THIS IS GOODBYE.

it was a magical year.  the kind i never imagined i would be blessed enough to experience. 

on new year’s day 2008, i rode the giant tricycles of puerto prinsesa all over the city …

in march, i shopped till i dropped, then put my feet up on the window sill to catch a singapore sunset …  

                      

in april, i shot the chucks while waiting for ma to finish smoking in jaipur … and while touring the taj mahal, the most gorgeous structure i have ever seen in my entire life!

      

in may, i hung out on bora’s white beach with sissy pie … she took this shot of the baby sneaker she bought for me at the toronto shoe museum …

                               

throughout the year, i had to work – of course.  here i am taking pics during documentary curing at the network.  and here are the chucks volting in with abbie’s vans, ernest’s nikes and i don’t know what tops’ and abril’s shoes are …

            

in july and august, i fulfilled the once seemingly impossible dream of working as a challenge tester for the very first season of survivor philippines …

                    

in november, i met some cute boys down under … 

                                

and finally, new year of 2009, i was back in cambodia,  whispering wishes into temple holes.  

                       

this is where i noticed one of my shoes had ripped.  look!

and so i’m taking it as a sign.  guys, this has to be goodbye for blue sneakers.

this phase of my life is over.  

i have lived and i have loved with these chucks.  and now it’s time to move on to new adventures, new relationships, new travels, new work challenges, new shoes of course … and maybe even new blogs.

you take care.

FREAKY AND BLUE

So let’s say you spend the day freezing and with a fever and you have to face various work dramas anyway.  Imagine that you’ve run out of kleenex and meds and you’ve scratched the edge of your drippy nose from using too many rough paper towels.  Remember that you also haven’t slept well in a long time.   When you finally get home, you know you have to:

     a.  order in some creamy pasta with chicken soup and apple pie 

     b.  close the window shades and go to bed

     c. paint your laundry room blue

This is how I know I am not a normal human being. 

There are the obvious choices and then there’s my freaky way.  My knees are shaking from exhaustion and yet I find myself on a step ladder, painting the wall a pretty, watercolor blue, with a touch of aqua like the shade of the sea in my header photo.  

Why I feel compelled to do this, now, I have no idea.

Maybe it’s a high from antihistamines. 

When I was four or five, I told my parents, “I want to be a painter.”  They were thrilled at the thought that they might have a young Raphael or Michaelangelo on their hands.   Until my curious father asked, “So what will you paint?”  And I gleefully answered, “Houses!  And walls of houses!!!”  They still remember how hard they laughed.

But I was serious!

Painting for me is therapeutic.  It’s like washing away the sins of the past. 

I should have done some things better today. 

So I’m writing over my failures with watercolor blue.

36 … AND STILL A STREETKID

I’m 36 now.  I am,  in many ways and to many people, a relic from ancient times.  Haha!

Too bad I don’t feel it. I was, in reality, much older when I was 25 and carrying the full weight of my ambition on my shoulders.  Goodness!

                      

Life’s a lot simpler now.  I just assign myself one major learning for the day and roll with it.  Up and coming things to look forward to include the Carlos Celdran walking tour of Manila with my best friend, a Baclaran trip on a Wednesday night with the rock star, making steak for my next houseguests – the BCBG girls …

For part of this weekend it was traveling on jeeps to get everywhere I had to go.  And not just my usual jeep stops like Tomas Morato or Kamuning.

I figured, if I traveled parts of Cambodia the way their people travel, on moto … there’s no reason I shouldn’t move around Quezon City the way our people travel, by jeep.

So I experienced one of my most polluted days in recent history.  Going from one furniture gallery or antique shop or home store to another on jeepneys.  Hearing the endless blasting of horns in iffy trafficky situations. Feeling my lungs fill up with carbon monoxide.

But that’s what everyone else has to put up with.  Every single day.  It’s good to be reminded.

Besides, I found furniture surprises everywhere.  For cheap.  I wish I had the space to put everything I liked and wasn’t so sentimental about my old stuff. 

