Maligayang Pasko

Christmas is coming! I just wrapped some presents this afternoon. It took longer than I thought it would, but I am hoping that wrapping presents now will save me from that dreaded '2 hours before heading out to Christmas dinner' time crunch, where somehow, you're still taping gift wrapper and finding another way to say 'Merry Christmas' on the little card. Years past have seen, Have a fabulous Christmas, have a blessed Christmas, a meaningful Christmas, good luck on your diet this Christmas. Just kidding.

While I was wrapping presents, I got to thinking about previous Christmases. I'm not sure why, but in our culture, it seems like Christmas eve always overshadows actual Christmas Day. When we were kids we'd head over to our mother's side of the family. There would be an elaborate program of song and dance numbers, both from the adults and the kids. I remember a fashion show one year. And then an over-the-top Madonna dance number another year. And if we were lucky we'd get a full-on drag performance courtesy of my Uncle and his friends.

Look, it got pretty crazy. We had to be dragged home because guess what? On Christmas Day, all that indulgent fun had to be balanced out with morning Mass. Not that Mass was particularly solemn. The manger scene was tricked out. There may be a baby figure swooping from the ceiling down to his crib. Who knows what the choir came up with, not to mention what the church's electric bill looks like.

And then after Mass, we would go to my father's side of the family. There would be more eating, but not that much entertainment. And of course it couldn't go on that way forever. When the relatives started leaving for abroad, we all just tried to have our own thing at home. Which meant my mom would have to cook. And she would make this complicated chicken relleno dish which involved deboning it, getting the meat, mixing it with vegetables, stuffing the meat back in, boiling the whole thing in cheese cloth, blah blah, blah. That was not a recipe. Do not follow that word for word. It is so delicious, you guys. The best part is she makes chicken liver gravy which makes my mouth water as I type the words.

Fast forward to years later. We left the Philippines too. And not even the whole family moved. But we managed. We were reunited with my mom's side of the family. My grandmother, when she was still alive, absolutely enjoyed having everyone around her sing Christmas songs on karaoke. Just make sure to hand her the microphone when Feliz Navidad came on. Now, there is a bit of shame as I say this, but yes. There were still dance numbers. There was even a contest for best costume. I will have you know I came as a Macy's shopping bag, with presents inside... and I won, but it was a tie with my sister who was a parol. I mean, literally. She wore a contraption that looked like one, and if we hadn't stopped her, she would have attached lights to it and plugged herself in.

So, what is the point of all this reminiscing? Well, here's my emo paragraph of the year. I'm just saying, amdist all the celebration, the presents, the food, the elastic waistband pants and ponchos, the Christmas shopping pressure, there is only one thing I cannot imagine being without on Christmas, and that is family.

Merry Christmas y'all!

Shopping (Mis)guide: Winter 2011 Edition

Item no. 1. Prints. Lots of it. Layer a windowpane checked vest over a floral dress, under dotted tights, top with a paisley scarf, and no shoes. The idea is to make an entrance. Nowadays, just one print is no longer enough. Enter with a bang and not a whimper. You want to step into a room and have people think: Wow. That chick is crazy. Follow the basic rule: P-R-I-N-T. Polka dots, Ribbons, Ikat, Nubby knits, Tartan. Or, Poop stain, Rainbows, Igloos, Nets, Tigers. You may also substitute, Pickles, Rickles, Ickles, Nickels, Tickles.

This winter, every woman needs a pair of glitter heels. Forget Dorothy and her ruby slippers. Take it up a notch. Take it up ten notches. Don't settle for mere sparkles and glitters. Think jewels. If you need to stab your foot with a dozen brooches for a completely bejeweled look, if you need to wrap your ankles with your mother's pearls and granny's chains, then that's what you need to do.



Okay ladies, with even colder months ahead, we need to go LONG. Thank God for that. I mean, no one wants to see anyone's winter wonderland leg hair under semi sheer pantyhose, right? And we've had enough of those stupid shorts over tights too. This season we want trousers with wedding gown trains. Skirts so long you'll need a ladder to reach the zipper. Coats that trail the ground dragging small neighborhoods as you walk. You want your shirt to be long too, as in the tails are peeking from under the hem of your pencil skirt.

