felt very grown-up and efficient making reservations for lunch and spa treatments -- both of which we were late to, naturally. :-)

lunch at the cliffhouse

after reading about it in a magazine, ate and i set our sights on lunch at the cliffhouse, a new retail/dining complex overlooking taal lake. doesn't the phrase "retail/dining complex" just evoke ugly industrial-type images? (strip malls anyone?) luckily, cliffhouse was none of that.

the cliffhouse is set low in the ridge, so it offers a closer (and clearer) view of taal volcano than our childhood haunt, taal vista lodge. ample space is provided between restaurants, so while the place may be full, it doesn't feel crowded. everything simply feels open, airy and sunny -- perfect for a laid-back sunday. for dining, one can choose from cafe breton, buon giorno, papa vinz' pastries and fire lake grill. there's also a nifty home store/bar (domecillo), a non-cheesy souvenir shop, a sun deck with benches and ample parking.

lunch was at fire lake grill, which has received pretty good reviews so far. while the food didn't quite blow me away (reviews really make you expect a lot, huh?), it was all good. the service is decent, the food is well-presented (if a bit lacking in flavor), and the ambience simply puts you in too sunny a mood to complain. it's probably the priciest joint in the complex, which simply means makati prices.

ladies who lunch

i never realized my sister was so matakaw. (or takaw-mata?) or that my mom was so picky with food. we ordered a a beef, brocolli and cream cheese pasta for her, and she gave most of the beef and all of the brocolli to me and ate. sigh.

rare tuna steak salad, nicoise-style with lime-cilantro dressing (php 260)

cappuccino of pumpkin with cinnamon froth and beef slivers (php 120) -- top pick!

for the family carnivore: coffee-crusted striploin steak (php 875)

darne of norwegian salmon with tagaytay greens and dalandan (php 350)

we also had philly cheese steak-style penne (php 240) and asparagus and mushroom risotto (php 220), but those were demolished before we remembered to take photos.

pampering at nurture spa

my first visit to nurture spa (with marlon) was no great shakes, but the services seem to have improved over time. and of course the ambience is quite relaxing. i got my mom a one-and-a half-hour ginhawa massage (php 1,500) as a birthday treat. rather pricey for a massage, but well worth it when she burst into our massage room afterwards, all aglow and raving about her liberation from assorted aches and pains. :-)

mothers are funny. after an hour and a half, my mom knew the entire life story of her masseuse, as well as half a dozen factoids about the spa and the oils they use. my sister and i passed out after the first ten minutes!

doña imelda in her garden

coffee at bag of beans

after being rendered jellylike by our masseuses, my sister decided we needed batangas's finest barako to perk us up. i don't know if bag of beans does indeed serve batangas's finest, but it sure seems so!

we didn't get to try their famous english pies, since we were too busy chomping down two large, fluffy cinnamon rolls topped with cream cheese (php 35 each) plus a plate of moist, mouthwatering carrot-banana loaf -- a hybrid of my favorites. everything got washed down with free-flowing brewed coffee (php 55). caffeine and sugar bliss.

will update this post with links, contact information and how-to-get-theres when i have more time. stupid internet explorer at the office is making uploading pictures a living hell. i miss firefox. i miss lulu.

Sugar frenzy!

ack! i have so much to blog about! it's amazing that so many pictures and anecdotes have piled up, considering that i only really have a life on weekends. :-P

now let me see... where do i start? ah, yes. dessert comes first, of course!

--

seventy-five eager sugar hounds...

dessert vultures ready to swoop

one sweltering, steamy sunday afternoon...

fabian's and my loot, awash in the late afternoon glow. (yup, it's summer!)

two fab, famous pinoy bloggers (lori baltazar of dessert comes first and carlos celdran of walk this way)...

the witty and articulate lori, whetting our appetites (as if kailangan)

one look at carlos: yep, this is definitely going to be interesting

and a parade of thirteen of manila's most divine homemade desserts...

the first serving of sin! my faves are on the left side of the plate

... make one deliriously happy currystrumpet!

