GIGI GOES GAGA

WALK THE DOG

If there's one thing I've learned -- and learned well -- it's that although any kind of change is always tough, if you decide to give in to it and go with the flow you might find that the change was good for you, after all.

For instance, if anyone told me a year ago that I'd be picking up dog poop every day, at least a couple of times a day, I wouldn't have believed it. Sure, you can argue that I did the same thing during the 14 years I took care of my cat Boo -- but you'd be wrong. Simply put, it's really not that bad digging into a sandbox with a long-handled scoop Vs. picking it up on the street with your hand and a thin plastic bag. Huge difference.

So here I am today, taking care of the sweetest 17-year-old foxhound mix, Ozzie. He's arthritic, with hind legs  so weak that he drags them around by sheer force of will. He can barely see or hear, and he never barks (although he used to -- a lot -- or so I've heard). The vet says he has canine alzheimer's, which means I often catch him simply staring into space like he's forgotten where he is and why he's there at all. I also suspect, sadly, that he might be diabetic now, too, because he's drinking water much more than usual. He was already showing signs of incontinence when he first came into my life, but after a health crisis earlier in the year (when I was quite sure I was going to lose him until he bounced back just when I'd given up) it's only gotten worse. There's no saying when and where he's going to pee or poop, which he now does even in his sleep. He always feels bad when he does, but we both know he just can't control himself.

Which means one thing: Ozzie needs to be walked mid-day as well. Mornings and nights were already scheduled around him, but now my afternoons are, too.

It's not easy for him as well, you know. He needs to walk down a flight of stairs consisting of 15 steps before we can even make it out the door, and when we're done he needs to tackle them all over again. We go really, really slowly, always one step at a time, and with each step I cheer him on. I consider every flight up or down a small victory, knowing that sometime soon we will no longer have steps to conquer together.

The biggest surprise for me during these mid-day walks is that I'm finally getting to meet the neighbors. Like the cute one across the parking lot (I'm referring, of course, to his four-year-old German shepherd. Wink.). Or the sweetest dog-loving two-year-old girl who ran across the street to give Ozzie a hug (he seemed fond of her, too). Then there's Mikey, the playful basset hound who likes to lick the wound on my dog's knee.

Today I got to chat with a couple in their late 80s or so; they take daily afternoon walks together. As they walked by us the wife called out, "Hey old man!" and my dog limped a few steps toward them and nuzzled their legs. They've had a few dogs of their own, all who lived to the age of 14, but find it too difficult to have one now. They were quite impressed that Ozzie's made it this long, though they warned me about having to let go soon. We talked a bit about mortality, about enjoying every day we have while we have it. I was talking about treasuring every moment I still have with this old dog; I suspect they were talking about something else. And when we parted ways, they held hands as they walked toward their apartment. I gave Ozzie a huge hug right then and there before turning the corner.

I still don't like having to pick up after the dog; this is one change in my life I don't think I'll ever get quite used to. But walking Ozzie -- now that's different, you see. As long as he walks, my life continues to change in so many special ways.

 

 

 

FULL CIRCLE

About 20 years ago I got my first retail sales job in downtown Los Angeles. It was at a lingerie store -- which was not yet quite the household name it is today -- where the store manager was referred to as the "proprietress" of the "shop" and customers were referred to as "clients." Everything was geared toward creating a very genteel English ambiance: lush floral carpets atop dark hardwood, giant armoires, sparkling chandeliers, vintage-y floral wallpaper, plush loveseats, dressmaker forms outfitted in silk teddies and sheer peignoirs, and soft, classical music streaming gently nonstop.

I'm back where I started -- although not quite so. Everything's changed so much since I left the company as a store manager in 1995 (they dropped the "proprietress" title along with the decor and furnishings even back then). It's one of the biggest, most well-known brands in the world today and the culture is much more professional, definitely all-business, where managers use terms like "leveraging" daily and the tools are much more sophisticated.

I decided to come back because I needed a part-time job while I focus on trying to get more work as a writer and editor and taking classes to update my skills. It doesn't bother me at all that I'm not running the show at the store this time around; I rather enjoy seeing things from this perspective again, like I just gained fresh eyes but get to keep the old ones, too. I suppose my entire life has come completely full circle; I started out living in an apartment, working and studying, writing and editing, falling in love and battling all my fears, and struggling to pay the bills through it all. And here I am again.