One word: PLEATS. This is serious. I have been looking for a pleated skirt for months. Too long and I look like a middle aged school principal. Too short and I look like I'm trying to be on J Pop America Fun Time Now! Too soft and my hips look like shelving. Too stiff and I look like I've regressed to my schooling days. What am I to do? Should I just give up and accept that pleats are not for me? Or should I stand proud and wear what I wish, without a care for bookshelf hips or age-appropriate lengths. Must I be fettered by concerns such as floaty skirt fabric up my butt crack and a waistband around no waist?!? This is 2011 ladies and gentlemen. And next year it is 2012. The time is now. The place is here. Tomorrow is a Friday. Friday. Gotta get down on Friday.

Wow, I'm exhausted. Seriously. What were we talking about again?

I Lied

I may just have broken some mini fashion rules I set for myself. This was over the summer, which now seems like ages ago, you'll know because my hands are dry from the cold. And I mean DRY. You can etch some designs on my skin with a fingernail, but first admire the criss-cross, paper-thin patterned skin. Also, my playlists are filling up with Christmas songs (hello, Michael Buble).

Remember how I lamented my odd-shaped skull and how I can't seem to find any hats that fit? Well, for the past however-many months, my facial skin decided to go rogue. And by rogue I mean rebel. And by rebel I mean there's a redness problem. And by redness I mean blemishes. In any case, I made it my mission to find myself a brimmed hat to protect my face during the summer months. I found a paper straw number from J. Crew that was well within my moderate budget. And by moderate I mean fair. And by fair I mean small. And by small I mean inexpensive. And by that I mean under $20. I found that putting my hair in a bun and tucking it under the hat made it fit.



The hat also came in handy during the Florida vacation. I kept my skin protected with sunglasses that covered half my face and of course, the hat. This resulted in the most glamorous ombre' tan you have ever seen. Imagine: pale eye and cheek area, reddish jawline, somewhat tanned chest and shoulders, brown stomach, and boom! Burnt legs and ashy feet. Basically, if I were a jigsaw puzzle, I couldn't be put back together because the coloring doesn't match.

A while back, I tried a pair of harem pants which resulted in visions of loincloths and diapers. I wandered into a Gap store because I was waiting for something-or-the-other. Or maybe they had one of those additional 30% off things, who knows? My memory is foggy. In any case, I picked a slouchy pair of black pants off a rack. It spoke of promises like, no need to hold your gut, and, I will make your VPL worries disappear. So I tried it on. And I loved it. It sat low on my waist. I could tuck my shirt in. I could roll the cuff a bit and make it ankle-length.

So I head to the cashier and hand my purchase over. And guess what the cashier says? She opens her mouth and the words EVERYONE NEEDS A PAIR OF HAREM PANTS come out.

Oh shit.

The pants were kind of harem-ish. The crotch was a bit lower. The legs were kind of roomy. She really shut me up. I was so against the idea of harem pants I didn't even notice that I just tried a pair on and actually loved it.

I also started using hairspray. There I said it. If you ever ride the #28 in the morning and catch a whiff of fragrance-covered chemicals, that was me. Sorry, I have a problem controling the spray button thing. You want more confessions? I gave Insidious a second viewing and I don't want to look at reflective surfaces for now because I might see that old lady parasite with dead fingernails. Here's another one: I know someone who loves her chunky boots. And by chunky I mean Bride of Chucky/Herman Munster. I want to help her but there's no way I'm commenting on anyone's fashion choices to their face, especially since we're not that close. Instead I'll just judge her silently. Just kidding (but not really)! No really, I'm just kidding. It's Christmas - the season of giving. And I'm sure by giving, they didn't mean giving insults.

Last confession: I'm crazy about American Horror Story and I think I'm developing a highly inappropriate TV crush on Tate. I can't help it. I think it's because *SPOILER ALERT* he's dead.