cabbing home in a happy sugar daze

a communal sugar rush (or should i say frenzy) is a strange and happy thing. it's as if everyone in the room has the word "attack!" tattooed on their foreheads. dollops of icing magically appear on arms, elbows, temples, hemlines, and the ends of one's hair. a collective gasp escapes when, after feeding on six sinful desserts, a second set of goodies is announced -- a ticklish mix of shock, delight, and guilt as each one wonders how to make room for more (but really, how could you not?).

manila is so wonderfully small that despite going alone, i ran into two people i knew at the party (my college philo seatmate and one of marlon's debate friends). attacking the desserts with two other people me feel so much less pathetic.

the utter proof that this was indeed a great event: i, of the notoriously raffle-malas family (we only win when raffles are rigged), actually won a cake in the raffle! we enjoyed the creamy delight that was vanilla bean's white chocolate cheesecake for my mom's birthday.

more sugar-frenzied partiers, plus the desserts that drove us batty, here and here.

read about the featured bakers and java sponsor coffee cordillera here. (too bad it was too hot for coffee.)

of the featured desserts, my favorites were karen's utterly sinful xanadu (the first on my plan of attack) roshan's shut-your-eyes-in delight lemon torte (which i saved for last).

we partied at the living room in malate. cool art space in an equally cool apartment building. check it out here.

Saturday, March 11

Jun-jun for the win!

will he get over one million pesos in cash, a two-million peso exclusive contract, a business franchise and a house and lot?

will he become not just hot, but super hot, overworked and rich?

more importantly, will i get to see him on tv (and around the office) for years to come? it all happens tomorrow at 9:30 p.m.!

gad, am i actually going to traipse all the way to marikina to see my pet account go out with a bang? i think i'll let the tea party make my decisions for me -- if i win something in the raffle, i'll go home and watch the delayed telecast. i certainly can't lug a cake or a framed 8X10 photo of one to a stadium full of 13,000 screaming fans.

return primetime tv to the jun-juns! jun-jun for the win!

p.s. i just have one last shoot with him on monday, and then the worst of this obsession will die down. promise. :-)

Sunday, March 5

Glory be

i have seen the light. after years of dodging high school p.e. (and slinking through most of college p.e.), i have now come to the epiphany that physical exercise actually feels... wonderful. who would have known that my body could turn traitor to my slothy ways and actually secretly crave for exercise? not me. but the craving was fulfilled yesterday, and it felt great.

my only experience with capoeira so far had been the virtual kind -- mindless, button-mashing sessions with christie monteiro in tekken 5. but yesterday, thanks to escola brasileira de capoeira philippines and their newly opened saturday sessions at the ateneo, got to try it out for real.

and it was fun! unathletic as i am, i didn't feel as stupid as i normally would have trying out a new physical activity -- a martial art/dance at that. and daunting as all the acrobatics/buff bodies/fluid movements are, i am definitely coming back for more. why?

one: the people are great. the advanced capoeristas are mixed in with the beginners, and you switch partners a couple of times during the class, so you learn a little bit from each new person that you meet.

there is a visible respect for each person's pace. none of that deadmahan you get when you're a beginner at something (such as, say, fitness first's body jam, tee hee) and everyone else is leagues ahead of you.

there is a very strong group dynamic -- warm, effusive, and simply envelops you, drawing you in.

two: anything fuelled by music is a go for me. especially when it's live and has a distinct shout-your-heart-out feel-good factor. such are the songs sung in roda, which are accompanied by instruments like the drums and berimbau (which kind of looks like a big bow with a gourd tied to one end).

the musicmaking takes place during the part of the class called roda, or the circle in which everyone "plays" or "performs", two by two. it's more like what we pinoys like to call an "exhibition" rather than actual sparring, since nobody actually tries to hit each other. which to me is great -- walang patalbugan. plus, the beginners can actually "dance" with the more advanced capoeristas, or even the instructor.

three: that it's so beautiful to watch is quite inspiring. in other group exercise classes a.k.a aerobics (well, the ones i've tried), motivation to get better and practice more doesn't seem quite so strong. i mean, you don't really try to achieve the perfect grapevine, do you?

