my soul mate =)

James McAvoy

vanity 'palate'

my teeth are still aching. i don't exactly know whether my gums are in connivance with my teeth in this excruciating battle with yellow elastics, but hey, i am no dentist. so i'm free to put the blame on whoever i choose--or in this case, on "whatever" i choose.

vanity has given a doctor's wallet a full face lift. people pay big money to look good. they have been slaves under a common notion that feeling good comes after looking good. i want to disagree, but as you already know, i just got home from a dental appointment. i traveled to manila to have my braces adjusted. my mom has always been very vocal about her aversion towards braces. everytime i complain about my aching teeth (or gums), she'd say, "bakit pa kasi nagpa braces, hindi naman kailangan?!"

my reason is obvious, simple, and can best be related through the use of my own adage: no gaps, no glory.

there's this squabble between belo and calayan. i think it's really funny. doctors to the stars, they claim to be, and yet they appear on tv sounding more like shrinks. in fact, belo made a detailed recount and analogy of her failed relationship with hayden kho, in tears. i could have willingly succumbed to her sincere relations if it weren't for kris aquino's, ehem, "credibility" as an interviewer.

a vision of my teeth lined up in a straight row makes my heart flutter. the statement 'beauty builds confidence' is far from being hypocritical. but then again, even super models are nitpickers. you don't know how bad this makes me feel.

to me, beauty is strength and courage--strength to hold onto that youth, and courage to accept that youth will leave you in time. growing old gracefully is my dream.

a dream cream, no matter how effective, cannot stop time from ticking. no one can escape old age.

but my teeth must be preserved, i insist. so i guess i'd have to bear this throbbing pain...all in the name of beauty.

who's got talent

i surf the internet everyday. it has been my source of everything. from current events to high fashion, from the least favorite people to ford's most famous...the world is just a few keys away. yahoo has always been my search engine.


youtube is one big talent resource. i mean, who does not know charice pempengco? but if i were to confine the search for talented people in my circle, i would say there's a handful of golden talent here, too. ate len, for one, is a great cook! my brother can name all the great albums in a jiffy; my niece can work up a tune better than most children her age; my aunt (tita madre) can write an intelligent dissertation with her eyes closed...



"talent" for me, is a person's ability to demonstrate his skill, both singular and rare, in such a way that people can readily associate his name with it. it can be any skill. singing and dancing are the most common. but there are still areas where talent thrives when you least expect it. take, for instance, designing web pages. it took me hours just to choose a new template for my blog, i can just imagine how grueling it must be for designers to find a safe palette that would appeal to bloggers like me. to think that martha stewart actually made a career out of pastel colors!

sean penn. now there's a golden talent. how can you not appreciate the pool of talents in the kodak theatre? the entire production was amazing! it was one talent recognition meant for history to challenge. it gets better and better each year.

i would like to believe that i am the type of person who knows how to appreciate talent when i see one. i just don't get to express my appreciation that often. you cannot actually feign the state of being 'speechless'.

i would like to encourage you to acknowledge talent whenever you can.

who knows? in a few years time, pilar would grow up to be the next charice pempengco. anything is possible.

of vanity and amiability...

i must say that i was quite sad when my reading came to an end. "pride & prejudice" is one great read i will forever go back to until my vision permits me.

i willed it to be a slow read. my eyes deliberately ignored the next few words on the pages of the book just so i can delay the unraveling of characters. but my excitement could not but yield to my usual reading pace. i was lost in a daydream of sorts. jane austen's words were my own--if i had that talent in writing sentences just as expressively, i would have sent for random house's owner to make arrangements for the release of my novels myself. considering that i've raked in quite a large amount of income for producing bestsellers, they would be at my beck and call, i'm sure.

but i am not jane, though i try to emulate her likeness in my being everytime i write. i am aware that filipino readers are not inclined to reading books written in a rather formal language, however exquisitely written. ms. austen used the words "amiable" and "profligate" a hundred times and i honestly believe that there could not be a more apt way of putting such words together in one sentence to create a refreshing irony despite their formality. english writers indeed enjoy this edge. they can write about the chirping birds and earn the best reviews. i cannot even begin to relate how unfortunate this makes me feel, for not being born into the language.

i had to watch the film to know whether i've pronounced some words correctly in my head as i read the beautiful words she quilted together. ms. austen did not even describe the characters that intimately, and yet she was able to create a vivid picture of them dancing in my head! oh i'm sure you'll fall in love with mr. darcy too!

my hangover has taken me over the bridge, i know. it is now more of an obsession than an erstwhile 'hobby'. i'd rather not read it again--not until after a year or two, for fear that my praises (for the book) may diminish the meaning of requited love if it were read more than once. for now, i trust myself enough to find contentment in anticipating my second reading, unless i want to preempt the joy i am sure to feel when i start reading the book again.

