2,555+ days of Summer

Remember that saying "What happens in Boracay, stays in Boracay"?

Well... I'll keep everything else on that lovely little island except for this Blast from the Past of a picture ---- a funny and self-deprecating ode to my youth. =P

                                                       Single and feisty at 20

Oh the woes of youth, manual cameras, and Genevieve Gozum two-pieces!!!! Hahahaha! (A time when the breasts were still firm and gravity-defying... and Moony was the soundtrack of summer. *sigh*)

7 years and 16-megapixels later...

                                                   Loving wife and mother at 27

.......

EVERY SEVEN YEARS YOU CHANGE

Taken from: DREAMHAWK

21-28 years

The cycle that follows from twenty-one to twenty-eight, can more or less be called a process of enlargement and refinement. It is the period that we mentally and emotionally enter into adulthood. We start to build the foundations of our careers and intimate relationships with a driving energy that we hope will gain us entry and respect in the larger world.

One of the most marked features is the developing sense of discrimination. The faculties of insight, intuition, judgment and understanding begin to come to the fore. The personality softens and begins to mellow. The sparks of interest that were awakened in the previous cycles begin to be developed along more definite lines. The abilities of the last cycle also flourish. The adult emotional age may begin to emerges if one has successfully grown through the previous levels. This shows as a growing sense of recognizing needs of ones partner yet not denying ones own. It is followed by an ability to be something for the partners sake without losing one's own independence or will. One becomes more aware of the issues that color or influence relationship, and meeting them in cooperation with others. Independence and connection can appear together instead of opposite ends of a spectrum. You move toward becoming caring sexual partners through discovering each others needs and vulnerability.

In this period you will begin to confront the issue that you were either born with, or arose through the challenges and pains of your infancy and childhood. These usually show as the way you handle intimate relationships, whether you can really meet in partnership with the opposite sex, and how you respond to the external world, its challenges and opportunities.

At this time what is revealed may not be addressed as a personal problem or issues to be healed or re-evaluated. They will be faced more directly later if they are not dealt with now.

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

Now all I wanna know is how I'm gonna look after 7 MORE years. =P

SARI SARI SOUNDS SHOW SCHEDULE

FRIDAY (April 29):

Kalokalan with Rozie - 12 nn
with replays at 4pm, 9pm and 4am
Cafe 808 with Switch – 1 pm
with replays at 5pm, 10pm and 5am
Bad News with Casas and Raf - 2pm
with replays at 7pm, 11pm and 1am

AND THE AWESOMEST SHOW WITH TWO OF THE MOST HARDWORKING DJs/TALK SHOW HOSTS THIS SIDE OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB:

The Hangover Club with Roni and Michelle – 3pm
with replays at 8pm, 12mn and 6am

Check out sarisarisounds.com for weekly schedules. Allow us to fill in the afternoon grind and void. =P

BECAUSE BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO...

especially with FACEBOOK.

(Ok ok, I know I come off as such a Zuckerberg hater ---you can even accuse me of sour-graping for lack of an FB ergo my blind rage--- but honestly, I don't hate it. I mean, I don't like it, but I don't exactly loathe it with a passion and morally detest it. I think, for the most part, I just find the effects it has on people... depressing. And unforgivingly... funny.)

And this is another reason why:

Taken from Claire Gordon's Facebook Break-Up on HuffingtonPost:

My sister and I broke up on Facebook. Well, she broke up with me really. I checked my profile one day and saw that the comically incestuous "In a relationship with Sarah Gordon" had become the covert and serious "In a relationship" with no specified partner.

My sister had decided, apparently, that broadcasting her relationship with her actual boyfriend was more important than broadcasting our whimsical siblinghood. I think I might have felt a little hurt at the time. But if I did, I've repressed it, because it's definitely inappropriate to feel spurned when your blood relative virtually dumps you.

I rebounded quickly, edited myself back to "single," and within two hours had received five commiserating and curious messages.

"i saw in my mini-feed that you just broke up with your boyfriend. i'm so sorry! are you okay? also, who was your boyfriend?"

That was when I decided, like 40% of Facebook users, to leave my relationship status blank. If breaking up with a joke was this stressful, I couldn't imagine clicking out of a real relationship, flooding hundreds of mini-feeds, and enduring swaths of lowercase condolences from my favorite acquaintances.

Even if you opt out of the "Relationship Status" tab, however, Facebook fall-out from a break up can still be brutal: Should cute couple photos be de-tagged? Flirtatious wall-posts deleted? Pics where his face was particularly hot de-liked? Can you de-like something on Facebook?

Our generation certainly isn't the first to advertise our relationships and deal with the thorny consequences. Medieval jousters tied the handkerchiefs of their beloveds to their clothing. In Norway, an available maiden walked around with an empty sheath on her belt until an interested suitor inserted a knife. In the 1950's high school of my imagination, men marked their territories with letterman jackets and sweetheart pins. A thwarted courtship, in all these cases, was a very public affair.

