Love like this.

Justin Bieber. You have NO idea. Selena can't love you the way this girl could.

Dance first, think later.

And since I don't just dance at the club [with redbull and vodka up in my hand as weights]...


Because I have to.

"I don't want people who want to dance; I want people who have to dance." - George Balanchine

The Best Advice on Life

Well, all I'm saying is that I want to look back and say that I did the best I could while I was stuck in this place. Had as much fun as I could while I was stuck in this place. Played as hard as I could while I was stuck in this place... Dogged as many girls as I could while I was stuck in this place.

- Dawson, Dazed and Confused.




And just look at Matthew Mcconaughey! The coolest I've ever seen him. =P

Like a Boss.

Despite the recent "unnecessary stress" of work (operative term: unnecessary), today I finally learned to understand that truly, the best revenge (or to sound less evil and vindictive), the best way to get back at anyone who frustrates the living shit out of you... is to be successful. In other words, TO BE SO FUCKING GOOD THAT IT HURTS. And to do that you have to ALWAYS do more than what is expected of you... even if it means carrying more weight than you have to. To do all of that, happily, willingly, and un-begrudgingly... with a sweet, sweet smile on your face. To still be mindful to respect your colleagues and to not be stingy with praise. To always say "thank you" and "good job" even if saying it sounds weird saying it so often. To criticize tactfully and objectively and to include suggestions (not demands) on improvement. People seriously need a lesson on tact sometimes, it's crazy.

You can totally rant after work whilst downing a few below zeros but come the next day, you keep that smile albeit hungover smile on your face and do it all again.

Sun Tzu said it best: “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”

I'm in it to win "employee of the year" bitches.

Fountain of Youth

Zumba + Weights + Healthy diet = Compensation for previous night's revelry, merriment, and intemperance. (Life is all about "balance," right? There just ain't no other way to live. =)

That... and a delightful disposition. To be a breath of fresh air for those around you. And to laugh... from the gut. Like a frikkin' hyena.

Alas....

I've become one of those girls... as I maintain to continue looking 21 until I'm 31 and to ALWAYS look 10 years younger than my actual age. =P (And I totally idolize 50-year old women doing crazy pilates like it ain't no thang. Makes me feel all old and icky and un-stretchy.)



                                                              on the floor.


                                           my 4-year old kicks which I only use NOW


                            enjoying a personal "savasana" after every gut-wrenching crunch

When my daddy gives me away...

                             I ain't gonna front... but I was always his favorite, hahahaha!


......

Been reading up on "Filipino Weddings" and sharing them via YM with my sister set out to have her church wedding shortly after me...

And I came upon this:

The Wedding Rites

The Bride and her Father marches to the altar. The Groom meets them, and all three will face the Priest/Minister. The question of who gives the bride away is asked, to which the bride's Father answers, "I do" . He then gives her daughter's hand to the groom, after which he takes his designated seat in the front row with his wife.

I think this is a highly underrated part of the wedding ceremony. Shit. I'd probably be ballin' to my daddy saying crazy shit like "Noooooo daddy don't let me go!!!!" Pao would have to pry me from his clutches. But not too much, though, because I like the guy I'm marrying. And my daddy likes him, too. Not just cuz I like him. =P

And this is why I think my dad is not only the SMARTEST guy I know, he is also the TOUGHEST. A real fucking bad-ass. Because even though his "gangstah" reputation precedes him, he was able to raise four incredibly beautiful, intelligent, good-natured, and kind-hearted girls despite the odds, the hardships, the trials and the troubles, (and basically, the sheer insanity of having to raise FOUR f*cking GIRLS... not excluding our mother, haha)... and has the sublimely divine grace to give our delicate hands away... to another man (who, in our "daddy's little girly eyes," won't really ever be quite like our daddy... but they'll try anyway.)

There goes my speech right there, y'all.

Mess with me, I'll kick your butt

The standard song to create a system of power on elementary school buses everywhere. - According to its FB page.

One of the things I picked up in Jersey along with the accent. (And for the nth time, people from Jersey don't say JOISEY so stop saying it like that as if I'm supposed to get it. See NJ Accent.)

The only cheer I know... to bequeath to my daughter.