one of the biggest surprises for me was this huge kid who was totally red in the face all throughout the class (like me). but in the roda, whoa! ang galing niya, cartwheels and all! i thought to myself, syet kung kaya niya, kaya ko rin! i want to do cartwheels too!

i am even more inspired to lose weight just so that there's simply less of me to lift when i attempt the acrobatics. hell, not even the acrobatics. i can't even hop from my left to my right foot while squatting.

i wish i could attend the weekday sessions at the polo club. the more you train, the faster you improve. but... augh. work work work.

four: everyone's buff bodies are really inspiring, too.

demmit. someday, i too will do headstands in white pants and a bikini top. but in the meantime, i will go on huffing and puffing, ginga-ing and kicking away.

oh yeah, and i gotta nurse my poor legs back into shape. they're absolutely killing me.

--

another glory be: the hordes are gone. i can put my jun-jun posts back up now.

Thursday, March 2

Sometimes...

... being in a long distance relationship can be a real... yeah. that.
... drastic spikes in your site traffic can be really unnerving.
... i get praning and wonder whether it's actually ok for me have personal preferences about my work.
... you just gotta do what you gotta do.
... you have to let someone drag you off your sorry butt to exercise (capoeira with my sister on saturday. good luck to us.)
... you just wonder.

Saturday, February 25

Yawn, stretch

it's another rip-roaring weekend over here in my little sphere of existence. half the day lolling around in bed, then out to the grocery and book store, back home to munch on popcorn while re-reading bridget jones' diary and covering a couple of new books in plastic (which, in all seriousness, is something i've been dying to do for months).

the highlight of my day was probably finding the perfect afternoon tea party dress at a new ukay-ukay. it's a soft, drapey wrap dress with a deep v neck. it's not only light and summery, but it fits my most important tea party criteria: it must hide all signs of dessert bingeing. the drapey quality of the dress is perfect for that purpose. i love ukays.

oh, and my visit to national bookstore. i felt a sudden rush of nostalgia when i stepped into the bookstore we all grew up with/in and realized i haven't been in a national bookstore since college, when i had to buy school stuff.

i also ended up buying myself a new book (malcolm gladwell's the tipping point) within ten minutes, something i've found difficult to do lately at big bookstores like fully booked -- the selection is so overwhelmingly large (with so much bad mixed with the good) that all the back cover blurbs start to sound the same. (i say "overwhelmingly large" because i grew up with a bookstore where half the space was devoted to office and school supplies, and not books.)

really exciting stuff, huh? the perfect complement to all the hullabaloo that was going on in the city yesterday. yes, the city. not the nation. far as i'm concerned the "coup" was strictly a makati thing. inquirer columnist manuel l. quezon III calls the state of emergency "a state of panic." i'm inclined to agree.

Friday, February 24

Crap as it happens

it's time for our nation's annual exploitable holiday. we just never learn, do we?

before the above throng came down edsa (right under our noses), metro aides were spotted frantically rushing sweep the flyover clean, and a grand total of four policemen assigned to "block" the oncoming rush. heck, mas marami pa yung mga metro aide sa mga pulis. typical. well, good luck sa kanila.

contrary to reports on cnn, the president has not seized control of utilities and media. we're still here, toiling cheerily away. but i have a spare toothbrush, moisturizer and a change of underwear in my handbag, just in case.

my officemate leah is dressed for combat; my boss (in gray shirt), for protest.

warrantless arrests, state of emergency, and another colossal traffic jam. haaay ate glue, i sure hope the mao collar and gray suit doesn't mean what we all think it means.

