writing off the year

regrets of the past three hundred sixty-five days

make way to resolutions for the coming year

start the clock

put on the show

a few breakthroughs

captured in paper

Photo courtesy of Mike Mendoza

when females fight

The simple title is very graphic. But let me explain.

Females like me are done with the ritual of looking up through lashes and whispering behind fans with other lady friends. As a matter of fact, I don't like sharing stories with so-called girlfriends. And I don't like going into the powder room with other ladies. At all.

Hugh Jackman can lasso and Christian Bale can scream. But us females - we have a whole lot of other things in our own world. And it's not a totally friendly world at all.

DROP THE SHOP

Start with the boutique. You come in and you set your sights on a fetching red number hanging on an unassuming rod. You pick it up and you to try it on. As you go inside the fitting room, two women will be staring at you and the dress.  It's as if like, what am I thinking?

When you emerge from the cramped space and you are returning the dress, another woman will snatch it from you and try it on herself. And if you end up buying it, another female will ask for that same blouse from the sales assistant.

And the mirrors in those boutiques! They are very cruel if they happen to be a big one by the wall. Never stand before a mirror! Or else you'll only end up either scrutinized by the bombshell at your left, or sneered at by the heavyweight at your right.

GET FIT FOR GYM? OR GYM TO GET FIT?

I used to spend two nights in a week dancing in the sports center nearest the house. But the gym has closed those dance sessions, so I proposed to a former acquaintance that we pursue our dance nights at the gym located in the commercial district instead. She voted no immediately.

She told me that the other women in that facility will gauge you by the brand of shoes or dance apparel you wear or the bottled water you drink or the gym bag you lug around. Heaven forbid if they categorize you by the sweat you manage to muster, not because of the exercise but because of the self-consciousness you try to hide.

And again! The gym mirrors! They are the most unforgiving of all! They could almost see your soul in there!

Whenever I go to salons for a hair trim, I often pick the corner seats to avoid the dames who feel like divas entering the place. You'd know them when you smell them, because you can sniff them the moment the door would open six meters away from you. Then they would drop their signature bags on the cozy chairs as they ask for their regular hair color.

WEAR YOUR PEARLS TO THE GROCER

Whenever I go to the grocery, I try to memorize the items I need to get and pick them as fast as possible. You don't want to reach out to your box of cereals with your chipped nails, while the woman beside you contemplate on the benefits of green tea and black tea and advises you that your preference for strawberry flavor is very juvenile.

Oh yes. It's played in a subtle fashion. But it's actually a bitch versus bitch world out there. Men no longer have the monopoly of complaining that it's such a competition and the next guy is out for your neck.

DRIVING LIKE A GIRL

So let's bring the animosity to the highway. Driving comfortably in my 60km per hour speed, I look down upon female drivers who cannot decide on which lane to take. Following a car one day, I thought it was high time I play my own battle and I honked.

She was swerving left and right at the merciful speed of 30, and cannot even keep an intersection open! When the lights were green, she stopped to let people cross the street and the red light caught us. I honked again in desperation.

Then I maneuvered my SUV beside her car and I looked at her the way my first grade teacher had looked at me when I couldn't spell the word "happy". If looks could kill. Then I tossed my hair at her and I put on my big sunglasses.

Ah, I fight too. Without claws for the meantime.

gem in the dark

I choose to love you fiercely
even if it means I must take the risk

that you will not understand it.

Photo by This Girl

goodbye for now

I can't believe that you're really gone now
Seems like it's all just a dream
How can it be that the world will go on
When something has died within me?

Leaves will turn, my heart will burn with colors of you
Snow will fall but I'll recall your warmth
Summer wind breathing in your memory
I'll miss you

But there will be a time when I'll see your face
And I'll hear your voice and there we will laugh again
And there will come a day when I'll hold you close
No more tears to cry 'cause we'll have forever
But I'll say goodbye for now

I can't imagine my life without you
You've held a place all your own
Just knowing you were beneath the same sky
Oh, what a joy I have known

On rainy days, in many ways, you'll water my heart
On starry nights I'll glimpse the light of your smile
Never far from my heart you'll stay with me
So I'll just wait

'Cause there will be a time when I'll see your face
And I'll hear your voice and there we will laugh again
And there will come a day when I'll hold you close
No more tears to cry 'cause we'll have forever
But I'll say goodbye for now

But there will be a time when I'll see that face
And I'll hear your voice and there we will laugh again
And there will come a day when I'll hold you close
No more tears to cry 'cause we'll have forever
But I'll say goodbye just for now

Goodbye for now

- By Kathy Troccoli

a wife's life

What the!?!

That is not just a question anymore. It has evolved into a full-pledged expression of its own too. Of surprise and astonishment, anger and rage, surrender and capitulation.

I am not sure if wives know it, but their lives are a big WHAT THE!?!