In-between the two far points of my life thus far I (in no particular order) got married, owned a home with a garden I built from scratch, had a cat, managed more stores before I switched careers, stopped writing completely and then started a blog, ended the marriage, lost my 18-year-old cat and the home, and moved from LA to Manila to Seattle. The two points may appear similar, but the person I am at this end has been profoundly changed and is almost wholly different from the one at the beginning.

When you're starting over, especially at my age, it helps when you surround yourself with those that remind you of what you've loved most in life, especially when you've been through quite a bit of sadness. So I went home to Manila for a few months to reconnect with my family and closest friends, came back and dusted off this blog, started writing freelance, and got a job at the same company where I once excelled. Now, because I'm grateful for everything I do have (instead of bitter for what I no longer possess) I also found joy, at least wherever and whenever I can find it.

If there's anything I learned through the years, it's that even when you think you're starting over you haven't lost anything you'd once gained. What you have is an opportunity to get it right this time, to do things better, to see old things in a new light. You're not going backward if you're growing, ever. It's been said that people don't really change. What I've discovered is that we don't only if we don't want to or if we don't have to.

But we grow during periods of adversity, or at least we have to if we're to persevere. We have to do what we can, find all that's within us to survive and get past the tough times. There's just no room to be comfortable or to remain static. We have to keep moving forward -- hence the growth -- even when we don't know where to go or how to get there when we do. The alternative is too frightening to think about, and much too sad.

I have no idea where I'll be six months from now -- heck, not even in three. What I DO know, however, is that a year ago I didn't know I'd be here in Seattle and loving the Pacific Northwest. See, if you open yourself up to possibilities then the unknown is not quite as scary even when you're in precarious territory. I may never have pitched a tent or roasted marshmallows around a campfire in my life, but I sure know an adventure when I see it.

Twenty years ago, if I were told that I'd be here again, elbows deep in silky undergarments at work and cutting coupons at home, I would have considered my life a failure. Now I know better, and the main difference is really a matter of perspective. What I have before me now is a question, the topic of countless books and movies: what would you do if you could do it all over again?

I'm about to find out.

 

OCCUPY: MY NAME

When I was growing up, I thought my parents failed me the moment they gave me my name.

The long version, my legal and baptismal name, was too long and unwieldy. It wasn't easy to learn how to spell or say and to this day I wish I'd made minor changes to it when I became a naturalized US citizen. The short version only proves that my Philippine National Artist father was completely lacking in creativity and inspiration on the day he and mom decided to christen me with a nickname (my theory is that they couldn't pronounce the first one in the long string that is my full name either). Why "Gigi" is so popular in the Philippines is beyond all my comprehension; I'm convinced there are more of us in the world who are Filipino than French. To make things worse, my surname is the equivalent of "Smith" or "Jones" in the US. If I were on a plane thousands of miles above Manila and hurled a ball toward the ground, I'm fairly certain it would land on a person with my same last name. I wouldn't be surprised if it were a relative of mine either.

In fact, I did a Facebook search for my name last night and the options kept flowing endlessly -- for both men and women. There are so many of us that I didn't bother getting to the end of the list, partly because I fear there is no end to it. I'm convinced all of us could start our very own social network and be more actively engaged than, say, all my contacts are on Google+.

So perhaps it's surprising that the first thing I did on New Year's Day was to informally change my married hyphenated name, which gave me a uniqueness I'd never enjoyed as a single person, back to the one that millions of people happen to share. But it's my name, damn it, even if so many can say it's theirs, too.

The first time I got married, I didn't change my name. My ex-husband demanded I either switch to using his surname or keep mine because he didn't believe in my using both. That was an easy decision and a convenient one, as I discovered five years later, when I didn't have to go through the tedious process of dropping his and reclaiming my own.

When I got married again, my husband said it was completely my choice. Partly because I was grateful that I hadn't married a caveman but also party because I knew he hoped I would take his, I did. In a way I kept mine, too, but seeing our names joint felt like looking at a third entity. It took me a few years to make the decision to haul my ass into all the various government agencies and show proof that I was married so I could change my name, but when I did I did it for love. In hindsight I realize that keeping my name wouldn't have meant I loved him any less, but I suspect I was simply trying to do the opposite of just about everything I did (or didn't do) during my previous marriage in the fervent hope that I got this one right.

Well, that didn't quite work out either.

