Design of a Decade

It was only 10years ago when we all thought it was the end of the world and my grandmother would ramble about Y2K being Yahweh To the Kingdom or something like that and then when the power didn't die come 12:01 and reset us back to the stone ages, I decided to hit up a crazy rave party to celebrate another year of life, love... and electricity.

I was seventeen then and singing my anthems...

"Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me..." during a most Broken Social Scene.

What can I say about 2010 except it was the year I REALIZED the dream.

(I think my blogs can attest to that... sort of. Maybe I'm tooting my own horn. Whatever. It's New Year's Eve. I wanna make noise. =)

And finally admitted to myself that I truly am LOVE's BIGGEST FAN.

......

I suppose otherwise it would've been like any other year save for the lesser amount of alcohol and food consumption, drama and... yeah. Drama. Less being the operative term. =)

Here's to more love (but you know what y'all? Hate whoever you want. It don't matter. May God just bless you with more likable and agreeable people to cater to your human whims and quirks... and with whom you can hate with after a few shots. I think that's a great kind of love right there. =)

And if it hurts... just know that it will pass. And that cliche ain't a cliche for nothing. Cliches are statistical truths y'all. May God bless your heart.

May I become a great wife and mother, sister and daughter, friend.


                          (I told her there was a rainbow inside... if she looked closely.)


HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! Ahhhhhhhh ok. =P

I AM FINALLY (AND SERIOUSLY) ENGAGED!

After 14months... of putting up with my wit and sarcasm, my hormonally-dysfunctional episodes and mood swings, my annoyingly deliberate sabotaging of our engagement and my eerie propensity to inadvertently ruin even the best surprises...

He didn't let me get to him.

And so he put a ring on it anyway. *blush* (The proposal VIDEO will follow soon. =)



                                      ***Suck it bitches, I win. *tee-hee*

Because Christmas came early this year.

MY VERY FIRST UN-BOXING. *giggles*



http://www.gadgetsmagazine.com.ph/unboxing-sony-cybershot-t99.html

MY LITTLE SISTER IS GETTING MARRIED!!!

I remembered the games we used to play...

I was the priest
The young-uns dressed in sheets
as they read their vows
to their invisible boyfriends
and i read out loud
from my novena booklet
Joined to either a Tim, Tom, Ben, or Bill...

Followed by a dinner date at "The Jigsaw Puzzle Hotel"
where I was also its lounge singer.

........

This was almost two decades ago.

.........

Now my little sister Mika is engaged... and those childhood memories just tug at my heart... those times when "I" was the cool one, when "I" was their bestfriend.

*deep sigh*

I feel a melancholic happiness. I mean, that's MY little sister. I practically raised her. I feel like I'm giving away one of my own daughters...

...........

And also because she got engaged before me.

Like, what the f*ck is up with that, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'm kidding of course. =)

.............

Mikaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! I am so happy for you and Ben... But I totally get dibs on 2011. Daddy said we should just do a joint one... now I don't know much about "sukob" and what not but I am so not sharing the limelight, hahaha!

Does that mean I have to throw you a bachelorette party? =P

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIKA-MOUSE!

Love,

Ate Michelle

GET EDUCATED THIS CHRISTMAS

... and vibrate that old soul. All for the incredibly low price of...

FREE NINETY-NINE, BABY!

http://arbiewon.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-mixtape-soul-vibrations.html

DJ Arbie Won's Christmas gift to the whole wide world! ('Cause he's nice like that. =)



....

(Ok yeah this is also a shameless promotion of my awesome photo, hahahaha! Shoot. I don't care. My self-portrait of post-coital buck nekkidness sitting in a sea of straight up oldschool vinyl is something I am very proud of. =)

What Christmas is REALLY about.

So I was stuck in semi-traffic yesterday on my way home after a photoshoot, in quite the hurry so my daughter wouldn't miss her Jollibee party (with her yaya), took the long-ass route from Libis to UP Diliman (where apparently, you need an ID in order to enter though I wasn't asked for one as I channeled that college senior vibe in a mad rush to get to class)... and see, whenever I'm stuck in traffic, as I don't have a Blackberry or an iPhone to tweet with or to check my non-existent facebook and what not, I just talk to myself and get into this whole crazy soliloquy of nonsensical ranting, particularly asking out loud (but with the windows up, of course), "Why can't people be more like Virgos and Christmas shop two months in advance?!"