Peanut butter reesey cup
Mess with me, I'll kick your butt
Bam bam, choo choo train
Watch the ladies do their thang
I can't!
Why not?
I can't!
Why not?
My back hurts, my bra's too tight
My booty shakes to the left
To the right
To the left right left right
Don't sweat it, don't sweat it
Don't sweat it, don't sweat it
My name is ________ na na na
I'm cool and fine na na na
I make you cry when I punch you in the eye
I say a lottie, a dottie, a lottie dottie disco party

Because some changes can be REAL good.

Here's to my husband and real hero...

THE MIGHTY MISCELLANEOUS

I suppose we all had to be young once. =)


See 2.43 --------------------> My favorite part of the video. =P


......


And here's a more mature look at the boys:

MC Psyche

Why I love hanging out with this girl.

Love is what I need to help me know my name.

The song of this dramatic entry.


........


My husband and I had a talk on death last night.

In the event of our untimely and premature passing, I told him about my conditions and he told me his.

A living will, if you will.

So in case he forgets, here is what I'd like:

He and Psyche can have everything that's to my name. No ands ifs buts about it.

I'd like to be cremated with only a small, brief viewing for close family and friends.
I'd like my organs harvested and donated.
I want my ashes to be kept in a pretty little box or container. Not an urn or anything that looks creepy and has "death" written all over it. (Pao suggested to keep me in a "happy horse" which I think is a great idea) --- Oh and I just thought about his now --- if my ashes are gonna be kept on some shelf inside the house, it has to be beside an AWESOME picture of me... preferably a crazy fun beauty pic of me.

Maybe this:

                                                             Dang I'm cute

If ever he and the kids live in a bigger home with a garden, I'd like my ashes buried in the dirt and to grow flowers in/with/on top of it. Then, he is to tell the kids that this was my way to live on forever, so that I may see them grow up and be happy. (Again, I don't want none of that creepy shit, saying "Ooooh your grandmother's there, she's gonna haunt you" shit). I don't want my family to be scared of me. I'm just ash and dirt... with my energy used to give life to the garden.

Now even though I wouldn't really care what happened with my ashes and earthly possessions (nor would I know, duh, cuz I'm dead), I still don't advise on the whole big funeral thing with the prayers and stuff. I mean, it's ok to pray, I guess. Whatever will help ease the pain since I'm such a miss-able person and all. Not too worried about where my soul is going because... energy can neither be created nor destroyed and that's really the only thing I know for sure. But if I were to have one last act of vanity (cuz that's really all I see a funeral is, I'm sorry, just an opinion) even in death, I'd like my family and close friends to write a letter about how much I meant to them and how my existence mattered. Then I'd like those letters to be given to my children, to be given to their children. I'd like my memory kept... and shared.

That's all. =)

Now I don't quite know how that's all gonna work out since my husband's idea is to mix my ashes in with his (like crazy shake the urn) so that we remain one forever. THEN our ashes can be put in the garden.

Our happy little garden... of dead people. Hahahahaha!

Starbucks vs. CBTL

Ben: (swivels chair and turns to me) Mitch?
Me: Yeah?
Ben: Are you busy?
Me: Kinda. (as I'm searching for unrelated work stuff on the net and totally procrastinating from actually writing for the magazine)
Ben: Really?
Me: (peers over glasses) Why, what is it?
Ben: Can I ask you a question?
Me: What?
Ben: What do you like better: Starbucks or Coffeebean?
Me: (takes a moment as I'm a serious ponder-er when it comes to trivial questions) Well...
I like that Coffeebean has that card thingy and you can gain points to get free coffee and stuff. And I like their Chai Tea Latte. But I like Starbucks' Espresso Frappucino 'cause that wakes the shit out of me. But I don't really go to either of those places. So if I had to choose, I'd say Starbucks, only because of their Espresso Frappucino and because that shit serves a real purpose. But I'd never pay for that much for coffee. Shit. I lived in the province for God's sake. My coffee was always 3-in-1 or the Nescafe Frothe --- WHICH THEY PHASED OUT. And I used to buy Coffeemate Vanilla and Hazelnut to make my coffee taste good. THEY PHASED THAT OUT TOO. Fuckers. I think they figured I was the only one drinking that shit. (Obviously, I went into an entire, unsolicited monologue.)
Ben: Ok thanks.
Me: Why'd you ask?
Ben: Oh I just wanted to cross out the things NOT to get you [for Christmas.]


.....

Another day at the office.