You pick up after,
wake up before,
carry a name owned by,
make meals for,
sleep fitfully beside,
get glamorous around,
tighten your resolve about,
ride the emotional roller-coaster games with,
pound sense into,
receive endless excuses from,
work really hard to truly see through..

him.

Wives deserve ten stars.

Photo of this wife by Mike Mendoza

in papa's memory

papa
it has been seven years..


seven years since we've propped that photo
of 3-year old annika and 2-year old angela
beside your bed so you can look at it from time to time..
you've reached for it before you went to that endless sleep..
you said "i love you" to the girls in the photo..

i was holding your hand
i was sitting down close to the floor..
at your lower left side with my head on the bed
while you slept.. breathing heavily into the tubes..

then you started to become peaceful..
.. slowly you drifted.. softly into silence..

your hand i was holding.. it used to carry me i know..
you used to say you'd let me stand up
when i was still an infant as you hold my two feet..
and i tried to keep my balance..

i guess my life is an endless battle for balance, papa.

when everyone in the room started to panic
i whispered "i love you"

they say the last sense to leave you
as you die is your sense of hearing.
i know you heard me..

your hand started to get cold..
and gingerly i removed the wedding ring that
you were still wearing.
i told mama that i wanted to keep it.
i still have it now..

i had been difficult for you..
during my college years
you used to write me letters
telling me what i did that upset you.

when i was younger than that,
i used to go to your wardrobe
and embraced your smell that comes from the shirts.

i have your nose, you know.
and i guess i have your complexion too.
these past years i guess i'm having your impatience..
and i don't mind becoming a little like you

i grew up trying to make you happy.
i have always wanted to make you proud.
tendencies of first-borns, i guess..
and that challenge of having your family name..

you were the man i wanted to please
when i was a little girl.
and now as a woman,
i'm married to the man i wanted to please the most..

it's not an easy road though,
not very different when i was a teenager
and i would see you watching my moves..

if you are still watching me
i hope i've become a better person..

i guess my life is an endless battle for balance, papa.

time blurs the edges of the moments of our lives..
but it also highlights those we want to keep in our memory..

i may still cry when i remember you..
but those tears are warm and comforting.

this was the sun that was waking up when mike and i
went to offer a holy mass for you this morning.
i guess it's a lovely way to remember you
as you had been my sun..

i love you always

mutually exclusive at most

When I was still working for a government agency, I was going around the region and seeing all these wonderful places. I've been into these long drives. And since the journey is as important as the destination, I remember my favorite game on the road.

A simple question. Can be silly even. You choose one over the other. Simple as that. Or you can delve deeper into the answer, understand the reasons why that choice was made.

A good conversation starter. And the list can go on.

Run or fight?
Hot or cold?
Red Porsche or black stallion?
Up or down?

Baby pink or dark pink?
Half-full or half-empty?
Curse or praise?
Slow motion or fast forward?

Give or take?
Keep or discard?
Scream or whimper?
Chocolate or vanilla?

Love now or love forever?
Demand or enjoin?
Barbie or Bratz?
Wait or leave?

Photo by This Girl

it's alright to cry

I never thought I am capable of doing it again. Crying from your stomach.. when your breathing stops and you feel a long pause.. no scream, no sob, no sound.. just a long extended cry from the very depths of where you exist.. desperate, bringing with its nothingness and silence all the pain you feel and you want to throw away.. or think can be blotted out with this one painful cry.

Like when Papa died.

I wish there was no need to discover I am capable of it again.

But today I learned. That I am.

beauty of the night

By five thirty in the afternoon today, which was quite dark because of the clouds and the rain, I already knew it was going to be one of those nights.

When I cannot get a decent reply from my spouse, when the anger I'm storing is hitting its high level mark, when it's a great effort to make small talk in the dinner table with my daughters.

So I take two glassfuls of wine from one of those Bordeaux glasses, hole myself up in the guest room with my best pillow, do not take phone calls nor heed the knocks on the door.

But after my tipsy feeling is gone, when embraces were made with my daughters as I put them to their beds, and the object of my antagonism and fury is spread-eagled on the master bed, sleeping and oblivious to my rage - I turn to the darkness and the silence of the room. The best time as any to work on some photography!

I took down the flower hanging by my bathroom mirror and used it as my object. With the combination of darkness, light and color - here is my companion:


Photo by This Girl

waiting for the next move

I love to blog. I really do. But I just cannot blog for these past days!

The characters and links of the edit feature are in Japanese! In my inspired pomposity to show off my very basic blah blogging skills to Vic, I opened this in Tokyo last month and look what happened.

I have emailed Blogger but I guess it never reached tech support. But do they really reply to calls for help? I am just so grateful that I've hit some buttons right tonight - hence, I've come this far. But I've deleted my links, and boy, will my friends wonder where I've dumped them!

I've actually waited for some time, thinking and hoping that my space in the blog universe will clear up and go back to English. Only to find out now that it's still in Japanese characters.