Like what I did. (Actually, it was more like saving gifts during the course of the entire year then figuring out who to give em to for Christmas. =)

But for those who are still on that Christmas rampage and who want to totally maximize all of the sales and half-offs and discounts of Christmas, just don't forget what Christmas is REALLY about...

(Yes, I f*cking took it there because I'm awesome and I wanted to impart something spiritually enriching.)

And uhm, no I wasn't gonna say the birth of Jesus because apparently, the history and actual date of His birthday is still highly debatable.

But that's not the point.

Christmas (well more like the entire season as we cap off the year) is about... making room in your heart for the wealth you acquired --- the powers of wisdom, strength, friendship, forgiveness...

And yeah, let's throw LOVE in there, too. =)

It's about fresh starts, y'all.

So if you are at the mall, stuck together with the rest of the last-minute shoppers like a herd of hapless cattle, just take a deep breath, break those lips into a smile, and think about the good things about that person you're buying for... and how you can translate that love into the form of say, an engagement ring.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (I'm playing, Waffle. =)

I now leave you with this thought from Thomas Paine:

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: It’s dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods.”

Pasko na nga, hassle pa.

Ayoko talaga sa mga taong panira ng araw. Taena ang aga aga, panira na ng "vibe" kong masaya. Di na masama mabuhay ng maayos at maligalig diba? Trabaho lang nga naman, wala akong ibang drama.

Whatever ka talaga.

I should be a wedding planner for those on a budget.

I don't know when it was exactly but I'm pretty sure I've been "engaged" for quite some time now. =P

And personally, for all of the anticipation and hype, I don't exactly mind, save for whenever people ask me where my ring is or how my "fiance" proposed (as what Tim Tayag did during the Honda Xmas party where I was forced to answer "Actually, he hasn't. But hypothetically, we're engaged. Like... in my head.") That's not really all that bad considering my faith has made it so real to me that a proposal just seems more like a formality rather than one of those things you dream about as a little girl.

Of course I've fantasized about possible proposals back in my youth --- driving along EDSA in the middle of traffic then seeing a "Will You Marry Me" sign flashing on one of those LED screens, that type corny shit. =) I just didn't think I'd end up so pragmatic the older I got. I mean, when you've been with someone you're sure you want to marry, you do have a tendency to talk about it. And I talk a lot. Hell, I plan a lot. So when people ask about our wedding plans and "his" proposal, they kinda look at me funny for knowing so much about it, having met with the jeweler and discussing ring designs and all that good stuff (save for when and how he will ACTUALLY propose) instead of being a blissfully ignorant pseudo bride-to-be.

I just say, "Well, I'm getting married, too so I should at least have some sort of say in what I want in a proposal." =)

I'm a dick that way, I guess.

But seriously, people have been looking at my hands, it's hilarious. =)

And I gotta start writing plans for things I wanna do before the actual wedding because like all plans... they will cost money to realize.

***Oh fuck I just found out my headlights have been on the whole night lastnight up to now. Shoot. (Anyone wanna give me HID-effect headlights for Christmas? =)

Anyhow...

I wanna go to Bale Dutung in Pampanga with my sisters and friends, for one.

http://www.ourawesomeplanet.com/awesome/2007/12/claude-tayags-b.html

Then I gotta find a place that will let Chef Nino Laus (with the help of my yayas, hahaha) cook for our wedding reception (as some wedding venues already come with their own caterers) and I'm cost-cutting here.

Oh and I gotta buy an HD video camera to start documenting me and Pao's actual pre-nuptial video. (And no, I don't want to have to pay six-figures for a 2-minute prenup video all for the sake of showcasing "art" and ultimately, your own personal spending power.) I mean, aren't pre-nup videos supposed to be JUST THAT --- a documentation of your lives together PRIOR to your nuptials?

