Spunk

(Advisory: R-18 post. Children out!)

You are what you eat. This has especially been proven true by my man lately.

It all started with mangoes.

The great thing about being in a relationship is that it leaves more freedom for experimentation. Over time, I've discovered that a man's diet affects the taste of spunk. Now boys and girls, before you go ewww!, you know and I know that in this world, porn stars aren't the only ones who swallow hmmmkay?

Since mangoes are scarce in Germany, he's been wolfing down the stuff like there's no tomorrow. Mango juice, mango shake, Mangoes mango...

Anyway, I noticed a slight "old wood-sy" flavor in his spunk, akin to the "woodsy" flavor wilted lettuce acquires.

I told him about this and he suggested that he start eating pineapples (or "ananas," its Indonesian name), because he heard that it improves the flavor of spunk. Lo and behold, it did! It started smelling...uh...like bleach.

However, this didn't last long, since the "old wood flavor" returned every time he started eating mangoes for a number of days.

So started the "great spunk experiment." We agreed that Thomas will eat a particular fruit for a minimum of three days, and try to determine if it positively or negatively affected the flavor of his spunk, then record the result. We've just started, so I'll post the results soon.



NikkiAlfar

Tobie Abad

Gabby Lee

Andre Mischa Cleofe

Photo essays

Gosh, I have been sooooo busy, I really need a vacation!

First up! I'd like to congratulate the X/1999 group. Sa wakas, nabuo rin tayo!



Best of all, I got to do it with Thomas, the perfect Yuuto for my Kanoe :D



Got this at the supermarket. Hilarious!

Weighted

I have always been a thin girl. As an adult, my weight fluctuated between the 90 to 100 pound range.

Guys thought I was too skinny; girls always envied how thin I was.

Girls would admire my flat stomach, how I fit into size 1 clothes, how I was able to remain so thin. Since I was genetically skinny, I did nothing to maintain that weight. I gorged on chocolates like there was no tomorrow, Sugar-loaded my bloodstream by eating powdered Milo and Ovaltine, Choco Mallows, Cotton candy, and fruits drenched in sugar.I probably ate my weight in pasta in a week.

The pitfall of being thin was that I had no ass. No booty. No junk in my trunk. Both my sister and my mother had this enviable trait, and I would constantly endure comparisons between my well-endowed relatives and my relatively thin ass. Therefore, I showed off my legs. Oh, but both my sister and mother had shapely and smooth hair-free legs as well. They were not any less pretty than I was, so I assumed that my mother and sister constantly got suitors (even if they were married!) because of the booty.

I decided to get a gym membership to get in shape for my Princess Leia costume, and finally, FINALLY got a booty.

Then I got a second job.

Then I met Thomas, a butt man.

And since Thomas is not a big fan of Filipino food (suspiciously eyeing a plate of Bikol Express, he commented, "most of your food like somebody chewed on it and spit it out again."), living with Thomas is pretty much meant that my diet became "European": Sour dough bread, cold cuts, fruits and raw carrots, potatoes, pasta, and heavy cream soups.

Two jobs, two months without exercise, and a Thomas later, My weight now stands at 112.

You may think that it is not much of a weight gain, but I'm discovering rolls of fat that I never knew existed. Sure, I knew of the puson and the bilbil, but since these were unknown terrain of my body geography, I thought that these rolls of fat were alien, like they didn't, and would never, belong to me.

But they do.

And now, guys think I'm hot. Girls think I'm too fat.

Except form my brother, who said that my arms were getting huge. Maybe I'm in trouble.



NikkiAlfar

Tobie Abad

Gabby Lee

Andre Mischa Cleofe

Facing the Music

I am the eldest of three children, but none of my siblings attach my name with the deferential title ate. In fact, they will tell you that I act more like the baby of the family than the ate.

I was always late, and not only for school and for appointments. I got my period a month later than my younger sister. She got a boyfriend at age 13, had a baby at 18, married by age 22. Where was I? In the corner, reading books. I finished school on time, and was the first among the brood to become a tax-paying member of society. Because of this, my folks called me "the career woman," maybe out of pride, maybe as a consolation, maybe as a way to establish an identity separate from my sister.

Truth be told, I don't relish responsibility. Sure, I'm responsible for my own life, doing whatever it is I do. I am very responsible in handling my money. However, the mere thought of being in charge of somebody else or something unrelated to me, something that I have to willingly commit myself to, gives me cold feet.

I don't like going through the trouble of being in charge of something. Honestly, it scares the shit out of me.

However, developments in my life seems that it is inevitable that I will one day have to take over something. I cannot go through life without being in charge of something, or else I would be doing myself a great disservice by missing out on opportunities.