Of course I knew I could get into trouble answering texts from an E90 and flipping tunes on my ipod in public transpo.   But proceeded to do so anyway.

And then I walked the much darker (than Timog anyway) stretch of West Avenue, all the way home from Trinoma. 

But exercise and outdoor air – no matter how polluted – really does me good.  It cheers me up.

So now I’m home and bursting with energy. 

A friend just gave me 300 songs for my birthday and I’m dancing to stuff I don’t remember having heard before, like cool music that Smash Mouth released a decade ago. Where the heck was I in 1999, when All Star was a big single?

Am I really 36?  Amazing. 

If I’d known it would be this much fun, I would have pressed the fast forward button on  my life a long time ago. :D

ON THE LEDGE

I spent last night hanging off the ledge of the roofdeck on the 19th floor.  With my friend, the rock star.

Only a metal bar was stopping us from falling over into the twinkling traffic lights below. 

So of course, I consider it the first really great moment of my year. 

You know those nights that live on in your memory even when so many years have passed?  This will be one of them. 

For some reason we ended up on the roof.  Just talking. And by the time we checked the clock it was 2 in the morning.

There are conversations with certain people that mean so much even when they don’t seem to be about anything at all.  And I realized, it’s not what you say sometimes, it’s how you feel when you’re saying it.

The rock star makes me think.  Makes me laugh.  Makes me say things I’ve never told anyone else.  Makes me happy to just be alive.

MY LITTLE OLD LADY HOME

When I was a young features producer, I’d interview in the homes of artsy, cause-oriented, environmental ladies in their 50s who’d serve me and my crew pitchers of dalandan juice and carrot cake on their terraces.  Their houses would have Julie Lluch sculptures in odd corners, Ugu Bigyan pottery in the sink, handmade paper Wendy Regalado lanterns in the garden, interesting collections of fridge stamps or postcards or handbags or textiles from travels made all over the world and inevitably, books and more books everywhere.  I loved these women, they were so interesting.  And I loved their homes.

So I took a look around my house today, after what feels like months on the road.  And realized I’d somehow managed to morph into one of those ladies.  Albeit a younger version with a lot less space.  But still. 

There’s a little love and some thought put into every lived-in spot.

        

This is my reading corner.  I found the bookshelf in an old coin shop in Greenhills – it wasn’t intentionally for sale, it was where the owners kept their files.  I love all the books in it: top row interior design, second and third rows media and business, bottom row travel and fashion, and piled in front of them, fiction.  The chair’s from my Mom, the pillow on it from India.  This corner is topped by a handpainted – with kiping – wine bottle from Lucban and a rather uncommon Malang watercolor of a squatter community.  He normally paints cookie-cutter girls carrying flowers …

 

This is the white kitchen of my dreams.  I had the original ugly cabinetry replaced with country style beadboard.  It was made just from ordinary plywood by a carpenter who was out of a construction job at the time.  I found a deep round sink too and a Victorian style faucet.  The ash cabinet with a stovetop - and the oak dining table not in these pics – were specially designed by R.  The guy always had good taste … ; ),  plus he wanted to use wood from sustainable forests instead of endangered Filipino hardwoods.

When I wash the dishes, I look at this little print of a fish vendor found at UP’s Bahay ng Alumni, which is propped up beside a bunch of hanging wooden fish.  I love this vignette. 

 Across the kitchen corner, another fish, this one a grilled tilapia surrounded by yummy red eggs and tomatoes, painted by post prod graphics artist Ian Ramos.  In front of it is a bronze Cacnio sculpture of a guy selling buko, presumably to wash down the fish picnic lunch.  

I painted the blue green and white cabinet myself.  It’s where I keep canned goods and garbage bags and other odds and ends.

The entryway has a gorgeous watercolor of a bass player by Anthony Palomo and a pastel by my bro Lionel.  His work’s entitled “my sister had to go to the bathroom …” which is why the chair in front of the piano’s askew!   I consider this one priceless.