Tulle Bulldozer

You know how you feel like you've been talking about an upcoming event for forever? How items on your to-do list, related to said event trickle in one by one? And the months pass and it still isn't that close but it is getting closer? And then BOOM. You're three weeks away. One week away. And you feel like a bulldozer sort of ran over your life.

Except this bulldozer was a wedding party bulldozer with a veil on its roof, cocktails on the dashboard, bridesmaids dresses hanging off the blade, rented suits off the exhaust pipe, foot-killing shoes hooked on the steering wheel, bridal shower tea sandwiches on the cab's floor,the bride's stunning, 15-pound custom-design wedding gown is in the driver's seat (and is actually driving the bulldozer).



It has been fun. Our bride was super chill... until the night before the wedding when someone forgot to bring her bag of photo booth props to the venue. At that point, we saw a glimmer in her eye. A glimmer of poison-tipped, serrated edge daggers. But she quickly shoved the look back into her eyeballs after her beyond-trustworthy Maid of Honor/sister promised to get the bag to the venue.

Of course, where family is involved we also had our share of drama. Please don't ask me how a pair of earrings snowballed into the most ridiculous argument.

To make a long story short:

all the bridesmaids survived those shoes I mentioned in a previous entry - no sprained ankles or broken toes

the ceremony was solemn and heartfelt

the bride's plan to have guests blow bubbles outside the church came to fruition

it was sunny SUNNY?!!?!?!?!*%!!

the cocktail hour was fabulous, no glass was empty at any point, which also meant there were a lot of buzzed guests which...

made for a happy reception filled with toasting, glass-clinking, lots of family love and new-family love, bride-and-groom kissing, dancing, photo booth shenanigans, empty dinner plates, more dancing, more filled glasses.

And finally, a drunken, midnight wedding party trip to Chinatown for fried rice, noodles, shrimp, and fortune cookies.

Oy, if you spot the wedding-gown-driven bulldozer in your neighborhood, kindly let us know.

We Dance to the Beat (And We Don't Stop): Robyn at the Paramount

Before we begin, a brief public service announcement:



If you have seen this girl, please tell her the concert is over. She may now stop forcing her body parts on the backs of people. Help her find her way home.

That's all, thank you. Moving on...

My sister, who is a solid gold platinum titanium Robyn fan was not going to miss this show. She already missed her chance at Robyn playing Neumos last year so this was it. We happy hour-ed at Palominos to build and save our foot energy for what we were expecting to be a crazy night...

Which started in line outside the Paramount Theatre on a chilly Thursday in October, no rain, thankfully. We saw all sorts of Robyn-like platinum hair, a lot of tank tops and gooseflesh, sequins, feather vests, extremely good-looking gay men, usually with their equally attractive boyfriends, parents with minor children trying to buy tickets off of others - Daddy, Daddy you better find me a ticket!!! YOU BETTER FIND ME A TICKET OR I'M GOING TO RUN IN FRONT OF A CAR. And the random suspicious-looking person carrying a big backpack.



This is when everything moves in slow motion. Time check: 6:00pm. One hour till doors open. Contemplate work outfit for following day. Debate peeing at Paramount Hotel or Barnes & Noble. Eavesdrop on girl and boy behind you talking about reversible jacket design and halloween costumes. Time check: 6:04pm.

I will spare you the boring details about our wait, except the bit where I chickened out of using the restroom at the Paramount Hotel because I so obviously looked like I just walked in off the street and wasn't a guest. I ended up at Barnes instead.

Doors open, we head to the floor, where security people tell everyone to stay off the carpeted aisle and please sit on the floor. By the way, I've never seen such chatty, smiley security staff. They were talking to us! Weird. And we know how this part goes: more waiting. We don't really want to know about the Swedish girl behind us who went to a psychic and told her her sometime love interest will have a series of short relationships, but we had no choice.