Mrs. Boss' publicist, Gypsy, left me in charge of last Sunday's event, a horse race for the benefit of Mrs. Boss' foundation. I whined inwardly when he first told me that I was primarily responsible for the event, thinking that he was just being lazy.

Then he said the words, "Ikaw na ang bahala diyan, at matanda na ako." (Take care of it, I'm getting old for these things.)

Oh boy, I don't want to be Mrs. Boss' publicist! She can be a slave driver! I don't intend to stick around that long either!

-----

I had dinner last night with the Asian Journal team. Again, they said that Miko, the Philippine Bureau chief, will be joining the AJ team in Los Angeles. What made this announcement different from other announcements was that Sir Roger, AJ's publisher, said that he will be grooming two people in the office to take his place.

I hoped to God that he wasn't referring to me.

As I walked away from the party at 10 p.m., I thought why not me?

------

I've always known that I demand too much of myself, expect too much of myself, to the point that I give up on things that I know are a long shot. Such is the paralyzing effect of my fear of failure. *sigh*

Life is forcing me to make an attitude re-adjutment.



NikkiAlfar

Tobie Abad

Gabby Lee

Andre Mischa Cleofe

I'm IN L♥VE!!!

click on the Golden Arches!

I wish I thought of that...

Love you Miss Mc Donald!!

Trouble in Paradise

February 10 is a date I dread.

Thomas will leave the Philippines on February 10. He will come back in a year.

Will we survive a long distance relationship?

I don't know.

He wants me on the plane with him.

How can I go?

I have nothing waiting for me there.

No job, no scholarship.

MY life savings are just enough to buy a round-trip ticket, from the Philippines to Europe, and back.

He is furious because he thinks that I have no initiative to improve myself, to gain international experience. Because of our cultural differences, I believe that he misunderstands my "bahala na" attitude toward working abroad as a lack of initiative to improving myself. I feel that my life here is good, and there's no need for me to go overseas. If the opportunity presents itself, why not?

He says that I need to work harder at getting a career abroad, because people rarely succeed if they just wait for something to drop on their lap. He feels that I am acting like one of these people.

He says that my chances to work abroad dramatically decrease at age 28. I didn't believe him at first, but I was proven wrong. The UK's Highly Skilled Migrant Program specifically states that your chances to work in the UK are better if you're below age 28. He says that it's the same all over Europe.

His idea of helping me find work? Forwarding job leads from Monster.uk. As if Brit headhunters abroad would hire a Filipino stranger without working permits to the UK!

We're ok now, but this issue is simmering under the surface of daily life. It's the monster in the back of the closet, the unspoken problem coming between us.

What to do? What to do?



NikkiAlfar

Tobie Abad

Gabby Lee

Andre Mischa Cleofe

I Remember Daddy

My earliest memories include The Space Race Coaster, visits to the Manila Zoo, my nursery school class, and my large book of children's rhymes that i repeatedly read when I was three.

Yes, I learned to read at age three.

I was raised by my grandparents. They did their job well. I remember my late grandfather sitting on his favorite chair, which was situated by the front door, reading his daily Manila Bulletin, answering its crossword puzzle. I remember sitting in front of him and asking him to read the funnies to me, and I would laugh as my Daddy (that's how my mother, "Mama," called him, so I called him Daddy as well,)would explain why the Sergeant was beating the crap out of Beetle Bailey. Later that night, in the yellow pallor cast by a bedside lamp, I sat beside him in my grandparents' ancient bed. My grandfather's bony fingers would trace the words in the Spanish books he read (and would read out for my benefit). Later, we would watch Ron Ely (he was Tarzan, you know) try to get contestants to "Face the Music" for $10,000 and a brand new car, and Bob Barker's almost psychotic smile as he urged an audience member to "Come on Down! You're the next contestant on The Price is Right!"

This was life with my grandfather. An endless array of TV shows and books.

My Daddy said that one day, as he read the funnies to me, I told him that "I want to learn how to read, just like you." I proceeded to "read" my book of nursery rhymes, which I had memorized by then. This went on until I actually learned how to read by memorizing each letter, and each word, in that book.

My Daddy was a strange man. He liked things nobody liked, was unbelievably stubborn, as any old man is. Maybe I never really knew who he was; I may have idolized him to unrealistic proportions. I never really got to know him when he was young, and I grew up as he withered into old age. But really, is that relevant?

And I never really thanked him for allowing me to find my current vocation. Or for even for teaching me to love the written word. Even for his gift of teaching me the English language. And as I delivered his eulogy, I told those gathered that while my Daddy was not perfect, he did the best he could.

Isn't that all we hope for?



NikkiAlfar

Tobie Abad

Gabby Lee

Andre Mischa Cleofe