Goddess, I Am.

Every once in a while, I find myself looking back at my life just a little over two years ago. The early part of 2007 found me very bored and more than just a little bit sad. The years that passed me by saw me neither happy nor unhappy, but mostly empty with the knowledge that I absolutely had no idea where my life was going and what I wanted to accomplish.

For 3 years, I went through thankless jobs that barely gave me enough to make ends meet, let alone the chance to indulge in a simple luxury or two. More than anything else, I wanted to travel. Instead, I ended up with nothing but resentment for the things that made this desire unattainable.

I found an outlet in writing and bore no illusions about my skills. Not for one moment did I see it as a talent. It was just something that I did because I could, something that felt as natural as breathing. It never really occurred to me that this was something that I could do for a living. After all, I haven’t a modicum of formal training to speak of. I had too much respect for the written word to presume that I can make money off writing when there are others far more skilled and better trained than I was.

Maybe it was kismet, or perhaps it was just sheer luck, but of all the people that I’ve met online at this time, I found a friend in Chin, whose blogs I used to stalk senseless until I eventually found the courage to make my presence known to her. By then, she was already writing freelance, and not only did she point me in the right direction, she encouraged me when no one else would.

My first paid writing gig was for a local couple who ran a writing team. This was my first introduction to the world of keywords and keyword densities and sub-headers. They paid me P8,000 ($160) a month to write 8 (!!!) 500-word articles a day, 5 days a week. That worked out about a dollar per article, and without knowing any better, I thought that was perfectly reasonable.

The first few assignments were absolutely maddening, especially since I was still working as a Quality Assurance Analyst for my old company. I wrote articles between (and sometimes, while) rating calls. Instead of crawling straight to bed after working 14-hour shifts, I wrote and wrote and wrote some more.

I had a dream, and I was determined to reach it. It was nothing as lofty as buying a car – with auto accessories to boot! – or going on frivolous shopping sprees. I simply needed enough to be able to travel, even if it was just somewhere local. Never mind that I was beginning to look like something out of the Evil Dead.

And travel, I did. In May of 2007, I visited Boracay for the first time – a trip that became not just a vacation, but the second step towards the major life-change that I desperately needed.

To be continued…

Owning a Mac is like raising a child. It requires expense after expense, not necessarily because it demands it, but because you always want what’s best for it. I thought my darling Gaius was a handful, but really, it had absolutely nothing on Octavian.

Octavian, by the way, is the Macbook Pro that I upgraded to a month after I got Gaius. Yes, I managed to work up the courage to tell The Husband, and yes, I really couldn’t help myself. Octavian is, without a doubt, the best laptop I’ve ever owned, and I’m completely in love with him, almost to the point of altar-worship.

But I digress. In the 4 weeks that I’ve had Octavian, I’ve bought accessory after accessory. And because Octavian IS a fabulous 13.3-inch Macbook Pro – the first of his kind – most of them do not come cheap.

Here’s the rundown of, umm, ‘damages’ . . . so far:

1. A pretty pink Sumdex laptop bag – P1,850 (approximate $38).

Now, I had a perfectly good laptop bag that I bought for Gaius. I couldn’t bear the thought of Octavian getting a hand-me-down bag from Gaius, however, so I convinced myself that it was not padded enough for skinny, little Octavian (which it really was), and sold it to Chin, who I am hoping is perfectly happy with it.

2. A scarlet CaseLogic laptop sleeve with a fantastic flower detail – P1499 (approximately $30).

I wanted to give Octavian in all his aluminum glory extra protection; hence, the sleeve. Now, I am completely aware that one can buy a perfectly functional sleeve somewhere between P100 (CDR-King) and P899 (the plain CaseLogic ones – no pretty flowers!), and I really was all set to go for the latter. However, I took one look at the red one with the flower in SM, and my self-control ran off, never to be seen again.

From time to time, in the dead of night when it behooves me to take stock of my life, I find myself wondering whatever possessed me at that very moment. But then I take one look at the beautiful scarlet sleeve and how good Octavian looks in it, and all is right with the world once again. Oh, and did I mention it was reversible?

3. A screen protector – P950.

I know, I know. One can get a screen protector for P100 (again) from CDR-King. In fact, I did get one for Gaius. The problem was that it was a DIY install, and it was so badly done that I didn’t want to risk it again.

