So you wanna talk about love?

Is that romance I smell in the air, stirring strong romantical emotions in lovers, and inciting rage in the perpetually single? Ahhh February 14, I thought it was you!   Like it or not, capitalists have declared February as the love month in honor of the feast of St. Valentine. And however different Valentine's Day celebrations have evolved into from what St. Valentine had originally done for the Roman soldiers and their loved ones,  the core sentiment is the same. Love. Everyone has the right to love and be loved.

As I was thinking more about the subject matter of love and romance, the idea of beautiful people came to mind. As if love, romance, and beauty always went together. Perhaps it's because romance seems more romantic when beautiful people are involved.

I just love looking at good-looking couples. You know, the ones who were blessed by God at birth with good looks - dimples, red lips, and big round eyes. I just can't keep my eyes off them. There is just something so magnetic about them - their perfectly symmetrical faces, their silky smooth skin, their blindingly white teeth, and all the other physical traits society has deemed ideal.

As I peruse my Facebook news feed, you know that thing we always check a hundred times a day, I see pictures of friends and semi-friends with their equally aesthetically-blessed partners. Birds of the same feather... People tend to stick with other people who are in the same beauty zone. Go ahead. Check your friends on Facebook, see who they hang out with. You know I'm right. But of course there's always that odd one out, that person that simply stands out because somehow he or she doesn't belong.

A few years ago, I attended a friend's wedding. She glowed as she walked down the aisle, wearing a beautifully crafted lace gown. She was radiant wearing just the appropriate amount of makeup. Her groom looked ever so dapper in his black suit and striped gray bow tie. I, and the rest of the guests must have had one thing in mind - they truly belong together. They were the picture perfect couple, and for a second I actually believed in happily ever afters.

But after the wedding, we went home and real life suddenly caught up with us, and then I began to re-realize that life is no fairy tale. Even for beautiful people. After a few years (or a few months) the romance starts to fade. This is the rule, not the exception. Novelty is what excites us, and when that "something new" becomes "something old", the excitement disappears.

No amount of beauty can hold a man's attention for more than, say, two years. With some men, even less than that. It is now up to us to sustain that excitement, that Blue Lagoon type of feeling. And if we ever survive that post-romance period, then we know that what we have is more than romance. It's love.

Love. Curious that it means zero in tennis. But love is a beautiful thing. Two people in love don't care about the world and how the world sees them. I am beautiful to my husband's eyes, and he is perfect in mine. When we love we see past the physical. This, I truly believe. We may be drawn to people because of how they look, but can they hold our attention?

True beauty lies within. This is no BS. A smart, confident woman is far more attractive than a gorgeous woman with no substance. There's just no contest. And if by chance a smart woman falls for a superficial prick, then she wasn't that smart to begin with.

I pulled out my manuscript from a publishing house - here's why

It was long overdue. I just had to do it. It wasn't because I didn't trust them or anything like that. I just thought it wasn't the right platform for me.

Writers write to be read. Let's face it, if no one read us, what would be the point of verbalizing our ideas, beliefs, and snippets of intelligence? I, as a writer, (yes I boldly claim to be one) believe that my work deserves wider readership. Perhaps it's because I am adamant about getting my message across. I have something to say, and I would like people to listen.

But my goals are not entirely noble. Of course I would like to make some money. Years ago, the publishing house sent me a copy of their contract. My eyes zeroed in on the figures, and as soon as I saw them my jaws dropped. Really? That little?

After you sign the contract, they basically own your work for five years, you get a single-digit royalty, and get zero if it's made into a movie. You might say I have such a high opinion of my work, but wouldn't you do the same if it were your own work involved?

Why are writers treated this way in my country? Where's the appreciation for the art, the craft? Have they forgotten to place value on the writer's time, energy, ideas? All those hours spent, thinking, planning, writing and re-writing. Editing, and re-editing. And then scrapping crappy chapters in one go, just so the readers have something decent to read. Don't they know how much choosing just the right words to use takes a toll on you?

But then I still want to do it. I still want to write and be read. Not so much by critics who will dissect and shred your work into tiny little pieces just to point out your misplaced commas, and your mixed metaphors. Although I appreciate honest reviews because they help me improve my work.