The truth is that I never felt truly comfortable with my new name. I'd look at it from time to time and ask myself who that person was and what made her any different from the one I was used to. I sometimes wonder if men have any idea of what it might be like to, practically overnight, stop writing the name they learned how to write and start responding to someone else's. Adopting a new name feels like you've become a completely new person -- and yet you're the same exact one but only attached to another now. I do understand why many women I know embraced their new surnames when they began their new lives; I just never felt the same way.

I went to an all-girls school until college and when I get together with my former classmates we still refer to each other, more often than not, by the names we used to hear during roll call every morning. Otherwise it can get a bit confusing, especially if you don't know who married whom. Men don't have to bother with any of this: whether they marry or not, they are identified, even after death, by the same name they were given on the day they were born.

Eventually I will go through all the legal mumbo-jumbo of changing my name yet again -- for the final time. I suspect that occasionally I will miss the one I carried for the past decade, especially because of all the wonderful memories associated with that period in my life and the family I became part of. But nothing has felt like myself quite like my own name, even if I still could think of a few better ones. I'm certain that the millions of us who go by my name agree.

 

 

DRAWING A BUCKET LIST

I have a milestone birthday coming up in a few years, and I'm already wondering how I'll measure my life when I get there. Not by my children, since I don't have any. Not by possessions; one quickly realizes that they can come and go far too easily. By love? That's a tricky one. I've had quite a few -- enough to write a book about (we'll get back to this later) and my two failed marriages are hearty fodder for pretty hardcore counseling, should I ever seek it one day. And yet I consider myself fairly lucky in this regard; with only a couple of exceptions, I'd be thrilled to see my past loves show up if I were featured in a '50s This Is Your Life episode.

I am surrounded by friends who are among the kindest, most decent people living, as well as sisters and nieces whom I would choose to be my friends if I weren't related to them already. My parents would never win any awards for parenting, but I've gotten to that point in my life where I wouldn't trade them for anyone else's. Besides, they managed to keep me alive this long, right?

But managing to live this long is not enough reason to pat myself on the back, especially in today's world when how we're supposed to look and feel is what we used to at least 10 years ago. Thus I've decided -- finally -- to give myself much to look forward to and aspire for and write it all down in a bucket list.

In case you haven't heard the term before, it's a list of things you plan to do before you hit a predetermined age. I'd never bothered to draft one before because I was content to simply live and see what happens while I'm doing just that. After all, something interesting always happened. But now I've realized that I need to actually MAKE things happen in my life -- and that it's never too late to make anything until you actually can't.

So what would be on it? Somewhere on top would be learning how to ride a bicycle; every year I say I'll finally do this but somehow I always get distracted and put it off for the next. This would be the most physically-challenging item on my list, I'm certain. I have absolutely no desire to run a marathon, climb a mountain, bungee-jump, or hurl myself off a plane high up in the air. NONE. WHATSOEVER. And when I finally learn how to ride a bike there will be no finish lines or stopwatches involved. Instead, think of a green basket on the handlebar and in it, a cute terrier of some sort, a bouquet of daisies, and a warm French baguette (in my mind the terrier never bothers to eat the daisies or the bread, by the way).

There will be no possessions involved, for sure. It would be so nice to live in a quaint cottage with wood floors topped with slightly fraying rugs, a brick wall in the living room with lots of books on the shelves, and a small but fertile garden where I can sit outside in the Spring with my man and our dog and cat -- but in a way I have that already. It's the happy place I go to in my head when the world gets a bit too weary for words. Besides, I've decided that material things have no place in any bucket list I make because my tastes can and do change (except for the house I just described).

There will be lots of learning involved -- a lifetime of it, in fact. I want to go back to school, maybe for a Master's degree but definitely for lots of classes.There will also be relearning: I want to rediscover my old passions for art and photography. There will be certificates for professional makeup artistry and esthetics, too. And there will also be music; perhaps I'll finally learn how to play an acoustic guitar.

I will travel -- although I'd have to be completely honest here and admit that I'd require some degree of comfort while doing so. We're not talking a stay at the Four Seasons or some fancy private resort here -- but if I could afford either then, at least once in a while, then of course I would choose to (It's MY bucket list!). As long as I have access to air-conditioning in the summer and a clean bathroom at all times, I'm good. I hope that's not too unreasonable to ask for.

And finally there will be writing -- a book, in fact. Perhaps it will be a book consisting of short stories or essays, but most definitely it will be about love and loss and how if one had truly loved and been loved in return then everything in life would have been worth it. Because even now, without my bucket list in hand, I know that I've had a pretty good one. After all, I'm still forward-looking and learning (hoping) to love each day more than the last.