Psyche on what beauty looks like

With her discerning eye for detail, Psyche guides our seasoned beauty and lifestyle art director to revamp our covergirl's plain-jane look.




(And I believe she chose me as her peg. *melts*)

MARRIED LIFE: O Brave New World!

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."

- The Controller, taken from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

........

That explains the less dramatic and angst-ridden writing.

When I'd reached that paragraph in the book, it took me into this virtual warp of memories, these pictures of moments in my head of Starbucks planners and little pink spiral notepads and napkins and old receipts and college cattleya --- any paper-type medium I could pour the overflowing contents of my heart to relieve me of the seething cauldron burning, bubbling inside of me with the gush of my pen. And I, who was always hurting (with perhaps an exaggerated flair for the melodramatic), was always writing.

I never thought I could be truly happy unless I burned. (Or maybe, as my husband would used to tell me whenever I would used to go into these "fuck my life, fuck love, fuck-this-shit" ramblings and episodes, in not so many words, I was probably just happy being miserable.)

But I was miserable, nonetheless.

So I wrote and I wrote and I typed and I was always so angry and frustrated and "angsty" (what most people would say, really). O the pain! O the agony! Woe is me! <-------- Life always had that ring to it. Even when my I had first began dating my husband (and when I look at him now and even when I look back, I honestly don't think I could've been any luckier to have found such a good guy. And I mean, real good. Not nasty good (sometimes it's nasty =) but like good with like a good heart who provides me with the good life, you know?), even when I KNEW he was good for me... I still found reasons not to want it. To push him away. To be disgusted by the gross and foreign display of goodness like being good was like having leprosy.

And then finally, after about a year of turbulence and mostly him dealing with "my shit" like a fucking soldier, I postulated, much to my initial chagrin, that:

In order to be content, you had to be boring.

And so when happiness kicked in, it took it out on my writing. (My husband told me once, whenever he'd read my earlier articles for Gadgets Magazine, it seemed I was much more passionate then. If they did seem "more passionate," it was probably because I was still fresh from college and I was carrying my first child ergo I was doubly high on life and ideals and the whole inward belief that I wanted to write passionately... even if it was technology!"

You couldn't really tell that passion was really anxiety from having landed a job in an industry I barely knew, let alone was underqualified for, and after only 2 months of learning the ropes, in comes unexpected love child with almost complete stranger who, for all of my intelligence and reason and rhyme, was never going to be the one for me.

And I had to live like that.

But before I make this long story longer than it already is... basically, my real point or my conclusion/disposition about this whole happiness thing is that... well... people shouldn't be afraid to be happy you know? And people shouldn't be confined to this one definition of passion, that it had to be aggressive and sobbing and angry and "angst-ridden." I look at that warp of memories and notes and poems and journal entries and they all seem so... vague and... unimportant. Not necessarily worthless because I'm thankful for the experience and how they were able to work themselves out to give me the opportunity to learn and grow from them. But compared to what I have now, those creative little gems seem so miniscule. I don't know where I got the emotion and the energy to blow them up more than I really had to. But maybe... I just needed to implode first (like how the Big Bang has to happen before quiet subtle little galaxies can be formed).

Life and love don't always have to "boil over" for it to be worth living and loving. It can be like... put under a bunsen burner or something. Keep that shit warm, medium heat, steady flame, nice and toasty. (And I am totally not making sense, and that's probably why happy people just write about food because it's easier.)

I look at my life now, at my husband who just loves to love me, at my daughter who asks nothing else from God but to make me happy... and for her rashes to go away, at my work colleagues who trust me to guide and manage them despite my in-expertise, at my family who I remain unorthodoxically close and helluh cool with, at my friends who continue to inspire me with their life experiences and are generous with their time and patience, and I think, perhaps all of this is mundane. Then again, I don't think very many people in this world are as content with where they are. So it can't be mundane. And though happiness may not be grand, it certainly isn't common.

And I'm fortunate to have realized my rare blessing.

Now as for my earlier postulation...

That shit is WRONG. So wrong.

Fuck BORING.

And I mean, FUCK-THAT-SHIT.

Anyone who knows me and my fam know that boring is so not in our scope of living and daily grinding. Toned down? Yes. Chill? Fo sho. But definitely not boring.

We make being happy SO. MUCH. FUN.

Halloween Hits 2011

                                                           I married Freddy.


                                        Gong Li, Left-eye, and Ms. Liz Taylor