M, my half sister and i have a penchant for roadtrips. we'd high off to far away places just to have lunch or dinner or maybe cruise over to tagaytay just to go shop at ukay ukay jaunts. with a tankfull of gas, cooler in the back, jackets, slippers, swimsuits and 9mm's under our seats (stemmed from a paranoid father) we would steer the car to anywhere our hearts desired. aahhh freedom.

just recently we undertook an expedition to conquer the massive retail structure. the kingkong of all supermalls, cream of the crop,  the SM Mall of Asia. yes, we were armed and ready for it. leaving home early, with boundless energy running thru our bodies, we headed south in our green Ford chariot.

traffic was awful but with Matt Monroe and Frankie baby (old skool is the best) blasting on our cd player we played it cool...

and then we saw "the globe". with the Philippine islands occupying a miniscule portion of it. cute, to say the least.

the church on the east side of the facility looked really weird though. the church itself looked out of place in a fast rising  complex facility. looked more like it was uprooted from an Anne Rice novel. one of those churches in New Orleans where pretty maidens got married in yards of lace smelling of mothballs. morbid but thats the image i saw as soon as my eyes zoomed in on those steeples. i would like to get married in a church like that someday. in black gothic lace. eerie.

excitement ensued. parking was a breeze.

as soon as we got in (i tell ya there were a LOT of doors and i couldn't tell which ones we already passed) my sister spotted a Quickly stall. these are her favorite she says, just like those in Hongkong. the taro pearl drink tasted good though. so much better than our Zagu.

while walking around we munched on those humongous blue cotton candies. and ended having blue tongue. pretty funny.

it was nice to see a breastfeeding station where moms could go rest and feed the little ones. theirs had a nice, comfy couch and some subdued lights. good touch and 100 pogi points for SM for that.

what really made me smile was this.

golfcarts like these are familiar in big malls in the states but it was my first time to see one of them in the Pinas. i pleaded with the driver to let me ride. i smiled, i pouted.. but to no avail. my slippered feet were killing me. 145 pounds of burden my feet carry. poor, overworked tootsies.he said it was for the elderly. fine. so i had to wait 2 decades more to get on it. bummer. but still 100  more pogi points for SM.

shops were kinda kalat. one shoe store would be beside a restaurant. a posh  clothing shop would be smacked in between a bookstore and watsons. talk about fair distribution.

we were contemplating on watching Superman on that scary looking I-Max moviehouse but the thought just scared the hell out of us. we were so easily amused. imagine an 80 foot Brandon Routh with his killer cowlick just hanging there like it was going to eat you. whew. scary! after hours and hours of arguing which door we took and which lot we parked in our tired bodies finally gave in to exhaustion. the wicked sisters had enough of this monstrosity.

with heavy feet we headed back to our chariot and laughed all the way home.

we conquered the beast. the beast with a detailed map. *cue in evil laugh*

nb: photos taken by my sisters trusty Nokia 6630 (may it rest in peace:)

i haven't been writing much these days. a few weeks ago i was seriously contemplating on moving to "the other side". blogspot that is. but loyalty made me stick around. i've been blogging on blogdrive since before blogging was the "in" thing. long before the blog bug bit everyone. whether they could compose a sentence or not.

people start blogs for all sorts of reasons. a lot of you have your own and are aware of whatever reasons you had in starting and maintaining yours.

way back when, i started my blog as a way to express a side of myself, of who I am, that I had lost through the events of my life.

life is complicated, and as a friend said, “life is all of these gradients of gray”’ and every person, relationship, experience… good or bad, big and small you encounter, touches your future and creates the path you take towards it.

for some of you, including myself, the blog became a place just for myself. i never thought anyone would read it. and only a few close friends and family know about it.

i felt this extreme liberation to write whatever i wanted and express my feelings, thoughts, stories and who i was inside, without anyone judging me

anyway, that’s how it started out… a place for me to write and share me, just myself and who i am, stripped from all the other responsibilities in my life.

yesterday . sunday .  may 7.

"mom, are you gonna be here on my birthday?"

'yes baby mommy promises to be there on the 19th for your birthday!"

today . monday . may 8 .

boss: "sam i need you to go out of town on the 19th, we need to do a photoshoot and we can't do this any other day but the 19th. i know you're scheduled to go home but its just a day and you can go straight to davao the next day..."

   she gives me that my-word-is-law kinda smile. damn

i close my eyes and click my heels three times wishing i was home

This ruthless being deleted my yahoo accounts, my photohosting site multiply and my friendster. Multiply and friendster are dispensable. The yahoo e-mail wasn’t. Let’s just say this callous and insensitive act created a major hump on the road for my career growth since all applications for my masters’ degree to universities were coursed through that yahoo account. Major hassle. I am pissed and sad. Pissed at the ape who thought it was cute to mess with other people’s privacy. Sad at the thought that maybe, in one way or another, I may have wronged someone and they’re getting back at me. Bottomline is.. it’s been a shitty week.

Whoever you are… go rot in hell where you deserve to be. Get a life. Better yet.. get laid. It will work wonders for your boredom. Asshole.