Bucket list on its way soon.

HAIRSTORY: THE ENDLESS WAR

All my life I've wrestled with my hair. Countless hairdressers, come to think of it, have, too. If you ask anyone who knew me through high school, you'll hear stories about how my hair was so heavy, thick, coarse, and dry that it had a (sad) life of its own, perpetually powerless against teenage hormones and Manila's tropical climate. It couldn't be conquered by huge tubs of conditioner, and woe to anyone who tried to tame it with a blowdryer.

When my friend's sister, fresh out of cosmetology school in the U.K., claimed she would be the Hillary and Norgay to the Mt. Everest on top of my head, I knew she was merely being naive. She was the first to cut expertly plotted layers into my hopeless mop, and although she was able to decrease its heft and bulk somewhat my tresses remained defiant. I suspect the reason she was never really friendly with me afterward was because I remained a constant nagging reminder of her limitations.

Boys teased me mercilessly but girls were somewhat kinder (I suspect they were merely mocking me behind my back). Some of my more helpful friends instructed me to brush my hair a hundred times every night and taught me how to create a more flattened effect with headbands and barrettes. I often forgot to do the former (who has the time?) and the latter's effect was like trying to make a curvy bombshell look like a flapper girl by sticking her into a girdle: eventually the flesh is going to have to pop out somewhere -- and it ain't pretty.

Then one day, just when I'd given up completely, my hair decided to cease its rebellion. It simply went straight. Throughout college I was able to style my hair almost any way I wished; I had an asymmetrical cut, a layered bob, a rocker shag, and during a brief but horribly foolish period in the '80s, I even got a perm. Somehow the irony of making myself look like a cauliflower after suffering the indignity of looking like a mushroom for years was completely lost on me. Still, I continued to enjoy my freedom throughout my 20s and early 30s. I'd stroll into my hairdresser's chair, sit down and say, "Do with it what you will."

And just as sudden as my hair became my friend, it decided to resume its fight. I fought back harder -- with $200 blowdryers, a battalion of boar's hair brushes, and enough hair products to fully stock a beauty supply store. Silicone became my friend. "What's going on?" I cried out to Chassi, who had tamed the beast for nearly a decade. "Hormones, most likely," she replied gently but matter-of-factly. "And gray hairs are kinky. You have quite a bit more now and it's changed your hair's texture."

I was done for. Age had done me in.

I decided to cooperate, resigned to my inevitable defeat. I grew my hair long so the weight would stretch it out, had layers cut back in, and ceased my carefree ways. Because my biceps were now a bit too weary from wielding tools and appliances, I gave them a break on weekends with a professional blowout as they continued their punishing workout for the rest of the work week.

And then a couple of months ago while I was in Manila, I decided I needed a haircut. After a thoroughly relaxing shampoo, the stylist's assistant sat me down in front of the mirror and combed my wet strands. "Ang nipis pala ng buhok mo! (Your hair is so thin!)," he exclaimed, perhaps a bit too artlessly. And in one fell swoop he destroyed every belief I've ever had about my hair -- and a little bit, too, of my self-esteem.

Now I want the rebellious hair of my youth back. Apparently age couldn't force it into submission and so it simply stripped all its bluster away. But I'm fighting back once more, this time with Biotin and possibly even with Viviscal. Bring on the mushroom cloud -- I'll win this one yet.

 

 

BIG GIRL

I don't think I'll ever forget the moment that night, after I stood up from his bed in my chambray nightshirt to walk across the room and grab my bag on top of the chair beside the TV stand and then back again. I remember feeling his eyes watch my every step intently as I pretended not to notice. As I plopped back on the mattress and sat beside him, my eyes now searching the vast caverns of the leather satchel on my lap for a tiny lip balm tube, he said, a matter-of-factly and without breaking his glance, "For a big girl, you're pretty lithe."

I was tempted at that moment to mention which parts of his body were not so big and what he couldn't do with them, but I'm never cruel even when I'm decidedly annoyed. So I looked up at him instead and asked pointedly though not quite indignantly, "I'm a big girl?" He then fumbled with his words, realizing that his backhanded compliment was about to slap him in his face, and stammered, "Well, what I meant was that you're not petite -- you know, you're not bony or skinny, like..." Like the other women he normally dated, he meant but couldn't say.