I'm sure actual couples don't actually make out in rotating sports cars on the regular.

*shrugs*

....

So far, that's all I've come up with.

Poetic Memory

Brisk afternoon drives through countryside and open road,

keeping a steady 60kph and finding a comfortable stay at 4^th gear,

windows down,

the wind in your hair,

the shade and shapes of leaves caress your face,

the radio fills the car with guitar strumming,

and you smile at the thought that the guy who wrote this song had his woman in mind.

Ugly-pretty

 
                                I seriously think I won this year's competition. =P

Money will say more in one moment than the most eloquent lover can in years.

The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely anyone at all escapes.

Now and then, in the course of the century, a great man of science, like Darwin; a great poet, like Keats; a fine critical spirit, like M. Renan; a supreme artist, like Flaubert, has been able to isolate himself, to keep himself out of reach of the clamorous claims of others, to stand 'under the shelter of the wall,' as Plato puts it, and so to realise the perfection of what was in him, to his own incomparable gain, and to the incomparable and lasting gain of the whole world. These, however, are exceptions. The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism-- are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man's intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.

They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.

But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life--educated men who live in the East End--coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.

The Soul of Man under Socialism by Oscar Wilde (the same brilliant man who wrote "The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.")

Because everyone's a f*cking critic. =)

With regard to the Wilson-Consunji pre-nup video, I think the editing was brilliant (it's Jason Magbanua y'all) and I suppose the concept as well, if you wanted to highlight the more "passionate" element of love rather than the "intimate." But [Mr. Consunji], I believe that ignorance is completely different from simply being non-accepting. People with different or negative opinions aren't necessarily stupid.

the model diet

Here's to...

Our lovely circulations officer (God bless her soul) for calling me out in front of everybody for being fat...

To my ex's sister who told her fam I was pregnant (like What The F*ck, right?)...

And basically to everyone else who had self-inflicted issues with MY weight...

.....

Merry Christmas!!! I am down to 110lbs., loving brown rice, lean meats, and my stationary bike and am as healthy and happy as ever.

Oh yeah and y'all can suck it, too. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Just kidding... sort of.)

That's seriously just water I'm drinking, not vodka. =)

***Love love to Ms. Dianna Capco for taking the time out to do this shoot (helping me to immortalize the prime of my youth =) and for bringing the "inner top model" out of me. I never knew I could look "lazy but intense" all at the same time. Hahahaha! I'm excited to see the rest of the photos. Pao is totally loving em. =)

And crazy love to those who still thought I was outrageously beautiful despite the gain... and who supported my perpetual dieting. Now I have room to stuff myself this Christmas.

Hell. to. the. Yeah.

Stuff to show at your wedding

Ok so Pao and I have been going to these weddings right, and at the reception there's always that cliche video couple montage sh*t for everyone to see, kinda like a short clip of your evolution and what not or like the bride and groom's individual video montages from when they were young and stuff. I mean, so far it's always been like these posey couple shots against some tourist attraction or whatever or like these pics of you as you were growing up looking all cute and innocent and as I watch it, it makes me think about how my video montage would be like and honestly, I think it's gonna be hilarious... if not, delightfully embarrassing.

Like I want the craziest photos up there.


.....

Yeah. These will do. Daddy and mommy would be so proud. HAHAHAHA!

Serenerhapsody

Here's to saving me from the freaks who suspect they could never love anyone.



Because what comes is better than what came before.

RA 9262

I may not have a Facebook, but I totally support this whole viral campaign condemning violence against children.

This is what happens when you tailgate.

And are an absolute f*cker.

Our art director and editorial asst. got into an accident and were taken to the hospital last night because the taxi they were in rammed right into the back of another car on Edsa at around 11pm.
































***Pao and I hurried to the scene as soon as we could after my one colleague, Danee called asking to be rushed to the hospital. It just made me realize how hard it is to make it out here on your own in the city. Away from family. It got me thinking just how many people I could actually count on if ever (God forbid) I was ever in such a predicament.

Like how many friends you could actually call and would actually help you.

.....

Be safe everyone. And don't forget to pay for your health insurance.