I want people who read for fun to read my work. Those who look forward to an hour or so of alone time, curled up on the sofa, with an open paperback in hand.

So yesterday I decided to upload just the first chapter of my manuscript on wattpad.com just to see if people will read it. I have been studying the art of self-publishing, and Amazon KDP seems like the best option, coupled with wattpad.com (as long as you don't publish your entire work on wattpad.

Anyway, it is a good way to build readership. It is also a good way of overcoming my fear of putting my work out there to be thrown tomatoes at.

If you want to check out the first chapter of my manuscript please click on the link below:

http://www.wattpad.com/story/12361009-living-life-in-the-fat-lane

Mammogram, anyone?

Picture taken from http://www.endalldisease.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/mammogram-720.jpg

Now I know what a panino feels like.

Last week, as I was busy typing away on my laptop, hoping what I was writing actually made sense, I received a text message from my brother's girlfriend, asking if I wanted a free mammogram. The hospital where she works had just bought a new machine, and they were willing to use it to screen women from forty and above for free.

Like any red-blooded Filipino I jumped at the mere mention of the word "libre" - or free (or gratis for our Spanish-speaking readers). My insurance does cover it, but the thought of getting it for nothing, thrilled me.

So early Monday morning, I found myself in the car with my brother and my husband, on our way to Pampanga. Perhaps the idea of mammogram + road trip seemed more appealing to me than just mammogram alone. We were pulling up at the hospital parking at exactly nine o'clock. I wasn't nervous or anything, but it was to be my first mammogram. I didn't know what to expect.

But I remained surprisingly calm, more anxious of what the results might say, than of the actual procedure. I had heard of mammogram horror stories but I thought to myself that it just had to be done. According to the Philippine Society of Medical Oncology "The country has the highest incidence of breast cancer in the continent and an estimated 3 out of 100 Filipino women will contract the disease before age 75; 1 out of 100 will die before age 75." (Source: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/329126/cbb/phl-has-highest-breast-cancer-rate-in-asia ) It is a scary statistic, and I can only imagine what women with breast cancer are going through.

No one wants to hear bad news, especially not news which tells us we have cancer. But like what my friend Emilie keeps telling me, early detection is better than a late one. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010. On her birthday. How cruel could fate be? But where is she now? What is she doing during holidays? Where is she on weekends? She's living life to the fullest! She travels, she paints, she watches how-to "makeup" videos on YouTube. She has plans for her future, and all this is possible because of early detection.

So even if having a mammogram feels like being a human panino, it is well worth it. The small sacrifice we have to make now, could mean a longer life ahead of us.

P.S. I felt no pain during the mammogram, only very light pressure. :-)

I Hate Deadlines

The past month or so has been quite stressful for me and my classmates in Thesis Writing 1 Class. The deadline for submission of thesis proposals is uncomfortably close - its face merely inches away from ours, its warm breath fogging up my glasses. Yesterday, a Saturday, I had to secure all the necessary endorsement forms. Last night, after proofreading a friend's report, I had to make some minor adjustments to my proposal, making sure all all the i's are dotted and the t's crossed. My tendency to obsess didn't really help, as it forced me to keep reading the manuscript multiple times, page per page, afraid that I may have missed something. After the constant obsessing, I printed four copies. Thank God I had recently bought a printer that can print thousands of pages without requiring an ink refill. The printer didn't give up on me, and there was no power outage. So I consider myself lucky. Finally, I thought to myself, I can breathe again. Earlier today, I had the manuscript book bound. It took about an hour. My husband said now I can stop obsessing. But knowing me, I don't know if I can do that. 

How Close Should a Father be to His Daughter?

While I am probably the least qualified person to explore the subject matter of father-daughter closeness, I can't help but have an opinion on this topic. 

I just came home from Church. I was there fanning myself vigorously, together with other parishioners, cursing the humidity as we sat through an hour of service.  In front me sat a family of four, father, mother, and two young daughters (9- 11 years old). I noticed that the father, who sat in between the two girls, had his arms around his two daughters, while the girls sat way too close to their father. The mother, for the most part of the Mass, sat about six inches away from one of the girls. 

