A Spoonful of Sugar 2003 v.12
Harsh Realities & Simple Pleasures
(a.k.a. Life as a Struggling Artist)
By Niña Rica Marie L. Terol
I’d have to, first of all, apologize for not having written here in a while. I had been busy wrapping up the first two major projects of my writing career that I’ve hardly had time to churn out a decent composition for Spoonful. Believe me, I tried—so many times, in fact, but I was just sooo “in the zone” that I couldn’t help but pour myself into my work.
I love what I do. I love writing, and have loved it since I started tinkering with my grandfather’s old typewriter when I was nine. Back then, I pretended to be an author writing mystery or romance novels, and I spent many a good afternoon just typing away. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clack-clack-clack… on Lolo’s huge, bottle-green typewriter.
And, now, this is what I do everyday. Sometimes from 6 a.m. (when I wake up) to 1 a.m. (when I’m actually home at that hour and still working), seven days a week. Of course, the clickety-clack of Lolo’s typewriter has now been replaced by a much softer clickety-clack, this time from my “guapo”, black keyboard; and I am no longer pretending to be a writer. I am now fulfilling a childhood dream.
I am a writer… a ‘wordweaver’… an artist. I churn out words day in and day out, sometimes with blood, sweat, and (literally) tears. Sometimes I feel like I’m making love to rhymes and syllables and semi-colons; other times I feel like giving birth to paragraph after painful paragraph. When I write I feel a mingling of what one author calls “agony and ecstasy”. It’s fulfilling and rewarding, but it can also be painful and very humbling.
Take the past couple of weeks, for example. I had been very busy wrapping up the magazine and the book that I was working on that I hardly had time to do anything else. Between writing in the mornings and accompanying Paul on gigs and recording sessions in the evenings, I had only about two to three hours left in a day to sleep. My eating and sleeping habits had changed, and my body system totally turned out of whack. I lost 10 pounds within a month of resigning from my job, and gained five of it back in another month’s time. (Blame the chocolates and the junk food that I ate to keep me awake!) Zits mushroomed all over my forehead, and my dad talked about “scraping my face with sandpaper” to smoothen my skin again.
I loved (and still do!) what I was doing; I loved (and still do!) the new life that I was living, but I suddenly missed a regular, eight-to-five job.
You know, the kind which allows you to forget about work at 6 p.m., and gives you sick leaves with pay? The kind that gives you free bond paper and staples and paper clips, and which doesn’t charge you for photocopying entire chapters of books? The kind that gives you a regular sum of money every payday? Yeah, that kind.
I also missed the “funky” (let me just use that term to be vague but somewhat revealing) conversations that I used to have with the Venture girls. Nowadays, lunchtime consists of a very good and free home-cooked meal of vegetables and vegetables (courtesy of manang Rose)… taken in silence, and consumed within five minutes.
Did I mention that I have even begun responding to text-in questions and quizzes by my favorite radio station, just to feel some sort of “connection” with the outside world?
Oh, and yeah… I miss reimbursable business expenses… like meals with clients, or transportation going to and from meetings. For me now, these are no longer “business expenses”, but “the cost of doing business.” I have to spend money to make money. So although I receive more dough now, I also spend more—for things that I used to take for granted, like long-distance phone calls, an Internet connection, folders and envelopes, and postal deliveries to clients.
Now I realize that I had it so easy back when I was still working.
What makes it even more interesting is that I’m with a fellow struggling artist, who, himself, works long, hard, irregular hours for unpredictable income. Together, we’ve experienced scrounging for change to buy P100 prepaid call cards (but if Globe had P50 cards, you can bet we would’ve gotten those); gassing up with just P70 in our wallets; and being ecstatic over really poor, pirated DVD copies of the films that we want to see.
Of course, the plus side is that I get to go on “gimmicks” several nights in a week, where I don’t have to pay for entrance, food, or drinks. The down side is that I “gimmick” by myself, because what’s a “gimmick” to me is actually “work” for Paul. And expensive dinners will now have to wait, unless there’s a family celebration where the bill is shouldered by our parents.
