It’s strange to me how some of my friends don’t go to the cemetery on All Saints’ Day. “Wala pang namamatay sa immediate family ko,” they would say. But death—morbid as it may sound—has always been a part of my life; it seems to be a recurring theme in my family. I’ve always been surrounded by it; even when I was in utero, I probably already felt the pain of losing a member of the family. We’ve had quite a number of tragedies, so much so that I’ve heard people liken us to the Kennedys.
We used to spend hours at the cemetery when I was younger—we’d pack up and leave the house at around midnight, brave the traffic, and sleep on the damp grass under a tent. We’d get up mid-morning and see other relatives visiting their own loved ones, then head back to my brother’s grave, pray the rosary, and eat fried chicken and spaghetti. As the adults packed up, my brothers and I would make balls out of melted candle wax.
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When I was in Grade 6, having Chips Ahoy for recess was the equivalent of a 30-something woman lugging a Dolce & Gabbana handbag from the Winter 2008 Customized Crocodile Collection to work. We’re not talking about the basic chocolate chip variant that came in the blue pack: that would have the street cred of a genuine but certainly non-limited-edition basic black Prada purse sold in the Kowloon black market. When it comes to the true badge of baon affluence, it had to be Chocolate Covered Chips Ahoy With Chocolate Stripes, which came in a white pack. And for a long time, the only place in the country you could get this from was a balikbayan box.
Though the Chips Ahoy fever has certainly mellowed out, and most leading supermarkets now carry the brand, they’re not any less snooty on the sticker price. It’s a bitch to shell out a couple of hundred bucks when all you really want is one piece to sate that sweet tooth after a meal.
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I’ve always prided myself in packing light, which, for me, consists of bringing everything I wanna wear, everything I might wanna wear (I always end up with the 3rd outfit I put on), hair dryer, hair plancha, and my 7-pound kikay kit—all of which fit into an overnight bag when I’ll be gone for 5 days. Although I do believe in dressing for comfort, I don’t believe in porontongs and Hawaiian shirts—and I do not believe in fanny packs. Just because I’ll be booked in the backpacker’s district doesn’t mean I have to dress the the part. You are virtually your homeland’s envoy. REPRESENT. (Plus, you’ll never know what gorgeous piece of tourist ass you’re gonna meet—hence the 7-pound kikay kit.) On the flipside, however, I more so absolutely do not believe in spending on ONE outfit what I cuold spend on a roundtrip Cebu Pacific budget airfare. So here’s a starter list of clothing staples you’ll need when traveling in style ON A BUDGET. More tactics and tips to follow in Part 2!
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After doing Guijo a few times early part of last week (with my good bud Koop saying, “You know, these ‘artists’ have to realize that there’s more to art than getting stoned…”), then paying a vulgar amount for booze at this posh Japanese bar along Kalayaan, we suffered a severe case of Makati-overkill.
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Help!
I’m on a shopping rampage! I never thought of myself as a shopper until this month rolled around—so far, I have bought two dresses, a sports bra, a bikini, two bags (allow me to justify: one of them was from a garage sale, so it was el cheapo. Really!)…and I’m currently hyperventilating from having purchased yet another item—a pair of black patent leather, peep-toe pumps. To be fair, they were really on my list of things to buy… They’re not exactly what I’ve been looking for; I wanted something with a chunkier heel, but hey, when you’ve gotta scratch an itch…
But no! No! No! I’ve got to stop! I can’t keep doing this!
My mom has always been into scary flicks. And ever since I was a kid of about 8, I’d sneak out from my room and, on the sly, watch with her her weekly fare of horror TV. There was Fright Night every, well, Fridays, and Wednesday Shocker every, yah, guess when. These were programs showing different features or flicks, they were more like a compilation than a TV series, much like how Twilight Zone compiles tales from the Land of Weird. Apart from that, there were the actual horror films shown on TV.
Needless to say, I’ve acquired some level of immunity to the cinematic genre that is the horror flick. Vampires, especially when they evolved from the days of Christopher Lee to those of Underworld, Queen of the Damned, and the rest of their ilk, became less of blood suckers and more of fashion mavens of the Alexander McQueen-esque haute goth school of style. If someone asked me to watch a vampire flick these days, I wouldn’t be watching a horror flick as much as a 2-hour music video pretending to have a plot.
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