The truth is that while I've never considered myself thin (even during that blip in history when I was 5'4" and 100 lbs.), I've never thought I was at the other extreme either. I suppose I've always been somewhere in the middle, with the exact location completely dependent on who I happen to be standing next to or even where I'm at. In other words, it's always been relative. For instance, when I'm sipping my latte inside a hipster coffee spot, I feel like a linebacker in leggings next to the picture-perfect natives who look like they subsist only on caffeine. But when I enter a McDonald's situated beside a truck stop in the middle of "Next stop: gas, food, and lodging," I can't help but notice that I take up less space at the counter.

Yes, my doctor prefers that I lose a bit of weight for health reasons, and I'm working on it. In the meantime I take comfort in the fact that I can still fit into clothes sold at trendy boutiques where women with sharp cheekbones and protruding clavicles are the dominant species (although if truth be told, I often wear the largest size there, which to no surprise is usually available). Recently, I felt a simultaneous swelling of pride and guilt when a trainer said during my physical evaluation that I looked athletic (my muscular calves fool everybody else but me). But then again, I have to admit that I dread stepping up onto a weighing scale, especially in public, and I refuse to allow anyone to carry me even if it means possibly saving my life.

So maybe I am a big girl. Or at least I'm big enough so there's no way I can disappear into the background or pretend to be invisible. It's not easy to push me aside and I can't fit into a small box. When I walk my steps have substance and when I'm on the move others may have to move out of the way. See, the one thing about being a big girl is that no one can possibly call me little.

I regret that on that night I didn't have the perfect retort -- which incidentally I only found tonight. As one of the female stars of a new reality show swaggered on camera: "Once you go big, you'll never go twig."

Oh, and another regret: That I allowed him to make me feel so small.

 

 

 

JUST BREATHE

It used to be so easy getting up. Literally and figuratively, I mean. Although I'm not yet feeling the pain of arthritis scraping away at my joints, there's already a bit of the ol' dreaded creaking that happens when I have to reposition my body these days. Maybe that's why so many women my age are headed for yoga studios; I really should, too.

But worse than physical inertia is the one that can't be easily felt or seen: the kind that happens within, the one of emotional and mental resistance. It creeps up on you much more insidiously. One day you've convinced yourself that you're fearless because of all the risks you've taken in your life, then the next you find yourself asking more questions before you do, or even giving into your fears.

I think this happens naturally as we get older. After falling down and getting up, and doing that over and over again, it's like arthritis develops and suddenly it hurts doing both. Sometimes we find ourselves holding onto a stable surface much more tightly until our knuckles turn white; other times we're down and find it easier to just sit there for a while longer and catch our breath.

Earlier this year I quit my job to go home, to Manila, and spend time with my parents whom I've been so far away from for more than 25 years. It was like one day I woke up and they were old and much more fragile than I remembered them to be. Both walk with a cane now and often need to hold on to something or someone to keep their balance. Their voices sound weaker, more shaky.

For the past couple of years I've noticed that I've been writing out more and more messages of sympathy to friends and relatives, and I dread the day I start receiving them in return. As my mother emailed me recently, "I want to go out and spend more time with friends but most of them are dead now." None of my friends can imagine being away from their children for even a few weeks or months and -- I don't know why I'd never thought of this before -- maybe it hurt my parents even just a bit that I'd already been away from them for a lifetime.

The reason I was able to just up and leave after all these years is because I'd practically lost everything else in my life. There wasn't much to hold on to so I had to find a way to stay up. In a way I was mourning, deeply. I needed to go home and start again.

For the four months I was home I got to rest and think -- a lot. I decided I needed to come back here and get back on track so I could be self-sufficient and independent, to fight my demons, and to find myself. It was just like why I came here the first time, 26 years ago. I felt like I was going home with my tail between my legs, and it just didn't feel right. I was made of stronger stuff than that.

So now I'm back here, but I've chosen to start again in a brand-new place. It feels right, you know. There's nothing here to remind me of the past; no memories associated with any of the sights, smells, and sounds around me. But at the same time it hurts to be away from my friends and family, and it's scary whenever I realize that I don't know my way around here. I feel completely lost.

Scary is a word I've been saying a lot lately. Try finding a job during a recession, with the unemployment rate averaging about 10 percent. Now try to find one at my age, too. I have to remind myself that I'm still as smart, capable, and resourceful as I ever was -- probably even more so. The past few years, and especially the beating that I've taken, have changed me in ways that I can't possibly describe because I'm still in the thick of things. But I know what's important now, and I'm thankful for what I do have. But, yes, it hurts and I get scared.