I used to live a high-maintenance life filled with trips to the salon, multiple fashion magazines, regular shopping sprees, expensive lunches and dinners (either my myself or with company), breakfast at Starbucks, and other little ‘luhos’. Now, my only luho would be my makeup and the occasional new top—only because I don’t want to look like a yaya or alalay when I’m out with my guy.
Strangely enough, though, I’m at peace with my life now as “a struggling artist”. It’s a gazillion miles away from the predictable and secure life that I had just a few months back, but it’s exactly not a gazillion miles backward. If anything, my experiences now are helping me strengthen and refine myself and my craft, and they are also broadening my view and understanding of life and love.
Now, I treat each day, each project, each opportunity as a gift, not a privilege of being young, hard-working, and Atenean. Now, I have learned in my work and in my relationships with people to expect nothing, and be grateful for everything. Now, I’m realizing that love—whether it’s love for your career or for the person you’re with—is not a “nice, warm, fuzzy feeling” that you experience… it’s a choice that you make, day in and day out. Whether you have money in your wallet, or absolutely nothing in the bank and in your prepaid credits.
It has taken a lot for me to follow my heart and go for my dreams. It will certainly take a lot more as months and years go by, but to quote my former boss, Jaime: “If you live your 20s and 30s without fear, you will live your 40s and 50s without regrets.”
(Written: September 27, 2003)
Saturday, September 27, 2003
Monday, September 15, 2003
A Spoonful of Sugar 2003, v.11
Finishing Last
By John Julian Tan III (contributing writer)
This piece was written by one of my best friends, John Julian "Jay" Tan III, who, until recently, thought that he'd been living 28 years without having a single girlfriend. It turns out that he DID have a relationship at one time or another--only he didn't know that they were having a relationship at the time that it happened! (Now, isn't THAT interesting?!)
But, enough of that little side tidbit. What we have here is something that Jay wrote four years ago, and it talks about life and love... from the good guy's point of view.
* * * * *
Once upon a time, I believed that fairy tales did come true and that I would find a princess to call my very own someday and live happily ever after with. Unfortunately, life has played out more like a contrived horror novel and I am left cursing the Brothers Grimm for hammering such a crazy notion in my naive head. Lessons I’ve learned: Fairy tales don’t come true and princesses would rather go out with brutes and gnomes before having anything to do with a Prince Charming. In the game of dating and in the dance of courtship, these “nice guys" have a special reserved spot down at the bottom of the food chain, feeling more like Dopey rather than royalty.
Why do nice guys finish last? In retrospect, the nineties was the decade when chivalry officially died, but I didn’t think it would also spell the end to the Prince Charmings of the world. It is a jaded observation but girls prefer boorishness to sensitivity and passion over stability. One can never fully understand the rationale behind the female mind, but it just defies all logic, driving unsuspecting victims to look for long-term relationships with guys who are really just looking
for flings. They are like moths drawn to a flame, ever-willing to be burned in the name of love.
This leaves the nice guy wallowing in misery and watching helplessly as one girl after another leaps into the arms of those guys who seem to have an edge about them. Whatever happened to finding a guy you could bring home to your mother? Unless I miss my guess, this may be one of the reasons why they
never seem to get ahead. When the forerunners of women’s liberation first began their movement years ago, I’m sure they never expected their vision to evolve into what it is right now. We live in a world where opening doors and pulling out chairs for ladies won’t win you points with anyone. We live in a world
where being courteous, well-mannered and sympathetic have become “flawed" traits rather than things you would look for in a guy. We live in a world where the females actually hold all the cards.
Things have indeed gone topsy-turvy and it is a misconception to think of it as a man’s world nowadays. Girls have assumed the roles that men for many generations were accustomed to. They are now the ones who conk guys on the head and drag them back to their caves; they are now the hunters and the conquerors. It is safe to think of the nice guys as timid, stationary targets while the bad boys can be likened to wild game, a chase that females can really sink their teeth into. Girls are in the game simply because they want to be known as the ones who tamed the savage beast.