Wednesday, February 22

How sweet it is

... to be invited to a tea party!

two of my favorite bloggers (dessert lover lori baltazar and 'streetwalker' carlos celdran) have cooked up the confection convention of the century... and i'm going to be part of it! all because i'm kapalmuks enough to email a total stranger for invites! haha! (well, not a total stranger -- my sister knows lori from college carpool.)

what tea party, you may ask? check it out here.

a parade of manila's best desserts, 59 new people to befriend, and an opportunity to meet the people behind two of my daily must-reads. all that and a raffle too! i simply can't believe my good fortune.

incidentally, it seems i'm on some kind of online winning streak. like a true jun-jun fanatic, i won a jun-jun shirt up for grabs on a US fan's blog. i would die before actually wearing the shirt to the office or an event though. i'll just be super kilig knowing that jun-jun and i have the same shirt!

but anyway.

a tea party! a tea party! whatever will i wear? and however will i keep from bursting out of it?

... to know that i can visit marlon on his birthday!

seismic shifts in the world of primetime television have suddenly, miraculously, created a vacuum in my summer workload. all the nail-biting and schedule-juggling i've been doing to get time off for my annual lah-lah land junket has now been rendered irrelevant.

i'm genuinely happy about this development because it's not just fabulous for my downtime, but also because i truly believe it's in the best interest of the show concerned -- as well as of the network as a whole.

but i'm especially happy because this also means i'm going to get to have a holy week vacay! which shall it be: desperate housewiving in singapore or tagging along on marlon's business trip to bombay?

lalalalalala!

Ate, huwag po, Ate

j, i actually don't have any shirtless pictures of jun-jun (and if i did i wouldn't share! mine mine mine!), but here's a funny wallpaper that charlie (my partner art director) made for me.

haay! ang kamandag nitong batang 'to!

Saturday, February 18

Recovery

either i'm getting old or my job is really stressful, but lately i've actually found myself getting excited about spending saturdays like today and last. which is holed up in my bedroom, splayed out in bed doing absolutely nothing. or at least doing things that involve objects within arm's reach (laptop, phone, magazine, book).

today was exactly like that -- i can count on one hand the number of times i let myself out of my room. in comparison, last saturday seems quite active: i rolled up my sleeves and reorganized my bookshelf.

the second -- and i hope to high heavens, last -- phase of what was supposed to be a month-long consultancy gig is looking impatiently at me and tapping its foot, but i'm ignoring it for now.

--

speaking of getting older, i sat in on a photo shoot for my favorite account yesterday and got to making small talk with some of the kids (including, yes, my favorite jun-jun). anyway, i was sitting next to the boobsy youngest girl -- all of fifteen years old -- and the pilya tisay girl when boobsy started asking me about my camera (eyes already on the prize money, eh?).

boobsy: ate, magkano po yung bili n'yo diyan?
me: di ko alam eh, regalo lang kasi.
boobsy: wow, talaga? regalo?
me: yup.
boobsy: sino'ng nagbigay? boyfriend n'yo po?
me: yup.
boobsy: wow ate, may boyfriend na kayo?
tisay: (elbows boobsy) gaga, ano ka ba? siyempre may boyfriend na 'yan, matanda na siya no.
me: hoy ang kapal ng mukha mo. bata pa ako. (sirain ko kaya career mo. haha.)
tisay: may 25 ka na ba 'te?
me: wala pa. 24 pa lang.
tisay: (to boobsy) sabi sa 'yo eh, matanda na.

naknangteteng. malaos ka sana agad.

buti na lang i saw my jun-jun shirtless and in his boxers. (and doing handstands. go figure.) otherwise i would have spent the rest of the afternoon muttering like a grumpy old lady.

Wednesday, February 15

Boring today, copper tomorrow

warning: this is a kikay post. and since i’m really happy with my new hair, it’s going to be rather long.

my valentine salon date with rina was superfun. because aside from the fact that rina is superfun, the stylists at azta urban salon (owned by rina’s sister’s boyfriend) seemed rather thrilled to be coloring virgin hair.

one thing that tells me i’m going to stick to a hairstylist is if they don’t tell me to straighten and relax my hair. This is presumably because all the cuts they know how to do are for typical, stick-straight filipina hair. four years ago, a stylist at bench fix told me, “ayaw mo ba talagang ipa-relax ito? kasi kaya ko siyang gupitan, pero hindi magiging maganda.” i have never had my hair cut at a bench fix salon ever again.