The difference today is that post break up, all the evidence of a relationship is permanently archived. When a new love interest peruses all 700 of your Facebook photos, as is routine, he or she will see you canoodling with your ex and, even more uncomfortably, he or she will read the comments: "gag me you guys are too cute" and "vomit get a room. jk I love you guys."

Given these intimate electronic trails, it seems practical, and not just petty, to de-tag, delete, or even de-friend. But the sad reality is that the photographic record of my life is almost entirely contained on Facebook. If I de-tag myself, then that image disappears, almost irretrievably, into Facebook's untagged ether of unflattering angles, sloppy drunk faces, bong hits, and I-didn't-realize-that-shirt-was-see-through.

I may want to temporarily eliminate tender snapshots for the sake of a potential future suitor, but I don't usually want to completely Eternal Sunshine a relationship. A simple solution is to save the most treasured photos and wall-to-walls on a hard drive, but this involves a devoted scrap-booking impulse I rarely have in the wake of a break up.

I was confronted with all these issues a few years ago. He de-tagged and de-friended. I, on the other hand, attempting some moral high ground, refused to tamper with the online artifacts of our affection.

It was approximately a year later, on my annual tour through my entire Facebook photo database (why are there 30 photos from that night when I have major grease-face?... oh my god that guy, what the hell happened to him?), that I realized how awkward it looked: The two of us with linked arms, my head on his shoulder, me tagged, him not.

Any potential future suitor, stumbling upon this image, would probably think: That must have been a really shitty break up.

History is always archived on Facebook, but also constantly revised: Drunken exploits edited out, fat days deleted, past relationships purposely depicted in particular ways, inadvertently depicted in others, or not depicted at all.

In a couple decades, however, when Facebook is no longer primarily a tool for finding, stalking, studying and communicating with love interests, but simply a scarily comprehensive record of my life (and, of course, a way to connect with old classmates!), I'll be happy that my youthful angst didn't delete my youthful affairs.

I'll just keep my privacy settings high.

.......

Yes. I made my then boyfriend-now husband delete, de-friend and de-tag and Eternal Sunshine that shit till his FB was squeaky fucking clean, til it was completely SPOTLESS... until all you can see was ME, ME, oh and Me me me... whether happy or drunk or talking or drunk or sleepy or laughing or wrecked or drunk. 

And I am not the least bit ashamed of it.

I hope his fugly exes/flings did the same. *smiles innocently*

(I had to clean out my multiply as well... though yes, admittedly, I wasn't exactly as acquiescent and gung-frikkin'-ho... but it didn't take long for me to realize what was more important here --- my then or my now. =)

Good thing I never signed on and I was single when it boomed. (I did however hack into my ex's account[s] and delete all of MY pictures myself... because I'm a fucking ninja and I'm totally all about that higher moral ground shit meaning... I didn't want any potential suitors seeing those pictures and I certainly ---and I truly mean this--- didn't want my ex's chicks to feel threatened by me upon seeing them.)

Because I'm awesome. And mature. Maybe not the hacking part but c'mon, it was so easy and I was doing him a favor.

But you know what?

Fuck "delete."

It's called a bonfire.

GOOD LITTLE GIRLS, THEY NEVER SHOW IT

There’s something about a woman’s strength that just seems so…

Unfair.

Ok I was thinking more along the lines of ‘unnatural’ but I didn’t want to imply that women were weak.

Because we aren’t.

Sure.

I mean, every time I’m about to do something physically painful, I just think:

“This can’t be worse than going through labor.”

But it’s more than just the physical pain.

The thought of dying is in there somewhere.

The thought of your baby dying.

And you have to be ok.

I think that’s the price we had to pay.

To be strong.

To compete in a man’s world.

(segue)

A friend once told me (a girl)

That we [women] were lucky

Because we possessed this luxury

The luxury to be weak

We could be weak

And it would be ok

[I even read somewhere that a woman’s tears were her natural defenses against men with raging libidos]

I don’t think it works the same for women.

She'd probably stifle a giggle.

Because no matter how many people say it’s ok for a man to be weak,

He just can’t.

Lest he want to be called a girl.

[I suppose in that sense, to be a ‘girl’ is considered degrading]

Labeled all sorts of crazy

Thinking PMS isn't really real, it was just one of those things

Girls do.

To get attention.

And I guess that’s why we [women] self-fulfilled this prophecy

And believed we were degrading

But instead of surrendering

We exaggerated the opposite

[Perhaps it was that innate drama queen in us which prompted it]

So we put on that brave face

Stepped out of the home

Chased that paper

Made that cheddar

And still decided to go home to make dinner

Because we wanted to 1-up what being a woman meant to people

To other people

Because we wanted to believe that we could do whatever we wanted

That we could leave

That we weren’t weak

And we wanted to secure our own selves

Our own hopes

And our own dreams

And find that those were all good things

Because victory and freedom and beating the odds never tasted so sweet

Though sometimes I feel

Fighting back tears are unnecessary battles

But I [we] did this

Now they expect us to be strong ALL THE TIME

To “take it like a man”

When all we wanted to do…

Was be a girl

........