So off I went to Digital Walker (Digital Hub in some places) in SM Cyberzone where I get a cool 10% discount, simply because I’m a member of the PhilMUG (Philippine Mac Users Group) forums. (I also bought Octavian from them, and Charlie, the owner, gave me discount of almost P11,000, which was a lot more than the usual 10%!) The guy in charge of the Cebu store personally installed my screen protector, and he did it so well that you won’t even know it’s there! There isn’t a single bubble or speck of dust trapped between the protector and the screen itself. I’ve never seen such a stellar screen protector installation in my life!

4. A silicon keyboard protector – P500 (about $10).

My life revolves around my laptop since I work 16 to 20-hour days with nary a weekend free. I even take meals with Octavian on my lap, which makes a keyboard protector an absolute necessity, myself being a scatterbrained klutz.

Thankfully, I found a keyboard protector from China on eBay that’s been made especially for aluminum unibody Macbook Pros. It features black keys on see-through silicon, so Octavian’s keyboard still gets to glow in all its prettiness. Plus, I don’t have to worry about spills and crumbs anymore!

5. A trackpad protector ($9.99) and a pretty logo ($4.99).

It has always been my intention to keep Octavian as bare as the day he was born (or at least, the day he was bought), but when I discovered SkinStyler, my resolve literally flew out the window. After all, how can I resist the oh-so pretty Apple logo of old on Octavian, instead of the newer and oh-so generic white one?

The trackpad protector was a bit of an afterthought. I figured if I was getting something shipped all the way from Malaysia, I might as well make the most of it. I’m very happy how it turned out, though. I didn’t go for the more colorful designs, even when I was sorely tempted to do so, because I figured it’ll look all wrong on Octavian’s original color scheme. The logo is ostentatious enough as it is.

6. A cooling pad – P280.

Because I have so much to do all the time, poor Octavian has to work almost non-stop every day. If he was a Windows-running laptop, he probably would’ve died of sheer exhaustion by now!

But again, I digress. Octavian does tend to get really hot when I run OS X and Windows on VMWare Fusion simultaneously, and I figured he needed a bit of help. I was initially all set to get me a Belkin cooler (P1500), but I’ve been assured that any cooling pad will work just fine. And because I’ve already spent quite a lot in less than a month, I figured it can’t hurt to get a cheap one.

I got a nice, compact, foldable one from Global Village, and so far, I’m very happy with it – at least, until I saw the same cooler in pink at CDR-King. I can’t justify getting another one right now, though, especially with a reason as trivial as color, so I’m sticking to this boring black one for the moment.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Octavian’s expenses are coming to an end. Since I bought the cooling fan, I now need a flat surface to put it on when I’m working on the couch. I have my eyes set on something called the iLap, but I’ve been told there’s a P600 CDR-King version, so I’m going to check that out. Right now, I’m just using Octavian’s box, and it’s so unfashionable, not to mention uncomfortable.

I also want to upgrade Octavian’s measly 160GB hard drive to 500 GB because I’m downloading so many movies and it’s filling up fast. And oh, I want to upgrade my DDR3 RAM from 2GB to 4GB for no particular reason other than I can and it sounds like a good idea. And I will also want another bag or two down the line because one can’t have too many laptop bags, after all.

I swear, if Octavian can go horseback riding, I’ll gladly buy him breeches. Heck, I’ll even send him to college, if he wasn’t so smart already.

Really, with a Mac, who needs children?

For as long as I can remember, my family has always kept dogs. Throughout my 27 years, we’ve probably owned about 20 dogs of varying pedigrees. We loved dachshunds best, but we’ve also had German Shepherds, Dobermans, a Sharpei, and, of course, the requisite mongrel. They came, they were loved and taken care of, they went, and they were eventually replaced.

Except for her. And she was mine.

She was a birthday present from my stepfather. I named her Champagne, a pretty name that wasn’t entirely appropriate. When he brought her home, she was fully grown and riddled with some sort of skin disease that left her scabby and hairless. I was about 19 years old and completely wrapped up in my own life. I didn’t have time for a pet (and a scabby one at that), so I spent half the time ignoring her.

Maybe it was kismet, or maybe it’s because she followed me around so relentlessly that it became impossible to ignore the intelligence in her eyes, but we started to spend more and more time together until we were almost inseparable.