In defense of females everywhere, the nice guy syndrome may not really be their fault. Nice guys, with all their sensitivity and kindness, almost always see their potential romantic situations “graduate" into deep, meaningful friendships. This is an inescapable plateau that, in reality, spells the doom and should dash any hopes of the nice guy carrying this friendship to another level. To girls, the nice guys suddenly get tagged as “comfortable"(like an old pair of socks) and their friendship becomes too “valuable"to risk it in the name of a relationship. They become spectators and sounding boards to the females who are busy with their hunt.
A lot of the nice guys accept this lot in life but some try
their damnedest to shake off this clean-cut image. They
eventually find out though, that their efforts are to no avail because try as they might, their inherent goodness just keeps cracking the veneer and seeping through.
I should know.
I’ve tried everything from antipathy to cigarettes but despite the smoke and mud that I’ve tried to cake myself in, I realize that I wouldn’t be happy if I found someone who would love me if I wasn’t me. That leaves me where I started, at the bottom of the food chain, waiting for some love to come my way.
Finishing Last
By John Julian Tan III (contributing writer)
This piece was written by one of my best friends, John Julian "Jay" Tan III, who, until recently, thought that he'd been living 28 years without having a single girlfriend. It turns out that he DID have a relationship at one time or another--only he didn't know that they were having a relationship at the time that it happened! (Now, isn't THAT interesting?!)
But, enough of that little side tidbit. What we have here is something that Jay wrote four years ago, and it talks about life and love... from the good guy's point of view.
* * * * *
Once upon a time, I believed that fairy tales did come true and that I would find a princess to call my very own someday and live happily ever after with. Unfortunately, life has played out more like a contrived horror novel and I am left cursing the Brothers Grimm for hammering such a crazy notion in my naive head. Lessons I’ve learned: Fairy tales don’t come true and princesses would rather go out with brutes and gnomes before having anything to do with a Prince Charming. In the game of dating and in the dance of courtship, these “nice guys" have a special reserved spot down at the bottom of the food chain, feeling more like Dopey rather than royalty.
Why do nice guys finish last? In retrospect, the nineties was the decade when chivalry officially died, but I didn’t think it would also spell the end to the Prince Charmings of the world. It is a jaded observation but girls prefer boorishness to sensitivity and passion over stability. One can never fully understand the rationale behind the female mind, but it just defies all logic, driving unsuspecting victims to look for long-term relationships with guys who are really just looking
for flings. They are like moths drawn to a flame, ever-willing to be burned in the name of love.
This leaves the nice guy wallowing in misery and watching helplessly as one girl after another leaps into the arms of those guys who seem to have an edge about them. Whatever happened to finding a guy you could bring home to your mother? Unless I miss my guess, this may be one of the reasons why they
never seem to get ahead. When the forerunners of women’s liberation first began their movement years ago, I’m sure they never expected their vision to evolve into what it is right now. We live in a world where opening doors and pulling out chairs for ladies won’t win you points with anyone. We live in a world
where being courteous, well-mannered and sympathetic have become “flawed" traits rather than things you would look for in a guy. We live in a world where the females actually hold all the cards.
Things have indeed gone topsy-turvy and it is a misconception to think of it as a man’s world nowadays. Girls have assumed the roles that men for many generations were accustomed to. They are now the ones who conk guys on the head and drag them back to their caves; they are now the hunters and the conquerors. It is safe to think of the nice guys as timid, stationary targets while the bad boys can be likened to wild game, a chase that females can really sink their teeth into. Girls are in the game simply because they want to be known as the ones who tamed the savage beast.
In defense of females everywhere, the nice guy syndrome may not really be their fault. Nice guys, with all their sensitivity and kindness, almost always see their potential romantic situations “graduate" into deep, meaningful friendships. This is an inescapable plateau that, in reality, spells the doom and should dash any hopes of the nice guy carrying this friendship to another level. To girls, the nice guys suddenly get tagged as “comfortable"(like an old pair of socks) and their friendship becomes too “valuable"to risk it in the name of a relationship. They become spectators and sounding boards to the females who are busy with their hunt.
