Friends with benefits (Reportage on sex)

Friends with benefits (Reportage on sex)

‘Honest aging’

‘Honest aging’
Great to be alive, even with the aches and bumps and extremities that feel the cold too easily

Excellence, near accidents contribute to successful ensemble music | Vera Files

Excellence, near accidents contribute to successful ensemble music | Vera Files

Not surprised?

Simple instruction regarding this image from the source: "Share this Yahoo! SHE infographic."

Passion and Zest I Got Plenty

...

I love a woman

Whose conviction is

Like a flame in her heart

Of passion and zest for life...

--Roland Simbulan, "The Woman I Love", poem for partners in life & struggle & inspired by his wife Chit Estella

Josephine Wall's painting of a girl in a hat found in Google+

sometimes the formula 

for magic

or for average 

respect between 

two halves

can be 

boiled down to

eminem's recommendation:

"if you're nice to me,

i'll be nice to you

simple as that"

i tell the other/s who 

count 'emselves
significant

to me

no, please,

i don't want a me

to be irrationally 

angry at dust 

o'er furniture

to panick o'er

a three-fourths empty

pantry

i don't want a me

to be this

obsequious 

creature out to please

outlaws & in-laws

or friends on 

their side

of the fence

even the ones

nice on the surface

these days they

actually keep 

agendas secret

ambition propels

'em ever upward

i don't want 'em

to be part of 

the essential me

the oh christ!

she can't bake a

tier of cake me

the one who asks

what future

can i create

out of a 

bumbling past

& evermore

incoherent present?

this will have to do

on this day of days

when violet

hints of violence

when intensity's

plenty can

be harnessed

& harvested

to light electric bulbs

to let loose

dammed dams

women like me

will flame & flower

zestfully

with butterflies

& parasols

o'er our heads

if nicely put

expectations

are edited out

of agendas

apologies

unnecessary

from me

who thinks

what the world

needs now & tomorrow

is passion/heart/zest

to tilt the balance

in women's favor

'tis clear

i've had it

with pragmatic people

those who think

& act

with their heads

but the peace

has to be

kept

so try &

be nice

to the others

including

us who think

& move with

zestful hearts

--Babeth Lolarga

March 8, 2011

11:46 a.m.

Paper, pen, ink, VOS and the art of the doodle

If I can do half as good a pen-and-ink portrait the way my former editor, Vergel O. Santos, does, I think I don't have to force myself to learn how to cook and I can live on serviette art for the rest of my days. Sorry I can't use the word "napkin" even if I attach the descriptive "paper" before it.

Someone said the reason people look glum in their portraits is it's hard to hold a smile. Although I wasn't posing formally for a sketch, in the strict sense of the word, the doodler captured the surly girl in me. My partner would rather use the word "mischievous."

That's Pablo Tariman, the music reviewer and impresario reborn, on the left; it doesn't quite capture his milky and white disposition that day.

VOS drew from memory his former colleagues at Manila Chronicle: Amando Doronila and Rolly Fernandez. If this were my work, I'd call it, "Seriously, guys" or "Two serious guys and a typewriter."

To complete the cast of characters who had a laugh-out-loud lunch on People Power Day (it fell on same day as the Oscar awards ceremonies, but the lunch was repeatedly postponed so it had to go through) at the mother branch of Milky Way on Pasay Road, Makati (clockwise): VOS, his wife Chit Roces, Pablo and the matron with the downturned lips. Can't wait for VOS to finally mount a solo show.

Other reminders for the rest of the week

The Net is full of these reminders that have a ring of truth and wisdom in them. The Net is also a place for picking up some knowledge (cause of further sorrows if you have a surfeit of it, so sayeth a wise chapter in the good book) and lots of humor of the edgy kind.

Jacqui M at the Hill

Jacqui Magno (and, I hear, a full jazz band) will have a  show at Baguio's Hill Station on Upper Session Road on March 9. Tickets are P950 with dinner and a glass of wine and P450 for the show only. The occasion is Hill Station's third anniversary.