Oh the waiting. I should know.

The Christmas greens waiting for me to pluck them out of the box so I can set up the whole tree. The paper waiting for me to finish its last five pages. The big luggage I brought to Japan and the small luggage I brought to Davao both waiting to be cleaned out completely. The spare luggage waiting to be packed for Cebu. The visit to the doctor and the laboratory test waiting to be completed.

I wait for the girls to listen. I wait for the ride. I wait for a phone call. I wait for a higher pay. I wait for a kind warm gesture to tell me that I'm welcomed back.

I can imagine the raging emotion in a waiting line for a delayed plane. Where everyone, like my blog editor, speaks Japanese.

Now that's a classic.

reasons to be in love

These may be rational, logical, cerebral, sensible and reasonable points.  Or these may be irrelevant, ridiculous, foolish, absurd and impertinent issues.  Whatever!

1. Surprises
2. A stranger mistakes you for a movie star
3. Slow dancing without any music
4. You like it
5. You want to go to bed smiling
6. You feel giddy hearing him say goodnight
7. Operas, and movies with Tom Cruise in it
8. Classical music, to pepper your mounting MP3 collection
9. His smile
10. His laughter
11. Your laughter together
12. Someone sent you flowers with no card attached
13. He said the phrase
14. You kinda said it back, no big!
15. A full moon
16. The salary raise is still so far away
17. That fatal attraction
18. You won't find it in the duty free section
19. Your boss is not against it
20. He would recommend it, if he knows
21. Tradition
22. Super stylin'
23. It is allowed
24. It's expected of you
25. Holding hands
26. Confidence
27. Curiosity, maddening curiosity
28. The way you feel when he is near you
29. You deserve to
30. Your anniversary
31. Leaves of absence
32. Numerous endless long distance calls
33. Morning messages
34. Your bestfriend
35. The traffic light turns green
36. First dinner
37. Looking forward to your first shared Christmas
38. You don't mind reading chain letters
39. Wishes on a star
40. It's overwhelming
41. It's Thursday
42. He wears glasses
43. He looks gorgeous on khaki pants
44. He smells good
45. Winks
46. Second glances that last too long
47. Gravity
48. Decreasing your sugar intake
49. Fireplaces you dreamed about
50. Guitar solos
51. Piano solos
52. Singing for him
53. Someone unexpectedly has invited you to lunch
54. A politician's task is to search for the eligible man in town
55. You're already spoken for
56. Class reunions
57. You can't take it with you
58. You can't even blasted talk about it 24/7!
59. It has a lot of premiums
60. Spring
61. Cable tv
62. Clean white sheets
63. The world wide web
64. He is very sweet
65. Road trips to nowhere
66. Destiny prepared you for this
67. Bathing in the rain
68. Collecting memories
69. Modesty
70. Pizza with extra cheese
71. Casablanca
72. Staying unloved and uninspired is so - uninspired
73. Italian dressing in that salad
74. Trust
75. His flight has just landed
76. He is so different
77. There's nothing else to try after swimming and badminton
78. Lazy afternoons
79. Wishing, just wishing, you know French
80. Letting go of seatbelts
81. A prince is not necessarily a king's son
82. The idea of eloping and flying away
83. White porch swings
84. You're difficult
85. Office hours
86. Fireworks
87. Being called by a special name
88. A thousand times
89. Fantasies
90. Valentine's day everyday
91. Reading poetry aloud
92. Nice to be caught under a mistletoe
93. Icecream toppings with diet soda
94. You have gotten tired of being cynical
95. The thought of being awakened by a kiss
96. Nights out
97. It's payday, and you're getting the whole works
98. A dimmer switch in the piano bar
99. Topping the scores in Text Twist
100. You won't run since you can't hide
101. Picnics that you plan to have next time
102. Values
103. The distance between you is - what distance!
104. Champagne
105. He is the Viking
106. Lust
107. His mind
108. His corny jokes you laugh at
109. Romance
110. Bridges
111. You only live once
112. Reincarnation
113. Success
114. The blues and all that jazz
115. Honesty
116. Finding out his childhood games
117. Finding out his greatest obsessions
118. It's your birthday and it's your party
119. Time to give in
120. Your prayer gets answered
121. Car rental agencies
122. Acting silly for a change
123. Wind in your face
124. Staring at work
125. Multi-tasking at work
126. Emails
127. Conquering a hill
128. Climbing the mole hills you created
129. An attentive secretary
130. Being born too early or too late or in a wrong century
131. Birds on your window sill
132. Solitude is deafening
133. You are really allergic to coffee
134. Daydreams
135. You're not in therapy
136. You gained a pound
137. There are 365 days in a year
138. Love at first sight, though nobody won't admit to it
139. It's the greatest while it lasts
140. It's a gift
141. Hugs and kisses
142. The pink sunrise
143. Love