For those who missed it...

Like I did. *smacks forehead*
                                  
You can catch THE HANGOVER CLUB WITH RONI AND MICHELLE (now at its new time slot) Fridays at 4pm with replays at 11pm, 8am on Saturdays and 10pm on Sundays, exclusively on www.sarisarisounds.com

                                                     Well, well, well...
......

Honestly, I never knew how hard it was to actually induce drunken conversation. But we manage, somehow...

                                       Still drinking after our own drinking show.


........

Now which artists would be great to get drunk with?

(Maybe we should get those General Luna girls... or even better, those girls I find singing on Party Pilipinas. That would be a trip.)

WHY NOT HAVING A FACEBOOK SUCKS.

Just got back from a presscon with "noted fashion photographer" Nigel Barker and "runway coach diva extraordinaire" Miss J. Alexander (I can hear Tyra's voice ringing in my ears) and I was talking with our art director... nay, SENIOR ART DIRECTOR, Ben about what we'd ask them, if ever... and he said I should ask them if they had a friendster and that just opened up our whole discussion (ok more like another epiphany) about why it sucks to NOT have a facebook. I said it was too late for me, I guess, and that maybe I'll just join the next big thing on the internet once facebook is phased out but for now, it just sucks when:

a.) a lot of contests and promos require you to log on to facebook, LIKE their facebook page, and submit entries there. I mean, like... what the fuck right? only people with facebooks can join basically? that's so unfair. whatever happened to email?

b.) apparently, "googling" someone now is obsolete ---- so if you wanna look for somebody, you gotta "facebook" them or check them on twitter or something (which actually proved pretty effective cuz last week, I emailed TJ Manotoc some questions cuz he said it was cool and then he never got back to me so I tried calling him, and his phone wasn't ringing and I'm thinking, what the fuck right? did he fall off the face of the earth? so i had our assistant "facebook" / twitter his ass and that's when we found out he'd tweeted about how his sim card was all busted. but i mean, he doesn't need a sim to check his email. I don't get it.

c.) can somebody tell me what the difference between a "friend" and a "facebook friend" is cuz I heard it again during the press conference and this girl was saying something about how this guy was her "facebook friend" and I'm thinking, WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN??? so maybe I guess I could count that as something that would suck ---- the fact that I don't have these special "facebook friends" ---- if only i knew exactly what made them so different that they had to be called a facebook friend rather than just a friend. Is it like... an online friend? Like a more sophisticated way to label a chat buddy. Like on IRC back in the day? Hahahahaha, IRC. =P

d.) there's only so much I can do on the internet sometimes and seeing my colleagues so caught up in their facebooks or my friends so engrossed in their blackberrys makes me feel so left out... that's why I just stick to watching CSI, Law & Order, and Bones reruns all by my lonesome.

e.) i'm so clever and no one knows it and that's why my little sister asks me for clever status messages or quotes me on the dumb shit i say. but she's kind enough to let me live vicariously through her facebook. (thanks roni!)

f.) people post party invites on facebook. does that make me a gate crasher for not RSVP-ing on facebook?

and the worst part about NOT having a facebook...

g.) since I don't have a facebook, i can't link any of my online posts (from the website) to our Gadgets facebook page so I usually just ask a colleague to do it for me... but when they're ALL GONE, there's no way for me to do it. Though I mean, I made my own husband an administrator... but I guess you can say it's such a hassle on other people.

OH. WELL.

Guess I should've just moved to tumblr.

Then again, I don't like how anyone can just leave anonymous comments on your posts and I'm sensitive like that (God that poor girl, Tricia Gosiengtian character... must've been hurtful to have so many people to berate her like that.) So yeah. Guess I'm staying here.

Maybe one day, I'll figure out how to shop online and really utilize the shit out of this multiply. =)

THE HANGOVER CLUB --- Pilot

What started out as a joke...

Has now become an actual job.

So set those alarms and mark those calendars to catch the first episode of THE HANGOVER CLUB with myself and Roni on SariSari Sounds with guests Nino Avenido, Enrico Subido, and Inky de Dios as we talk about anything and everything BUT their music.

Though I think it was really just about sex, for the most part. And sex performance enhancers. If that's what you call em.

You'll have to listen to find out.

I was so faded.

So yeah, catch The Hangover Club with Roni and Michelle on FRIDAY, APRIL 15 – 8pm; Reruns: 11pm and 4am

Hopefully, in the next shows, we won't talk about sex so much.

But I doubt it. *shrugs*