Now I'm not saying, nor am I implying anything about the appropriateness or lack thereof of the father's relationship with his daughters. I don't know these people and I probably never will. My only question is: how close should a father be to his daughter? 

While closeness denotes physical proximity, it can also mean intimacy, the willingness to bare one's soul to someone else. I have friends who remained very close to their fathers until their death, but never behaved in a manner which made the people around them cringe. 

I get that a father feels the need to be close to his daughter, but does it really have to involve constant physical contact? Does it have to mean hugging each other as you sit through the priest's fifteen minute homily, and even well after that?

Proper decorum should take precedence over one's desires - whether it be the desire to pick one's nose, scratch one's ass, or hug excessively. No one is exempted. 

We live in what I'd like to think of as a civilized society, and our only responsibility is to live educatedly. Chit Roces Santos in her essay titled The Educated Heart, which can be found in her book Personal Space and Other Essays, quotes her grandfather Rafael, "Educacion es consideracion."  Education is considerateness. Being educated does not necessarily mean having a college degree, an MA or a Phd. A person's educatedness is measured by how he treats other people; it is measured by how he lives his life, knowing that the way he lives, the way he behaves in public, affects the people around him. 

Some fathers with daughters might not like what I wrote. But as a member of society, as an observer of people's behavior, I am entitled to my own opinion.

 

Rude Awakening

Whenever someone points out our flaws or inadequacies, we take offense, for though we believe ourselves imperfect, we don't want anyone rubbing it in. Just tonight, my best friend mentioned in a private message sent through Facebook, that she's turning forty very soon. And even though I'd always known that our days as thirty-something were numbered, the reminder still came as a mild surprise. 

I'm not saying being old is a flaw. Nor am I saying that being forty is old. I guess the point of this rant, is that the truth, no matter how benign or amoral, hurts at times. Like when an innocent child makes a guileless remark about someone's weight (my nephew, in our recent trip to Guam, asked my dad "Lolo, how many pounds are you?" - a big improvement from "Lolo, are you pregnant?")

I still have a couple of months as a thirty-eight-year-old, and I will definitely imbibe my thirty-eight-year-oldness for as long as I can.  Next year, though, I will turn forty. It is inevitable. But it doesn't scare me one bit. Yeah, the joints become a bit rusty with each passing year, and I store fat as if my body were anticipating a famine, but my face remains crease-free even without the help of age-defying creams. 

I am still at that age where plastic surgery is not an option. And looking at my youthful mother, I don't think it ever will be one.  Having a much younger husband doesn't hurt either. ;)

I, Sisyphus

It has been almost a month since my lifestyle changed.

McDonald's and Jollibee are right outside our subdivision's gate, so it had become a habit of ours (my husband's and mine) to go to either one of those fast food restaurants (most of the time it was McDonald's) to get a bite to eat. They are called "fast" food restaurants for a reason. The sheer convenience of driving through the narrow drive-through alley, and talking to a box sure beats dicing, and slicing, cooking and then cleaning up after. So let's go back to a month ago.

About a month ago, I started exercising and making healthier eating choices. Three weeks ago, I started measuring my food intake, and just last week, I started walking for an hour, on days when I don't go to the gym. The first two weeks were the hardest. Every time I stepped on that digital weighing scale, it was like I was being judged for being fat. My weight fluctuated during the first two weeks. My husband knows this oh so well, as he sat there smiling just so, as I bitched and moaned to him about the futility of my efforts. "I'm starving myself to death! And for what?" I felt like Sisyphus trying so desperately to roll that boulder up a hill, only to watch it fall all the way down.

Down... that's exactly what I was feeling those first two weeks.  I had to give up sauces, and condiments, salt, sugar, processed foods, etc. And my weight still fluctuated. And then... I started losing weight. All of a sudden, I felt my efforts had not been for naught. I no longer have breathing problems, no more GERD, no more headaches, no colds.

I have my friends, my family and of course my husband to thank for this "newish" lifestyle. Without their love and support, this would have been a more arduous ride.

I have lost a total of 8.37 pounds in less than a month. I am extremely pleased. This IS the only way to do it. Like what my friend Joy said, "Slowly but surely, Ate Katy." ;)