So I decided I was going to do whatever scares me, that I wasn't going to let fear be the reason that I walk away. I realize this sounds almost counterintuitive; one would think that I'd be seeking tender shelter instead. But the only way that I can stop being so frightened is to face fear directly and keep pushing it out of the way every time it stares me down. Eventually, I figure, I'll find myself in the clear; I'll look and see that I can stop fighting so hard now, that I can finally exhale.

The other day an acquaintance of mine, a magazine editor, asked if I could help her. She had interviewed a businessman for an article but had run out of time to write it and her deadline was in less than two days. She could send me the audio file, a brief press release his office had issued, and a link to another article recently written about him -- but other than that, I was on my own. Oh, and please make that 1200 words, thanks.

"Are you kidding?" I stared at my computer screen. "There's no way I could do this." Sure, I can type up a blog post in less time than I can make breakfast, but I'd never met the fellow and I'd have to transcribe her interview and do a bit of online research myself. Did I have enough time to commit to the task without panicking and failing?

Sure you do, a voice whispered from some forgotten recess of my brain, you've done this before. And I had, many times in fact, when I was with the Philippine News way back when. I juggled college and full-time newspaper work simultaneously, and I had to find a way to get all my articles in somehow, no excuses. And this was during a time when there was no internet, when I had to find phone numbers in an actual phone book, go to the library if I needed background research, and bang out my story on a typewriter. Yes, I could do this.

And so I did. I submitted my article in less than 24 hours, way before deadline. It felt good, I could still pull something like this off, I still had it within me, and I was no longer scared. Then I exhaled, and took another deep breath.

Now where's that nearest yoga class? Maybe a bit more twisting in unnatural positions will be good for me after all.

SLEEPING IN SEATTLE

Current weather: 64°F. Partly cloudy with temperatures falling to the mid 50s. Winds light and variable.

Summer officially started about a month ago, but someone forgot to tell Seattle that. I'm certainly not complaining, not with a heatwave engulfing much of the country east of here right now. Add to that the fact that I just got back from Manila where I pretty much sat in a steamroom for almost four months, and you can guess that I'm so done with summer weather.

Yes, I'm in Seattle. Folks can sneer about the gloomy, rainy weather , but I love it here. See, although I might exude a sunny disposition, I keep hidden a decidedly overcast soul. Whenever I try to meditate and need to reach my happy place, I find myself sitting in a spot with a bit of a chill in the air, soulful music playing nonstop while I'm deeply lost within a book. Come to think of it, my happy place could probably be described as a cool, artsy coffeehouse. Seattle just might be my happy place after all.

My mother wrote and asked me what I've been doing here since I left home, and I'm hesitant to admit the truth: I've been sleeping. A lot. It's not just that the cool, cloudy weather is wonderfully conducive to marathon nap-taking, but when you've been through the kind of year that I've had you'd want to lie down, too. In a fetal position at that.

But I'm up now and have decided to resuscitate this sleeping blog of mine as well. I'm looking forward to posting regularly and updating my side blogs of favorites again. At this moment I'm banging away at my keyboard, my Mixpod playlist* filling my head, as I enjoy the chilly afternoon wind floating through the window.

I'm in my happy place again.

*You can listen to my playlist to the right of this post, too.

 

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IT'S A WOMAN THING

I was seething, completely and absolutely. I could feel the heat emanate from somewhere in the upper regions of my gut, and then choke me in the throat, demanding some form of violent release. I wanted to stand up, step away from the table, and storm out of the restaurant. Above everything else, I wanted to be rude, vitriolic even. I just couldn't figure out why.

Then it hit me. It wasn't because this woman in front of me was admittedly attractive (albeit in an aging Malibu Barbie type of way), with her deeply tanned skin, tiny waist, and perky fake boobs. As someone who has no idea what it's like to bank on looks, I'm not threatened by beautiful women. They're not my competition, and they certainly wouldn't consider me theirs either. We simply don't play on the same fields.

It was, instead, because there were three of us at that table, but there might as well have been only two; she had rendered me invisible. She'd completely blocked me out, and focused her gaze and conversation solely on my companion, who no doubt was trying to keep his eyes above cleavage level. I had no idea what they were talking about because the only thing I could hear were the voices in my head. While I was trying to figure out why I was so angry, I was talking myself out of walking out. I didn't want her to win; what she clearly wanted was for me to get out of the way.