A lot of the nice guys accept this lot in life but some try
their damnedest to shake off this clean-cut image. They
eventually find out though, that their efforts are to no avail because try as they might, their inherent goodness just keeps cracking the veneer and seeping through.
I should know.
I’ve tried everything from antipathy to cigarettes but despite the smoke and mud that I’ve tried to cake myself in, I realize that I wouldn’t be happy if I found someone who would love me if I wasn’t me. That leaves me where I started, at the bottom of the food chain, waiting for some love to come my way.
Tuesday, September 02, 2003
A Spoonful of Sugar 2003, v.10
Why Good Girls Go For Bad Guys
By Niña Rica Marie L. Terol
Before anything else, three disclaimers:
Number one, I’m not trying to do a Carrie Bradshaw with this piece. Sure, I love Sex and the City, and I love Carrie Bradshaw’s character, but I’m not gonna go over the top and talk about sex and all that. It’s not my style. I’m writing this for my friends Joval and Edsel (who refused to be mentioned… hello guys!) who asked me to write about something “edgy”. I guess this is as edgy as I can get. For now, at least.
Number two, I’m not exactly a good girl, and I’m not pretending to be. But if you take everyone in the entire universe and arrange them on a spectrum, then I guess I’d very much still fall on the good girl side of the line. For now, at least.
And, number three, I’m straddling between being “general” about the topic… and not generalizing such that people get typecast and offended. If I somehow strike a few nerves here and there, then I’d like to apologize in advance. This is just my view (and not necessarily my experience) of things; please don’t take me so seriously.
So why do good girls go for bad guys?
That’s one question I’ve encountered countless times in my young life, and it’s usually asked by the good guys who never seem to get the girls they want—because these girls fall for the rough-and-tumble kind.
It’s also a question that I could not, for the life of me, understand back then. I loved good guys, so I didn’t understand why other good girls didn’t. I loved how they always looked so clean and fresh, as if they’d just stepped out of the shower. I loved how their clothes looked so neatly pressed all the time, as if they jumped out from a Marks & Spencer catalog or shop window. I loved how I could take them home to Mom and Dad… and not have to endure an hour of questions about why he dressed that way, or what he did for a living, or what his parents did, and so on.
I just wanted the Pinoy—or, rather, the tisoy—version of a Ken doll; someone who was sweet, charming, gentlemanly, romantic, stable, secure, and oh-so-safe. The kind you’d just want to cuddle up and spend a long, rainy day at home with...
And then I realized why good girls wanted bad guys.
Good girls are sick of staying at home. They’ve done it—and done it well—their whole lives. They’ve stuck to the image imposed on them by good ol’ Mom and Dad; they got the good grades, hung out with the right friends, chose the right career, did the right things. They’ve got “perfect-girlfriend-and-ideal-wife” stamped on their foreheads, and it kills them because it means 20-30-40 more years of staying at home and taking care of a husband and family. Just like they’re supposed to.
When a good girl looks at a bad guy, she sees beyond his rough, unshaven, rebellious exterior. She sees the kind of life that she’s always wanted to sample: a life where she’s free to experiment and test the limits of her potential (and capacity); a life where she makes the rules, and maybe breaks them once in a while; a life free of any expectations but her own, where she’s free to fall and get up, only to fall all over again.
When a good girl looks at a bad guy, she sees sides of herself that she was not allowed to experience and explore, sides that were repressed by the expectations of her family, her neighborhood, and this whole chauvinist society.
The bad guy frees her from all her neuroses and allows her to experience life just as it is—not as it should be. Sure, he breaks the rules and gets into a little trouble once in a while, but he still lives. And she realizes that you don’t have to live a perfect, scratch-free life. In fact, you need to get scratched, you need to get bruised and hit on the head once in a while for you to experience the fullness of life. Laughter and tears. Joy and pain. Victory and suffering. It’s all part of the package.
Good girls who go for bad guys have realized that the best-tasting meals are sometimes cooked with the weirdest and ickiest of ingredients—stuff that you wouldn’t dare touch on its own. But they want the experience of the meal… so they take all the shit that goes with it anyway.