i’ve also gotten similar comments from other salons, like “kahit anong gawin kong gupit, hindi magiging maganda sa ganitong buhok”. those godforsaken salons just totally lost my business, which may not have been much when i was a lowly student, but now that i’m earning actual money… nek nek nila!

i love jenny, my regular stylist at my favorite salon, profiles, because she has never ever had a problem with my wavy hair, and never once suggested that i have it relaxed. (and she gave me the bangs that first got marlon to notice me at blue roast.) which got her my faithful patronage for three straight years.

sheila (azta’s stylist, not my sister) gets my nod for choosing a cut and color to bring out the waves, plus encouraging me to grow my hair long because, she says, wavy hair looks great when it’s long. she also says i’m one of the lucky few who won’t ever have the icky, dry, processed s-bend curls that are the current rage among everyone and her mother.

sheila presented me with two options: a simple one-color dye job of copper gold, or a lighter base color with dark lowlights. i read all these girlie magazines, so i thought i knew exactly what the difference between highlights and lowlights are. but for some reason the thought of the second process had me terrified. so, copper gold it was – at least until i get used to living with colored hair.

so here it is. before and after.

before: wavy, almost all one length, boring brown-black
after: voila! still wavy (even more so, thanks to layers galore), warm copper gold

parlor gays salon divas

and because i'm extra vain i love you guys so much, i took a whole bunch of pictures at home so you can see more of the new color.

i took an especially long time to dress this morning, until i realized that i was following this subconscious impuse to DRESS TO MATCH MY HAiR. that’s exactly the kind of idiotic kapraningan a hair virgin like me would make. so i quit it.

i was also especially praning that my eyebrows are now too dark for my hair (again, this strong impulse to match everything, which i probably get from my mother), and that i wouldn’t look like myself. thankfully, my sister reassured me that my eyebrows look perfectly normal.

oh, and i must still be recognizable, since i saw my favorite jun-jun in the lobby this morning. and right before the elevator door closed, he peeked in and gave me the cutest, tiniest wink.

i love my new hair.

Tuesday, February 14

Milestones

milestone no. 1.

my valentine's day date is rina. in approximately an hour and a half, she and i will turn my virgin head of boring, between-brown-and-black hair into a glorious mass of chemically treated waves. at least, that's the intention, as i could very well end up with an overprocessed chunk of frizzies. but that's me. i live on the edge and flirt with danger! *snort*

that's right, folks. after months of dilly-dallying, i am taking the color plunge tonight. i have only the vaguest idea of what i want done with it (nothing this drastic though!), but i am just so fed up with this boring old mane that i will just plop into the stylist's chair and shriek, "do whatever the hell you want!"

wish me luck.

milestone no. 2.

it was on the five-year plan for my life that i made in high school. it's about six years too late, but i'm finally going to do it. i'm going to learn how to drive!

this is how the decision came about.

1. my sister bought herself a car. he's named max and he's an automatic.
2. and she's going on a three-week US vacay in may.
3. my mom can't -- or is it won't? -- drive an automatic. entonces, sayang ang kotse.
4. i got a consultancy gig that is a pain in the a** but can sufficiently cover driving lessons.
5. there is a driving school in front of our house.

voila! here's hoping i will be fit to drive to an actual place by may. then again, my office is right on edsa so all i have to worry about is driving straight up and down the highway, right? lalalalala!

oh, damn. that's right. buses. f*ck.

milestone no. 3.

one of my best friends from college just took that all-important step towards it, and it's so exciting, even if we all knew she was sooo heading for it anyway. and i can't help but want it. especially when you see people like g and c so happy in it.

so... we're talking about it.

and it's harder than i thought. and that's all i'm going to say about it. for now.

Valentines' day at the office

thank god that

a) i work with all these fun, festive, nutty people, and that
b) my sister brought home 2 kilos of strawberries from baguio

otherwise

a) valentine's day would have been a total dud, and
b) i had strawberries to share with my officemates so as to not seem totally bitter about not having a date today. (just minimally bitter. i didn't give strawberries to the girl who had rose petals strewn all over her desk.)

happy valentine's day from me and my art director!