This is the couch, with three toned brown pillows I had made in Kamuning market, from canvas cloth also found there.  Above it is an acrylic I fell in love with at the Pinto Art Gallery in Antipolo but could not afford.  Back story:  I was a new Imbest PM then and we had teambuilding in Antipolo.  Some of the staff were horribly late, so the earlybirds among us went sightseeing.  We all loved this cluttered Pinoy cityscape.  I decided to go back for it a week later, after sweetly bargaining with the artist himself, Ferdie Montemayor.         

               

The huge pine dresser, I had made to fit the exact size of the wall in my first home, by a little stall in Greenhills.  Inside it, more piles of fiction and boxes upon boxes of magazines.  The white metal chair — which I once painted green but which was originally black — I lugged home on foot for several blocks from a thrift shop.   

Above my bed is a poster of a lesser known Chagall that I hand-carried all the way from the MOMA in New York.  I love how whimsical it is.  I see this before I go to sleep and smile.

An interesting fact, most of the furniture here was bought back when I was a struggling indie production house staffer.  And everything I got for at least a fourth less than the first offer.  A smile and a bit of enthusiastic bargaining can work wonders … 

There are more corners of the house that I love but won’t show yet in this blog.  I’ll save the other works of art and favorite places for when you folks come over some pretty, sunshiney afternoon … when we’ll talk about books and film and friends and life … over glasses of dalandan juice and slices of carrot cake …

BLUE SNEAKERS’ 2008 AWARDS LIST

                        

1.   MOST ICONIC MOMENT – Literally walking in the footsteps of Gandhi on his way to his death.  At the Gandhi Smiriti in Delhi.  It was as sublime a moment as I may ever have in my life.  Sigh.  

2.   MOST INDEPENDENT EXPERIENCE - Taking myself to Capitol’s emergency room at dawn then heading to progcom as if nothing had happened.  Runner up:  Getting my blue bird tattoo in Cartimar. Symbolizing freedom in so many, many ways. 

3.   MOST MODERN SEQUENCE – Harley Boy nights … ’nuff said …

4. WORK HIGHLIGHT - Weeks spent on Koh Tarutao: riding the dumptruck, setting up tents in the rain, cleaning up the garbage, getting my toenail torn off, facing the ghosts of island elders.  OK, I led the team too … but note how I’m the one being supervised by the host in this shot as I fluff up wet sand for a challenge … haha!

5. FAVORITE LAUNCHES – Groundbreaking specials Signos and Kalam.  The new teen’s show Ka-Blog! because it was consistently innovative.   The short-lived giant-sized Big Show because it made me laugh.  Survivor Philippines because it was world-class!

6.  BEST VACATION - India with Mom.  Most importantly because I got to know a side of her I’d never seen before, but also because seeing the Taj Mahal up close for the first time almost made my heart stop.  Yes, it was that gorgeous.  Runner up:  Boracay with Caravan Girl.  Because it’s an honor to have a brilliant sister who is also one of your bestest best friends in all the world.  And because Boracay’s white beach is one of my alltime most fun places to hang out.

7.  BEST SOLO ADVENTURE – Riding motorcycles in Cambodia. Whew! 

8.  SCARIEST THING I DID – Organize a baby shower for BFF Gilds.  Runner up: Give a lecture on editing to documentarists from the Mekong region.  I hate public speaking.  But it’s one of those things you just gotta learn …

9.  MOST MEMORABLE EVENT – Survivor’s Launch Party, because even if I want to forget it, I still can’t.  Haha. 

 10.  OUTFIT OF THE YEAR - The short blue dress.  Originally intended to break hearts, except that mine was the only one - slightly – broken the night I wore it (see above).  Loser!