My friend Trin put it excellently when she once told me, “It’s all shitty. It’s just a matter of knowing what kind of shit you can put up with.”
So… If you’re gonna get some shit anyway, then you might as well let it be shit that you can enjoy… right?
Why Good Girls Go For Bad Guys
By Niña Rica Marie L. Terol
Before anything else, three disclaimers:
Number one, I’m not trying to do a Carrie Bradshaw with this piece. Sure, I love Sex and the City, and I love Carrie Bradshaw’s character, but I’m not gonna go over the top and talk about sex and all that. It’s not my style. I’m writing this for my friends Joval and Edsel (who refused to be mentioned… hello guys!) who asked me to write about something “edgy”. I guess this is as edgy as I can get. For now, at least.
Number two, I’m not exactly a good girl, and I’m not pretending to be. But if you take everyone in the entire universe and arrange them on a spectrum, then I guess I’d very much still fall on the good girl side of the line. For now, at least.
And, number three, I’m straddling between being “general” about the topic… and not generalizing such that people get typecast and offended. If I somehow strike a few nerves here and there, then I’d like to apologize in advance. This is just my view (and not necessarily my experience) of things; please don’t take me so seriously.
So why do good girls go for bad guys?
That’s one question I’ve encountered countless times in my young life, and it’s usually asked by the good guys who never seem to get the girls they want—because these girls fall for the rough-and-tumble kind.
It’s also a question that I could not, for the life of me, understand back then. I loved good guys, so I didn’t understand why other good girls didn’t. I loved how they always looked so clean and fresh, as if they’d just stepped out of the shower. I loved how their clothes looked so neatly pressed all the time, as if they jumped out from a Marks & Spencer catalog or shop window. I loved how I could take them home to Mom and Dad… and not have to endure an hour of questions about why he dressed that way, or what he did for a living, or what his parents did, and so on.
I just wanted the Pinoy—or, rather, the tisoy—version of a Ken doll; someone who was sweet, charming, gentlemanly, romantic, stable, secure, and oh-so-safe. The kind you’d just want to cuddle up and spend a long, rainy day at home with...
And then I realized why good girls wanted bad guys.
Good girls are sick of staying at home. They’ve done it—and done it well—their whole lives. They’ve stuck to the image imposed on them by good ol’ Mom and Dad; they got the good grades, hung out with the right friends, chose the right career, did the right things. They’ve got “perfect-girlfriend-and-ideal-wife” stamped on their foreheads, and it kills them because it means 20-30-40 more years of staying at home and taking care of a husband and family. Just like they’re supposed to.
When a good girl looks at a bad guy, she sees beyond his rough, unshaven, rebellious exterior. She sees the kind of life that she’s always wanted to sample: a life where she’s free to experiment and test the limits of her potential (and capacity); a life where she makes the rules, and maybe breaks them once in a while; a life free of any expectations but her own, where she’s free to fall and get up, only to fall all over again.
When a good girl looks at a bad guy, she sees sides of herself that she was not allowed to experience and explore, sides that were repressed by the expectations of her family, her neighborhood, and this whole chauvinist society.
The bad guy frees her from all her neuroses and allows her to experience life just as it is—not as it should be. Sure, he breaks the rules and gets into a little trouble once in a while, but he still lives. And she realizes that you don’t have to live a perfect, scratch-free life. In fact, you need to get scratched, you need to get bruised and hit on the head once in a while for you to experience the fullness of life. Laughter and tears. Joy and pain. Victory and suffering. It’s all part of the package.
Good girls who go for bad guys have realized that the best-tasting meals are sometimes cooked with the weirdest and ickiest of ingredients—stuff that you wouldn’t dare touch on its own. But they want the experience of the meal… so they take all the shit that goes with it anyway.
My friend Trin put it excellently when she once told me, “It’s all shitty. It’s just a matter of knowing what kind of shit you can put up with.”
So… If you’re gonna get some shit anyway, then you might as well let it be shit that you can enjoy… right?
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