...i can't wait!!!

drowning in metaphors

everywhere i go i see metaphors.

road hogs hit the streets and invade every open highway; rug rats crawl on all fours and keep a parent's day full and hectic; i am a couch potato.

i can never write without metaphors. they make the simplest sentence interesting. valentine's day is presented in all its metaphorical splendor. the infamous greek and english playwrights could not have written with spunk without them. song writers are in the same boat, i bet.

tori amos owes her success to metaphors. 'cornflake girl' determined her career in music. who can forget the movie 'great expectations' (a film adaptation of charles dickens' novel)? it was one figurative staging of false hopes and bravado, thanks to anne bancroft's sterling performance as a spinster who was betrayed by her fiance.

with metaphors, you can turn a simple cooking ingredient into a magical word. sugar can mean sweet, chili can mean spicy, onion can pertain to sensitivity.

colloquial terms are best used when answering bar questions. you can never fool a magistrate with your blossoming english vocabulary. but given the length of the exam and the breadth of vocabulary you may overuse as a consequence, metaphors can be your last resort. you'd be surprised at how helpful they are as clinchers.

even a shampoo commercial contains metaphors. "i am rain" is one good example.

metaphors are great when writing blind items: she is anger and misery, or she is a freakozoid =) (kilala nyo na sya? haha!)

life is viewed as one big metaphor: my life is a dream.

i would like to believe that i am a metaphor too: i am a star

=)

becoming jane

you might think that i am a bit odd, but there's more truth in oddity than in monotony.

i get affected everytime i watch a good film. especially when the film is about a writer, an author, or a novelist. I already wrote an entry after watching Miss Potter, a movie that featured the rather tame yet superb acting skill of renee zellweger. this one is about jane austen (portrayed by anne hathaway)...the author of the acclaimed "pride and prejudice".

i have not gone beyond reading the very short introduction in the book about the kind of life that ms. austen lived. she never got married despite the many suitors who asked for her hand in marriage. she was heart-broken most of her life. and it was a sad moment of truth for her that led her to write 6 complete novels that now hold much praise from critics (yes, even at this day and age)...thanks to mr. tom lefroy (the young lawyer who broke her heart).

i've always believed that reading starts right after the heading that says 'chapter 1'. to my great regret, i refused many times to give my eyes a bit of coaxing so that they may roll towards the shortest biography section about the author, that is usually seen at the very beginning...the first page where the year of printing is almost always written on. so that's probably why i got into the bad habit of ignoring it at the outset. at least now i can start going back to my old books even if it's only for the purpose of reading the first page.

i was really taken by jane's life story. she was a struggling writer then. culture didn't make her career much likable than if it were pursued today. such bad timing for a talented writer as ms. austen. she should've eloped with mr. lefroy to be a living example of her fiction...but she chose to be practical (this judgment of hers i would never understand, being the hopeless romantic that i am). but then again, after reading the wiki on jane, the movie gave too much of jane's affections for tom away than she would've wanted (if she were still alive). in her letters to her sister cassandra, there was evident fondness towards the young bloke, but she preferred to conceal it for fear that tom's family would disown him, evasive as his uncle was at the very idea of pursuing a simpleton like ms. austen.

i'm writing this because i want to encourage you to read jane's novels... in the hope that you may capture the greatness in the art of putting the simplest words together, and creating a beautiful synergy of letters and emotions...all for the love of affecting lives generation after generation, after generation, yours and mine.

i don't expect you to understand my oddity and embrace it in exchange for all the "entertainment" i've given by displaying my blog entries for your random viewing...but i wish you'd give my words of encouragement a thought =)

here are some of jane austen's novels:

pride and prejudice

sense and sensibility

emma

mansfield park

persuasion

soon to open =)

angry, cranky, sue me

i consciously keep an 'anger meter' in my head that ticks when i'm hitting close to 100 wps (words per second). i talk too much when i'm angry. that's just how i am.

it's not just plain hate-talk, it's one emotional turbulence i wished away, albeit unsuccessfully when i was 6 years old, and one of my playmates broke my barbie doll's arm. he became a friendless, hapless creature after that.

my temper doesn't rise that often. i try to control my breathing and count 1 to 50 in my head to release some livid mental waves--believe me, it works! i have a very selective confrontational spirit that reboots each time i feel that i've been had. vindication has a different ring to it more than the words 'getting even'.

it's ok to surrender to fury and antagonism once in a while...because after the outburst, everything will settle like pebbles in a glass of water--nice and easy. sabi nga sa curious case of benjamin button..."you can be as mad as a dog at the way things went. you can curse the fates. but when it comes to the end, you have to let go" pa din.

sometimes, holding back causes heart attack. it engulfs and dampens your spirit, it enslaves your potential, and traps your conscience inside a one-track road. unless you take it out on someone, you'd be fenced in indefinitely.