Pretty soon, she was sleeping on my bed, scabs and all. It was not very hygienic, I know, but she refused to sleep elsewhere, plus I just couldn’t bear the thought of banishing her back to the flimsy rug beneath the piano bench. One simply doesn’t treat one’s best friend that way, and that was exactly what she was to me, my best friend.

Naturally, I’ve taken her to the vet countless of times to get the skin problem sorted out. We tried pet supplements aplenty, but nothing ever worked. Some drugs succeeded in sorting out the scabs, but she only lost what little hair was left on her, too. Others only succeeded to aggravate the condition further. There was even one shot that turned her skin a bright pink! She ended up looking more like a cute pig, rather than a dachshund-mini pinscher cross.

I was resigned to the fact that she’ll probably be scabby and hairless forever, and so were the family, who had gotten as attached to her as I had. She eventually had two puppies, Brandy and Martini, and we adored them to pieces. Unfortunately, they somehow ended up with the same skin disease, which was really quite heartbreaking.

That summer, my sister and I went on our yearly trip to Manila. By the time we came home, Champagne and her babies were unrecognizable! The scabs were gone, and they had fur – beautiful and dappled black and gray fur. This was all thanks to my grandfather (my mum’s dad). Apparently, he came to visit one day, took one look at them, and knew exactly what drug to get and where. It took only three shots to do what countless visits to the vet couldn’t do. We were so happy. We couldn’t think of a better way to say our thanks than to give him Martini, and they were inseparable, too.

A lot of things happened to our family back then, major things that saw us giving up our home and our other dogs (we had about 5 around this time), but Champagne and Brandy went with us as we moved from home to home. My mum and sister were as attached to Brandy as I was to Champagne, and we simply couldn’t bear to part with them, wherever we went.

The next few years saw me in relationships that were unhealthy, if not downright toxic. I was officially manic depressive and even dabbled in suicide. Champagne saw me through it all. Every time I had my heart broken or whenever I had an episode, she would sit by me as I cried, lick my tears away, and sometimes whined along with me. Then we’d go for a walk, just she and I, and maybe chase a cat or two. She always knew when I needed her, and somehow, she always knew what to do. She was smart like that. There are a thousand stories I can tell that show exactly how intelligent she was, and maybe one day I will tell them all.

Brandy died near the end of August, 2005. She was only 3 years old. One night, we just found her lying under our outdoor bench, laboring for breath. We drove all night, looking for a vet who would help us. By the time we found one, she was already too far gone. She had a seizure right there on the vet’s table, and she was gone.

It broke all of our hearts – mum’s and Champagne’s, especially. Champ started to eat less and less after that until I had to force-feed her, just so she’ll eat. Paralysis set in and she could no longer use her back legs. I had her confined at the vet’s, hoping that they could somehow make her better, but her condition only deteriorated further. When she went blind, I took her home.

Everyone kept telling me that there’s nothing else that could be done and that I should let her go to end her suffering, but stubbornly and maybe just a little selfishly, I held on. I wasn’t ready to let her go. I wasn’t ready to let my best friend go.

It was my turn to be there for her. She took care of me when I needed her most, and I did the same for her. But she was suffering, and when the paralysis spread even further, I knew it was time to let her go.

I took her back to the vet’s wrapped in her favorite blanket. She couldn’t see me, but I spoke to her almost non-stop because she could hear me. Just one shot and she was asleep. I stayed with her, hugged her, kissed her, comforted her until she just stopped breathing. She died sleeping peacefully in September of 2005.

It’s been 4 years since she left me. We’ve had other dogs since, but none ever inspired the same devotion as she did – at least, not from me.

Why am I revisiting this still-painful memory now? Because I found these when I was going through my old photos, my only pictures of my darling Champagne:

and Brandy:

Sometimes I dream of her and Brandy and Martini, who died this year, after 8 years with my grandfather. I like to think they’re all happy out there in doggie heaven, chasing cats and squirrels and butterflies to their hearts’ content.

Whenever I’m unhappy, I think about her and I never fail to feel better. Maybe she’s still watching over me. I like to think so.

How is it possible that my waistline is an inch more than what it was last week? Let’s take stock of this week’s activities, shall we?

- This week has been all about work, work, and more work. And as we all know, it’s nothing short of criminal to work without sustenance, so I’ve had bags of Goldilocks Caramel Popcorn and those uber-yummy Dentelle Au Chocolat cookies from Don Merto’s Les Chocolateries within reach. That’s only natural, right? Right???