I realized that in front of me was a woman who considered other women "the enemy." I suddenly relaxed, sat back, and tried to figure out why she was so hostile. Perhaps in her life she had been on the receiving end of so much cattiness that she didn't trust her fellow females. Maybe it was because her self-esteem was so shredded that she needed constant male attention to reassure herself that she was beautiful and wanted.

As the night went on, and the others arrived, I knew I was on to something. In a drunken haze, she openly propositioned the (married) man sitting next to her. Later that evening  she asked one of the men to step out with her for a smoke -- alone -- as he sat with his arm around his girlfriend. Unbelievable.

We went out dancing afterward, where her shenanigans only escalated. But when it was time for us to go home and we were waiting for the cars to arrive, I noticed she wasn't carrying her purse. In the spirit of sisterhood, I went back in and retrieved it; as a woman I knew how traumatic it would be to wake up in the morning and realize that your everyday essentials were all gone. But during the drive back, she did something completely inappropriate to the man I was with, who at this point was similarly inebriated and stupid -- and promptly tossed any remaining crumbs of sisterhood between us out the window.

If she were reading this right now she'd probably label me "catty" like all the rest and tell herself that I was merely jealous of her fabulous figure and oozing hypersexuality. But all the while she'd be oblivious to this truth: inside the car that night, despite the avalanche of attention she'd heaped on the two men with us and the puzzling absence of any toward me, I was the only one who asked if she'd be okay getting back to her flat, who wondered loudly if perhaps she needed any help.

It's a woman thing. But she'll never know.

JUST A GIRL

He just didn't go there now, did he?

I was listening to the kitchen contractor try to explain to me why the steel rack he built not only was way too big for the space it was designed for, but why it didn't come with any shelves either. "Kahoy lang yan (All it takes is wood)," he said in his attempt to soothe my seething spirit. I tried to stay calm. So now I need to pay someone else to finish up this monstrosity because when this idiot was paid to build a kitchen rack he thought that somehow shelves were optional?

I'd given this man the benefit of the doubt; after all, he hadn't discussed the work to be done with me. But really -- no shelves for a kitchen rack that was supposed to hold and store things? No motor for the kitchen exhaust hood meant to suck in smoke and grease vapor? You mean, just like his head that was supposed to contain a brain but didn't?

And then. "You don't understand how simple this really is because you're a girl," he said with a wide grin.

I wanted to grab my power drill, stick a masonry bit in it and shove it up his ass. The problem was that I'd never heard anyone say something so overtly chauvinistic to me before -- and so I was thrown, completely shocked and stupefied. Sure, I've always been aware whenever certain men might have been thinking that I couldn't do something because of my gender -- like when I go to just about any auto repair shop and the mechanic's trying to convince me that I need new brakes when I know for a fact that the ones in my car haven't slowed down flexing their muscles.

I'm aware that I'm a girly-girl who will foolishly wear four-inch heels to the airport while dragging around a 30-pound hand carry bag containing nothing but makeup. Yes, I can't dribble a basketball across a court (who am I kidding? I can't dribble one in place for more than three bounces) or fly a motorcycle through the air. But it's not because I'm a girl -- it's because I'm a person with near-zero sense of coordination. Same reason I can't ride a bicycle and why I was voted The Worst Bowler during my former company's management holiday party.

But I am freakishly strong -- and I know how to lift with my legs, not with my back. I can get on top of a ladder, unlock the bathroom door using a screwdriver whenever someone accidentally locks it, put together furniture on my own even when the instructions aren't in English, use a level to hang up a picture on the wall, and I also have the sense to look for the wall studs when I'm trying to mount a heavy object. And, yes, I know how to use a power drill (comes in handy when I need to put drainage holes in pots when I want to plant pretty flowers).

I moved out on my own in my early 20s and had to figure out how to get things done because I was alone and poor. But that's not the reason I have the sense to understand that hiring a carpenter to build shelves will cost me more money than I planned on spending in the first place. Being a girl, however, just might be the reason I didn't grab his puny head and bang it on the steel frame that's simply too big and ugly for me to keep around in my condo. But it won't stop me from imagining shredding his bloodied head through the non-existent motor that I still need to buy. After I swipe my lips with a bit of shimmery gloss so I look good doing the deed, of course.