if you let that person get away with hurting your feelings, he will not reach a point of realization until some other brave soul pops his balloon and voila! he's a changed man! too bad you lost the chance of getting your message across. in your eyes, he is now the untouchable, fearless beast, and soon after, you'd feel responsible for allowing him to trample on your feelings in the first place. if it were not for the complacence he gathered (with you as guinea pig), he would have said the magic word--sorry--right after his first transgression.

just make sure that your show of anger can still be accommodated within reason. there's classy outrage and there's palengkera outrage. you can tell a person's upbringing by hearing him talk in the midst of wrath.

get angry. be cautious. set yourself free.

sinfully sweet!

i just can't resist eating at least one whole column of cookies strategically packed and arranged by kraft foods!

i call this 'the michael jackson bait-box'

haha!

portable me

i have a carry-all bag that has my entire room stufffed unglamorously in it. i just can't leave home without it despite the unnecessary added weight on my shoulders. weddings are an exception of course!

when i'm out, i feel safe and complete. i've been to many places with just my comfortable outfit and my bag, and i've never experienced leaving something behind, say a set of triple A batteries for my toothbrush, and stressing over the fact that i've relied too many times on my unreliable memory.

i'm not a typical girl. true, i enjoy washing the dishes, but i'd give anything to have somebody do it for me so i can watch the 6 0'clock news on tv. i love reading, but by 4pm, my eyes are already dead beat. as a matter of fact, i'm squinting right now as i type this entry.

i can't stay put. i fidget in my seat. i have to make the smallest movement just to show i'm alive. our house allows me to be my usual disoriented self. it's big enough to accommodate and tolerate my every motion. i love it.

i love that my mom can't do many things without me. being 'needed' does wonders to my self esteem. sometimes, i get a kick out of washing the laundry and cleaning very dirty rooms. after all, part of being a beautiful woman is having a body that is strong enough to lift heavy furniture and dust off hard-to-reach areas at home.

just for kicks and only for the sake of being branded as indispensable, i'd be delighted to play 'irona'--richie rich's robot maid...with the same $5,000 salary to compensate for my efforts of course! hehe.

"ren" is a monikER

caring, loving, doting uncle, hoarder of oil and burner--

feeling, fearing, elevating to daring heights of wonder;

demanding, perceiving, sensing, deceiving piolo impostor--

flicker, monroe sticker, liquor and sodium hater;

maricel's charmer, madonna stalker, retired marlboro smoker--

dear brother--

healthy options endorser--

tough fighter--

a looker--

heart stopper--

no more whopper--

a toast to sobriety i offer--

plus facial toner;

oh big spender!

brother

dear forever

=)

if i were a snob...

my balenciaga motorcycle bag...




my time





dream louboutin pair




chanel blinding!

forever young

in my heart.

watch and learn

to be a farmer and a father...

back in the old days, families thrive on farming as the most basic and dependable means of livelihood. one hectare of land plump for cultivation is more than enough to raise a family of 5. plus the fact that mealtime is the best time for brewing surprises--you'll never know what your backyard has in store for lunch or dinner.



my dad was born and raised with a 'wooden' spoon. he wakes up very early in the morning to see to his and his siblings' breakfast. he would climb a coconut tree just to have something edible for lunch. he did most of the errands for his family, that's why his feet were dirty most of the time. this also explains why at a young age of 57, his hands are already dark and wrinkled. the sun was mean to farmers like him. but he remains to be the handsome debonair underneath the colorful caps he wears in intervals to parry the sun's rays.



nowadays, land is used on a more commercial scale. if you want to find vast tracts of well-cultivated land, you'd have to travel to far away provinces. but for me and my family, a bowl of bulanglang is only a few steps away. sili, kalamyas, papaya, malunggay, luya, calamansi and kamatis to name a few, are meticulously grown at our backyard.



my dad needs to have some 'activity' to last him throughout the day. being idle brings out his different illnesses rather furtively. from going to and from the market to washing the dishes (and clothes too!), his idea of a break is having a drinking spree with his childhood friends. my dad's a staunch probinsyano, he doesn't carry a balisong for nothing.



sometimes when i look at my dad, i want to cry. he looks older than usual. other fathers may have dark skin, but it's due nothing more to playing golf for hours. my vanity stretches out to him with a bottle of baby lotion, but it wouldn't soothe his already tired skin cells to maximum softness. my heart reaches out to him in silence...wondering where i've gone all these years and why i left my dad to endure the heat of the sun by his lonesome.



so i try to make up for my indolence by not missing mass (every thursdays and sundays), by washing the dishes (religiously after meals), and by making my lingering presence in this house known (clearing the clutter, washing my own clothes).



because of my dad, there's no tough measure of survival i can't brave. God knows how much i love my father, and how much pride i have in me for being his daughter.

i am my niece's voice coach