defy gravity!

this is how green lanterns must feel.

two days ago, i helped raise almost 600,000 in pesos to help build a new S.O.S. Children’s Village. and all i did was show up in makeup! well, ok, i also sang ang hosted a dinner featuring legendary comedienne and rock and roller elizabeth ramsey (philippine queen of soul jaya’s mother).

as the evening progressed, i also found out that she was my aunt (my very supportive lolas…the lebumfacil sisters lourding (fernan) and angeling (cortez) were there, and traced our shared lineage to elizabeth’s own mother, who was their cousin!). elizabeth and i observed that… this weird quirk i try to suppress or hide is a talent that could (borrowing from wicked!)…do a lot of damn good.

"Father forgive me for what I am about to do," she warns the priests in the room (after all, the show was at the Pope John XXIII Seminary) before she proceeds to lift her skirt, showing her panties, and fans herself with her hem in front of a delighted crowd.

"Pinalaki ko ang mga anak ko sa kawalanghiyaan ko," the half Jamaican-half Bisaya (by way of San Carlos city) "unggoy"…her own desciption…deadpans. How apt. I completely related to her at that point. I’ve sent my brothers through school by donning a wig and wearing heels, and by being quite a vision as an, ahem, large woman. God bless our abnormalities.

i cried in one corner at the childrens’ finale. house lights off, black lights on…their white gloves floated in front of us in an illusion of sea, birds, and words. they spelled "thank you to all", pouring their appreciation to the folks who clapped ceaselessly after every hula number, song, karate presentation, and modern dance and paid a thousand pesos per plate that night. abandoned and orphaned children. but not a trace of sadness. no, not one dollop. they were all smiles, as we were all tears.

the stupid folks who left them at doorsteps did that one good thing, at least. as i weaved among them after the show for photos and kisses and pats on the back, i thanked my Father for his hand in their lives.

"I trust enough to never need the why, You can take me to the where."

and so this green lantern trudged home. the others have their rings; i had to recharge the wig

tomorrow is my last stop on my whirlwind “i love the philippines” summer tour. dumaguete. ahhh, one of my favorite places on earth. last week i was in iloilo (quite the hectic but gastronomically satisfying experience), the week before that, i experienced palawan for the first time, and a week before that…boracay
i’m too pooped to write in detail about the trips, since i have to for the paper anyway (check it out online at sunstar.com.ph for those when they do come out and past articles).procrastination, my gift and curse.

i’ve decided to sum up each trip with just a few words, chosen phrases, a cryptic paragraph. so until the full review comes out, munch on this:

BORA- nothing beats travelling for sheer pleasure, with people you love dearly (anne marie, tita skatski, tashi, bingbing and my three boys of summer: carlos rafael, antonio luis, and joachim renato…gawd i adore all of you). i grossly underestimated the island, and all it could offer. even its sheer size (there’s more to stations 1-3, hop on to the “other side”…puka beach!) and pleasures: melon shake at Jonah’s, Italian at Aria, stagefright at Bombom’s, and clubbing at club paraw! oh yes, a goodlooking bloke built so fine almost bought us drinks at Pier One. sigh, we were such snobs, hahahaha. perhaps next time we’ll let them have their fleeting, non commital way

PALAWAN- summer flings are the best! next to it? underground river boatman humor (funny and crass); that silly monkey running off with alden’s sandwich (he looked so adorable when hapless); the Legend Palawan chef’s extra special attention to me; Jollibee Puerto Princesa!; rainmakers; salty wind in your face; dolphins in the wild (unbridled fun!); making new friends (shout out to the PDI, Manila Bulletin, and Philippine Star crew…you rock y’all). and oh, did i mention summer flings? hahahaha. effervescent. impermanent. indelible. a good memory kept.

ILOILO- glorious food!!! i hear roberto’s siopao is the bomb,but the ugly old man who owned it was such a major bitch we packed up even before we began shooting. his loss,the sorry bastard. when i return, i’ll sneak a taste of it and the glorious feast that awaited right across the street (look up, it’s Paraiso, hahahaha). i rode my first horse (i was tense the whole time, can’t afford to break my spine again) and whispered an inner shout of hurrah for sturdy, hunky, shy and sexy stable boys. yikes, that dennis was such a dish! that’s what i call ilonggo bonggo
now what will Dumaguete/La Libertad hold for me?

i can almost smell the salt water.

wait, that IS saltwater…from my brother’s soggy laundry. he just came in from his easter break in bantayan, where everyone was (from what i hear) over the weekend. but i’m imagining a different stretch beach. boracay here i come! i haven’t actually gotten down to packing yet, although i am all set in my mind: coordinating the outfits and accessories and the toiletries ( i get major bummed when i leave behind a part of my, er, regimen).

my flight’s at eleven tomorrow, plenty of time to panic
i squeezed in some work today, finished my pages until thursday so i don’t have to lay that on someone else ( hate it when that happens to me, and it always does, so i don’t intend to encourage that cycle). anne already has massages and parasailing planned, she’s always been our feisty leader anyway…so whatever she says goes isn’t that cute? cattski and i are significantly older than she, but we do whatever she wants, haha. the dynamics of this friendship are wonderfully twisted. tashi’s neck-deep in wedding preparations (hers, darlings), so this should be an interesting trip.

can’t wait to get on that plane!

but first i gotta pack update you from the impossibly white shores of bora. excited about living at hey jude, too…i hear the place is as damn fine as the, ahem, native delicacies of the island
me

p.s. i hope i run into paolo and the planetzips guys there. can’t get that hottie out of my head!

two days ago, a dream came true for me.

photographer jon unson shot me in his studio for the cover of story magazine, a manila publication. the graphic artist, my friend stephanie de la cruz, pitched an idea to have a drag queen on their cover and voila, decked in my jun escario finery and wenwen zaspa makeup (and a new wig, too), i was primped and styled to covergirl perfection.

i’ve been wearing gowns and wigs for years now, but have never been photographed beyond wenwen’s trusty camera phone. i’ve never kept any, except for photographs sent to me by those who took them (like the ones by bob lim on my friendster photos), so this experience was quite the treat…more for my fave makeup artist, since it was professional immortalization of his own professionalism.

after that, i walked in my salo heels to have veggie pizza with cattski and anne at handuraw, to talk about our bora trip this week (9-12).i’ll be living out of my overnighter (stretched a few days more,of course) the whole month. i just got in from a wonderfully stress-free holy week getaway in balamban (thank you tom evangelista for taking us in),where i met one that could be the summer affair of the season! hahahahaha…i love summer flings! they are the best! effervescent, yet altogether real. tell you all about it next time.

for the moment, here is the schedule: anne, cattski, tashi (the quad!) rendezvous with bingbing and the three little boys in bora on monday. due to the horrendous service (and all around assholeness…yes,that word should be invented for them) of the asian spirit people, i’m joining them a day late. we stay til friday (or extend to watch bonnie bailey,perhaps?).we fly in just in time for jamaican,and i leave for palawan on monday til wednesday. the week after, we shoot a week in iloilo for the summer getaway special of the show,counting down to our 2nd anniversary (isn’t that sweet?).then we do dumaguete for a paid segment (swee-ter!).

by the time summer winds down, i hope to have broken my heart once again (summer flings have a tendency to fizzle out with the season), gotten a nice tan (rashes notwithstanding), and perfected the art of traveling light (gauze, shorts, and my topshop tees!).

i do hope everyone has as much fun. i laughed nonstop in balamban (that ren manabat is a hoot!),and will carry the kilig of (quite literally) a passing fancy for a while
ah, summer lovin…