Thursday, February 2

Office musings

sayonara to the idyllic slow mornings of january. i've hit the ground running the past couple of days at work, and now i'm taking a deep breath before i plow into some more work.

--

there is nothing more nerve-wracking panic-inducing fun and exciting than coming to work and seeing, first thing in the morning, a loooong string of emails originating from the boss of all bosses, trickling through pretty much all of our clients and all of their flunkies, down to my boss, and finally coming to rest in my inbox to be implemented, like, now na.

or so i thought.

because my boss gave me a gigantic farking whopper of a surprise in the evening. it was such a shock that immediately afterwards, i repaired to mcdonald's to stuff myself with grease -- despite being on the home stretch of my two-week south beach diet.

i must say, chomping on twister fries does great things for one's anxiety.

the surprise? let's just say i'm going to be working extra hard, starting monday.

--

speaking of really, really bad days, a man tried to commit suicide near my office this morning. rather, he climbed up on the billboard scaffolding mounted to the top floor of the mrt station right outside my building.

thing is, the roof of the station is barely a storey below the scaffolding. so if he had jumped, he wouldn't have splattered all over edsa and died. he would have just had a really bad accident that he'd have to live with for the rest of his life -- assuming that he wouldn't try to end it again soon after.

many of us gathered round the picture windows calling "advice" to the beleaguered figure: "mapipilayan ka lang!" "hindi ka mamamatay niyan, ang baba-baba!" "akyat pa!" from a distance, it was almost comical.

but they showed him on the news tonight. he was a thin man in a red t-shirt and denim shorts, with salt-and-pepper hair and stringy calves. i didn't catch the news commentary, but i saw him coming down from the scaffolding, and then facing the cameras with his head in his hands, sobbing.

then all of a sudden it didn't seem funny anymore. i was suddenly glad he hadn't gone up any higher on the scaffolding, and that he had chosen not to die.

or maybe he had already made his choice not to die when he settled on the lower rungs of the scaffold. maybe he just needed his story to be told. we all need that, sometimes.

Monday, January 30

Coffee cravings

waaaaaaaa. i want to fly back to india and have coffee.

i had coffee at several different occasions in kolkata -- restaurant, wedding, relatives' houses, guesthouse -- and each cup was as fabulous as the rest. there's something with the way indians make coffee, or maybe something about the beans, that has reduced everything else i've ever tasted to overpriced industrial sludge. to this day i simply can't bring myself to buy a hot coffee from starbucks or seattle's best.

cup one: wedding joe

the creamy cuppa pictured above was one of several that i had at one of the ceremonies before shivaani's (marlon's closest friend from p&g) wedding.

it was love at first sip -- imagine coffee crumble ice cream from arce dairy (my utter, utter favorite) melted, heated, poured into a cup, and topped with froth. gggggzzzzzzzzzzz.

fortunately, at the wedding ceremony proper. which lasted from about 6pm well until 2am, there was more of the same. utter, free-flowing bliss.

you know those wedding guests who take advantage of the free drinks to booze themselves into oblivion? that was me, except i was od'ing on all that java. see caffeine-glazed expression on right.

cup two: kape de muchacho

i spent the second half of my kolkata stay at a guesthouse booked by shivaani's family for foreign wedding guests. marlon, ge (another p&g friend) and i were attended to most meticulously by no less than six manservants. i remember coming into the house for the first time and being dumbfounded by a flurry of manservants. (me to marlon: "aba! at bakit napakarami nating mga muchacho?")

our muchachos (or mokongs), as we came to call them, were extremely adept at cross-cultural communication, were fabulous in the kitchen (i'm getting hungry just thinking about their breakfast omelet with chilies), played bouncy indian music all over the house, and made divine coffee and tea.

by the time we left, we were harboring evil plans to kidnap one of the muchachos and set up a cafe or restaurant here. but dagnabbit, even the youngest one was too big to force into a suitcase.

sigh. i want muchacho coffee.

afterthought: why, for a country that supposedly grows such great coffee beans, do we have such crappy coffee?