- We’ve had endless meetings with the real estate people and some folks from PAG-IBIG this week, thanks to the impending house purchase. This means endless buffets at The Port, the restaurant my mum manages. But again, it’s only natural. After all, one can’t expect these people to help without at least feeding ‘em (and ones’ self) lechon, baked oysters, pochero, kare-kare, and grilled pork, to name a few.

- We’ve discovered that you can buy prime rib-eye steaks from the Rustan’s supermarket at about P200 (approximately $4) a kilo. It’ll be all wrong not to take advantage of this and not have two steaks each for dinner.

So what was the question again? Tee hee.

Looks like it’s back to the old reliable. Half a dose of the world’s best diet pills should do the trick. Now to find my supplier from eBay…

We’ve seized the day, The Husband and I. We’ve decided to do something that was just a tiny presence between our long-term plans and complete wishful thinking. We’ve decided to buy a house.

It all started when I was leafing through paperwork that my aunt gave me. She’s one of Filinvest’s managers, you see, and we got together over lechon at CnT last Friday to discuss a possible online campaign that my sister and I were planning to put together for her.

As I looked through the gorgeous homes and the price lists, I realized that we can actually afford it, especially since the income coming from one of my projects substantially increased over the past week or so for the long term. The next day found myself, The Husband, and the entire family on a tour through the various Filinvest projects, and we fell in love with the Cypress houses they were offering at Corona del Mar in Talisay. We did some serious number-crunching on the spot, and had a lot reserved for Mr. and Mrs. Young. As of this moment, Mr. and Mrs. Young are going through mountains of paperwork.

From what I’ve seen of it so far, Corona del Mar looks like fantastic neighborhood. The houses and their yards were spotless, the streets even more so. There were no stray dogs doing their thing everywhere, and the people kept themselves to themselves. The entrances were also properly guarded, so we’re not likely to ever encounter grubby people with small brains and an inclination to pee on walls and trees and gutters. And we all know what this means: The Husband and I might actually enjoy some peace and quiet and neighborly harmony for a change, which means that I no longer have to be scared to death of shady characters lying in wait to rough him up on his way home from work. (This also means that my poor, poor heart won’t need a Philips AED anytime soon, no sir-ee!)

The house itself is a Spanish-Mediterranean beauty with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a dining hall, a kitchen, 2 living rooms, an open garage, a balcony, and a HUGE roofdeck. We plan to turn one of the bedrooms into a little study and library for myself and the upstairs living room into The Husband’s home cinema room. I also plan to host barbecue parties aplenty, both on the balcony and the roofdeck. Both spaces are so big, it can comfortably fit about 50 or so people, I believe.

We’re actually quite lucky that we managed to snag a slot in the new Escala phase of Corona del Mar (it’s a huge project with several phases) because we’re within walking distance of the pretty clubhouse, fabulous infinity pool, and – drumroll, please – the beach! It really does feel like being in some sort of resort settlement. But then again, that’s what it probably is!

Truth be told, the beach isn’t that much, this being Talisay and all. We’ve been told, however, that there’s a rehabilitation and clean-up program going on in that stretch of beach, sponsored by both Filinvest and the Talisay government. It’ll never be excellent for swimming, but the pool is awesome enough AND they’re supposed to be planting mangroves, so that’ll be really great for wildlife – something both The Husband and myself are very passionate about. Why, he’s already even told them that he’ll be happy to volunteer in the effort! Isn’t that sweet?

We don’t have upwards of P4M to throw around, so it’ll probably be a couple of years or so before we can move in. Not only that, we’ll both have to do some serious lifestyle cutbacks because the payments are pretty steep. But then, we don’t go crazy on expenses anyway (we ride jeepneys, for crying out loud!), so it’s not that big a transition.

It’s a wonderful, heady feeling, knowing that you’re buying a home before you’re thirty. Admittedly, I do feel a slight twinge of fear from time to time. It’s a huge investment, after all, and the life of an online writer/freelancer/outsourcer isn’t always the most secure. But more than that, I’m excited and giddy and feeling very positive about the whole thing. Most of all, I have faith that we can both see this through until the last drop of red paint in the master bedroom is finally dry. And yes, one can never go wrong with faith.