11.  ACCESSORY OF THE YEAR – Blue Sneakers.  Obviously.

12.  TAMBAYAN OF THE YEAR — Trinoma!  My third home after my condo and the network building. 

13. KAPIHAN OF THE YEAR – A toss-up between Coffee Bean in Trinoma and Coffee Bean in Tomas Morato for having seen more moments in my life this year than one can possibly imagine.  Extra points for making banana caramel cake which I was addicted to mid-year and then launching cream cheese slathered carrot walnut cake – my current addiction. 

14. BEST MEAL IN 2008 – CYMA’s amazing lamb chops at D’Mall in Boracay (which none of their branches in Manila cook as well)  followed by coffee and a lemon tart at Lemon Cafe, also in D’Mall. Runner up: all the Indian food mom and I ate on our trip.  There wasn’t one meal there that we didn’t love!   

15.  MOVIE OF THE YEAR -  On the big screen … Sweeney Todd, which I watched alone — twice! — because my dark side will always love films where the heroes first sing and then end up in a pool of blood.  Runner up:  Getting Home, which I saw at a Chinese filmfest … the ultimate funny-sad road film.  This dirt broke guy carries, rolls, pushes the dead body of his good friend across China to fulfill a promise.  On DVD … the sweet My Blueberry Nights because I’m a sucker for non-trad love stories.  

16.  BOOK OF THE YEAR – Kite Runner.  It was heartbreaking to read.  I had to stop for days after Hassan’s abuse chapter.   Then Time Traveler’s Wife, another non-trad love story which made me cry too many times throughout.  Runner up: Eat, Pray and Love - an incredibly apt gift from Haowei - because I could so relate to this woman who went through a painful divorce then went all over the world to find herself.

17. ALBUM OF THE YEAR – R. Kelly’s Double Up, because after all this time, I’m A Flirt, Freaky in the Club and Get Dirty are still on my favorite playlist.  Yeah, album reviews sucked but I don’t care.  Runner up:  Chris Brown’s Exclusive: The Forever Edition.  Current addiction, the album’s 7th track You, which has an amazing vibe in spite of the dumbest lyrics imaginable.  Haha.

18.  EXERCISE OF THE YEAR – Walking!

19. MOST UNEXPECTED GUESTS -  Fri Clubbers who came over to my super secret hideout of a home at 2 in the morning to finish a bottle of Tequila Rose.  Runner Up: the Rollerblader whom I once found on my living room floor at sunrise, meditating in lotus position …   

20.  MOST UNEXPECTED POPCORN PARTNERS - The Folks, with whom I watched Burn After Reading (loved this too!), Nights in Rodanthe and Kite Runner … and who are already lining up Benjamin Button for our next outing …

21. BUDDY OF THE YEAR – The big-hearted Backpacker, for putting up with my depression and drunken rambling for months. Runners up: Thoklets for the Quattro Nights before she found the love of her life, Outraged Cowgirl for the frozen margaritas before I stopped drinking …

22. SOUL CONNECTION OF THE YEAR – Walking Friend, for understanding so much about me, so quickly. 

23. GUY OF THE YEAR – The Mysterious Boy Wonder, because you always want the one you can’t have.  Still, so named because he’s a wonderful person.  And because he will remain a mystery to you all forever and ever …   

24.  LEARNINGS OF THE YEAR – How to see the kids who have their papers signed as human beings.  How to listen, how to connect with other people, how to empathize with their pains and their joys and still manage to get things done.  Runner up:  How to party! 

25.  GREATEST REALIZATION  – I am sure I believe in God.  I see Her in everyone around me.  I know there is a plan for my life.

ANCIENT KHMER FEMINISTS … AND ME

A European traveler visited Angkor Wat in the 12th century and was amazed by the women he encountered there.  He wrote that females were the shopkeepers, the bigwigs in the marketplace, that they bathed naked in a nearby river without the usual modesty.  He also observed that it was accepted practice for a woman to go up to a man she liked and simply offer to lie with him.  Whoa!

           

Khmer women also held powerful positions in government at the time.  The iconic Indradevi, wife of the greatest Khmer King Jayavarman VII (that’s his face behind me), was so reknowned for her intellect that she became the chief lecturer at a Buddhist temple.  