WWhen I was three C brought a cat home for me.  A beige scraggly thing  that was just weeks old.  Gorgeous kitten - much more so now in my memories than I ever thought as a preschooler.  He let me name her - ming.  Because that's the sound she made when she tried to cry out.   C is my brother 3 yrs my senior. J, another brother was older and always had the attention of my mother.  That was fine with me, I wanted C's attention. He was my best friend.

I was raised as a "guy" - - I realized playing with dolls was such a bore  compared to climbing trees and having fun in the mud.  Having been raised by a politician father everyone was raised to be men.  Sports and cars was a big part of that and so was the dirty world of guns and goons. C taught me everything I knew.  I learned the ins and outs of  basketball, baseball, soccer. Screen pass, squeeze play, zone defense, box-out.  I could also distinguish AK-47's from M-16's, Uzi's from Ingrams and was adept at troubleshooting V-8's and jeeps. I could change a tire without breaking into a sweat and could kick butt like a pro. Growing up with my boys was so much fun…

Until they left home.

C went to school faraway and J to medical school. I stayed home with mom and took care of the household. 2 crazy women. I missed my brothers terribly... but I missed C most of all. My saviour and my superstar.

And now he's battling.  An addiction too difficult to overcome. Not even my love could take him out of it.

I see him at his lowest point now and I want to be there for him like he was for me. Moving out on my own at 20 didn't sit well with him -- but he didn't stop me.   He loaned me the cash for my car, and made sure I had enough for incidentals. It was his responsibility to support me.  "It'll be your job to take care of mom and my kids when I'm old and falling apart" 

I got married and was disappointed,  "its okay dear, do what your heart tells you to do." I did.  So the marriage was over. The move 3000 miles away broke his heart but it made him proud.  He raised me to not be afraid.  To face the fear.  To learn to take the punch and punch back. I learned that growing up with him.

He's in the court now and I feel like it's my turn to be in his corner.  Hard to do from this distance.  My heart is breaking but he makes me proud. 

as i got into the parking area of the PNB Financial  Center in Pasay yesterday morning, i noticed the heightened security everywhere and security cameras left and right. not even our blue democratic plates changed anything. stopped at the checkpoint. opened the hood. opened the glove compartment. opened all doors. it was exasperating to say the least. i was there to attend a freaking workshop for crying out loud! they invited me over! i was ready to stand outside the car to have myself frisked (getting frisked always reminds me of that jaw dropping scene from CRASH) but they kept me inside the car (darn it:). I wrote my name on a logbook once on the ground floor, another on the 8^th floor and once again at the workshop proper. I had to restrain myself from pulling my hair out. I purposely wore my freshwater pearls today to add credibility and so I wouldn’t look like a terrorist.  the damn security personnel even had the gall to give me questionable looks upon perusing my last name. Was he surprised to see a well-built muslim woman wearing expensive jewellery? elitist bigots.

fast forward to the meeting proper.

topic: Gender Sensitivity and Gender Mainstreaming

meeting went by like a breeze with the usual made for t.v. smile and botox inspired expression. we were urged to give “commitments” to input and incorporate gender sensitivity into our projects and programs in Mindanao. these are deprived people who don’t even have toilets nor potable water to begin with and now they want to input gender chenes? have they even gone to these marginalized areas? deep into the hinterlands where children ran around sans slippers with their fathers slinging armalites and AK-47’s? my people are just getting over conflict after conflict and corrupt local government officials and they couldn’t care squat about issues that can’t bring food to the table or peace for their children.

as I sat there listening to these big shot experts rant over and over about balancing the divide between men and women I couldn’t help but think how daft they were. cooped up in their air-conditioned rooms with their perfect English, sipping Cotabato brewed coffee served by an underpaid Maguindanao secretary. that’s as far as Mindanao as they could ever get.

polite suggestion: go make your policy resolutions, case studies and data analysis in the safety of your 4 walls and leave the work to those who know their people best.

halfway through the workshop I was dying for a chilled bottle of San Mig.

these superpower meetings never cease to give me figurative nosebleeds.

damn, these pearls are choking me.

I have always wanted a navel ring, or a tattoo that works around my navel. But after childbirth physical changes have occured that have deemed my midsection a useIess area for any work of art. I guess I've been fascinated by  navels all my life. Firstly because they represent a necessary scar we all share from birth, and subsequently, much like fingerprints, no two scars are alike. Then there's the notion that in that little hole in the middle of our stomach we can see a direct link to our mother, via a chord which was once severed, but for most of us remains intact as long as our parents are alive.. and for some of us even long after that. In many Middle-Eastern cultures spirals represented 'the cycle of life', and there is no greater example in the human form than our belly with its central pivoting spiral - the bellybutton. In some Arabic cultures, (where belly dancing is said to have originated), a calculated pelvic movement is meant to enhance the release or flow of energy from the centre of its primary source - the stomach. Arguably then, the dance revolves around a drawing of essential healing energy from within, which during its course, spirals out to embrace the outside physical world. But beyond all these philosophical, spiritual and symbolic interpretations.. it's a rather gorgeous little piece of flesh no?