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by the Ancient Khmer Civilization and its legendary women.  I consider them among the world’s first feminists.

And so I returned to Cambodia this week, not realizing I would be adding onto my own personal feminist mythology.

I was determined to do things right this time around.  Because the first time I was in Angkor, I had too much on my mind.  There was sadness from a breakup, there was the inability to walk too far or too long, there was this attachment to living in the lap of luxury.

               

Cambodians are motorbike riders, that’s how they move around and that’s how I wanted to finally experience their country.  So the past couple days I’ve been holding on for dear life on these motos, getting all sweaty, my hair a tangled mess.  But it’s been fun! 

I decided to go see Beng Mealea, a remote jungle temple, just recently cleared of landmines.  When I got there the path was difficult, involving piles upon piles of stone to climb.  But I enjoyed it, never mind if I later discovered I’d just missed the paved way.    

                         

My ATM card then got eaten up by a machine in Siem Reap, instant karma for boasting in a previous blog that I could lead a simple life.  I had to spend a day with just 10 dollars in my pocket till I could collect the card from the bank.  But I managed, there are cheap meals to be had everywhere.

New Year’s Eve was the worst of all.  A few minutes past midnight, I fell on my hands and knees while stepping out of a tuktuk.  The blood rushed to my head and I lost consciousness on the way up the hotel steps.  I entered an instant, scary sleep.  This collapse made for quite a scene among the lobby staff, if you can imagine.  Back in my room after, I kept throwing up. 

I’ve fallen before but never quite like this. Which is why I have a strong feeling  (though no solid proof), that it was because of a capuccino laced with their so-called happy herb.  

                          

No, I didn’t ask for it.  But I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I’d decided to escape the rowdy new year street party on Pub Street and just have coffee and desert.  I hied off to the only restaurants that were still open nearby  … the notorious happy pizza establishments.  A sudden blackout hit the town right then, an hour before midnight.  My capuccino arrived with what I thought were bits of cinnamon on top.  But by the time the new year countdown was happening and the fireworks began to explode, my head was spinning.  I started thinking of landmines and bombs … and death.  And then I fell.

Maybe the kitchen staff got confused between the herb and the spice, cause it was pitch dark.  Maybe they thought they were giving me a special happy new year treat.  Whatever it was … it didn’t make me happy.   

But that’s the whole point in being a feminist.  A strong woman is capable of handling minor disasters alone, able to manage physical and emotional pain without falling apart, able to laugh at herself for her mistakes (besides having the guts to bathe in a river naked and ask guys point blank for sex, that is … haha). 

And that’s how I see this trip … as a strong woman’s adventure that would make the ancient Khmer women wanna cheer, “You go, girl! You’re one of us now.”

SIMPLE LIVING

I recently encountered the very first car I ever wanted to own.  A gorgeous compact sports tourer with leather seats that smelled heavenly.  We met in, of all places, the Mercedes Benz showroom.  The home of ultimate luxury vehicles.

But I’m not getting it. 

It’s not that I can’t afford it.

It’s that I don’t need it.

This way of seeing the world is part of my family’s legacy to me.  One that grounds me every time I think of doing something like buying a  2.2 million peso Benz. 

Spending so much time with them this Christmas reminded me, yet again, of how simply they live.

My father doesn’t own anything that can be mistaken for a status symbol.  He doesn’t even drive!  He’s been wearing the same pair of — now threadbare — jogging pants around the house the past two decades.  His only new clothes each year are the shirts I give him.  All I’ve ever seen him collect are books and jazz CDs, and he is in no way obsessive about them.  Because he considers his mind his true wealth. 

My mother’s giveaways to friends and family this year were pieces of canvas she sewed into big bags and then cross-stitched with designs of trees and the words “One Less Plastic”.   The end products were beautiful.  She’s a practicing environmentalist, serious about recycling.   She’s a busy bee. The definition of joy for her is manual work — sewing, cleaning, organizing things.  It’s never been shopping.   

My brother in California — possibly the center of the world in terms of materialism – was mugged on his way out of the bus stop the other week.  But when the young thieves on bikes took his wallet, they were shocked to discover there was nothing in it.  He offered them his little plastic radio to appease them, he didn’t even have an ipod on him.  Flipping the sections of his empty wallet, the muggers shook their heads, “You really have no money.”   And so they decided …  to give him a dollar! 

My bro is no bum.  He just doesn’t feel compelled to carry a lot of cash on him.  His rock solid faith is what makes him rich.   

And then there’s me, an embarrassment to the rest of them.  I’m a recreational shopper.   On an extra crazy day, I can snap up a jacket, a dress, a pair of jeans, an ipod speaker and three books in just a few hours at the mall. 

Believe it or not though, I’m still living below my means.  

I take the MRT on weekends, jeeps and tricycles to nearby destinations.  I walk home from work almost every day.  I’m not used to being waited upon, hence don’t need a fulltime maid or driver.  My gym is the cheapest in the neighborhood.  My blue and black knapsacks, the two bags I switch around, have been on my back for eight years and running.  There are no LVs or Pradas or Manolos or golf clubs or diamonds hiding in my closet.   

Like my folks and my sibs, I’ve found what makes me happy.  For me, it’s writing.  It’s something I forget the time doing.  It’s something that makes me, me.

Money comes and goes.  Titles come and go.  The generous network job will come and go.  Sooner rather than later.

So I’m not holding on tight.  Because a long time ago, I learned from some wise people in my life that what truly matters is who you are on the inside, if you’re doing what you love and are able to contribute to the world or change it, even just one person at a time. 

Viewed from this perspective, my life is finally getting on track.

MEASURED IN LOVE

“525,600 minutes … how do you measure, measure a year?   in daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife? how about love?”  (from Seasons of Love, by Jonathan Larson) 

It’s Christmas morning.  I can’t help but be happy. 

I’m trying to remember a past year of my life that was anything like this one … and I just can’t.

            

I was welcomed into the lives of the yakkers, the friday club, the survivor docs, the kids at work, even former program managers I was once so strict with …

  

I hung out with old friends I hadn’t seen in years…  

          

I made new friends.  I had friends to walk with, friends to drink with, friends to sing with, friends to cook for, friends who slept on my living room floor.  There are friends I for some reason have no pictures of — sorry!  And then there were the friends I lost and yet still learned so much from …

          

          

          

My best friend had her first baby this year!

                    

I watched movies with my folks and made time for family.  Both of my families, and they always will be.  

                     

Measured in love, it may just have been the best year of my entire life.  So far.  (Even if it sometimes doesn’t show on my face.)

                                  

So Merry Christmas Blue Sneakers Friends! 

If you’re reading this because I gave you this address, it means I love you! Truly!

LIVE LIKE A ROCK STAR

                     

The truth is, I could die now and it wouldn’t change anything.

I have nothing to live for.  No one to live for.  No reason to work hard or to make the kind of money I do.   

The meaninglessness of my existence has been facing me every morning, when I try to decide whether I should even get up at all.   

It’s cold.  And it’s Love, Actually season again and I don’t have anyone to watch it with.  Funny.  I thought things would get better this year, but sure looks like I’m going to be putting Fight Club on the DVD player come Christmas night.  Or maybe Sin City.

My psycho doc friend tells me suicide rates are highest this time of year.  I can totally see why. 

No worries though.  I believe in the God that’s in everyone around me, that’s in me. My life must have a purpose … I just don’t damn know what it is right now. 

So in the meantime, I’ve decided to spend this season as if it were my last.  Might as well say everything I want to say.  Give everything I want to give.  Splurge like mad, pick up everyone’s tab.  Go find crazy causes to support. Talk to whoever I want to talk to.  Kiss whoever I feel like kissing.  Travel to as many countries as I can fit into the break.  

Party like a rock star.  Live like a rock star.

Slowly die inside like a rock star.