Finally. Finally lights dim. The opener, Yacht comes out. More crazy. They had these dancers, one portly boy wearing a shirt that says Girl, and one blond girl wearing a Boy shirt. I am waiting for the opportunity to steal some of Girl's moves. They were brilliant. The band was a lot of fun, they sounded like a group you'd hear in Saturday Night Live's Deep House Dish. They also had the funniest line which they kept repeating between songs, If you have any questions, any questions at all...

So, Yacht got the crowd dancing and everyone's pumped up, and their set ends, and we're back to waiting for Robyn. But not for long. Her band comes out. The music starts and there she is!!! Bowl cut, glow-in-the-dark leggings, mega flatforms, my-belt-is-killing-me, and all!



ZOMG. Robyn was fantastic. Even the crazy girl who tried to hump every single one of us on the second and first rows to get to the rail couldn't put a damper on our evening. Thanks, by the way, to the cute gay couple who told her, you need to stay where you're at. Except, all they got in response was a glazed look from the Robyn-crazed crazy ass lipstick girl. The best part was when she just gave up her humping and left. Hey lipstick girl, U SHOULD KNOW BETTER not to fuck with the fans who waited in line before you!

Robyn was just an energizer bunny. It must have been the banana she ate while doing a back bend onstage! All those dance moves, the spinning, the chest pumps, the grinding, and gorilla arms. She was everything! And the crowd was with her all the way - fist pumping Indestructible's this is hardcore, screaming every word to Call your Girlfriend, body rolling along to None of Dem, waving our arms to Dancing Queen/Show Me Love.



Everyone was singing along. Who cares if you were singing Hang With Me's lyrics wrong? So what if it was, just don't fall headlessly, recklessly in love with me, and not stone cold, helplessly, recklessly... No one! No one cares! Sing whatever you want! No one cares, right? I mean, my lips were still forming kind of similar words, right?

It was an amazing concert. Robyn was an amazing performer. Someone get a DeLorean and let's do it again!



All photos by IP

Las Vegas Style Guide: Classy Stripper Edition

Hello Classy Ladies! After a trip to Vegas with my fellow bridesmaids/cousins and our bride, I have returned with a few tips and tricks to looking faboosh on your Vegas trip.

The Way There

Let's start with your inflight outfit. Thizzizit, right?!?!? WRONG. Your flight is your last chance to be a semi-slob and relax your stomach muscles before the trip proper. You know you'll be sucking your gut in for all your one-size-too-small dresses. So heed my advice: keep it loose. And as for what might have been the look of judgment from the flight attendant when you and your girls ordered a cocktail on your 8am flight? Let it go, they don't care. They've seen worse.

Slide-Proof Legwear

As you usher the bride to Excalibur, home of Thunder Down Under, after she specifically said: NO MALE DANCERS, keep it cool. Keep her cool. Because you're not going to see any Thundering from Down Undering this afternoon. You are actually going to Night School 4 Girls. Cue the music! Let's hear a little Pour Some Sugar On Me!

A few things: if you want to be challenged, go ahead and wear your lucite heels at the burlesque/pole dancing class. Shorts might be a good idea. The flesh on your thighs will help grip the pole. Now there are two approaches here. A. Go ahead and laugh, embarrass yourself, get goofy. B. This is serious. I'm in competition. I don't care if anyone thinks I'm an actual stripper. Yes. I am talking to you, girl in the vest and shorts. What have you been doing in your free time and did you say you have another job on the side?

Walk It Or Cab It, Your Choice

If you are walking it, your choice was wrong. Your hotel looked near, but it wasn't. Now, if you've already committed to walking, after buying your pre-funk alcohol and snacks, I hope you are wearing something pretty. Now is the time to be adventurous. That thing that calls itself a romper? Now is the time to try it on. A strapless little something? Do it. Nude and a pair of Toms? Go for it! Who cares? No one, because everyone is already looking at the umm, older woman in a bathing suit top with her c-section scar hanging out.

I say keep it pretty because you never know when a club promoter will come your way (shout-out to Chad, aka Brad, aka Zach). He will put you on the guest list, get you in quick, and get you free drinks. It seems dubious but it's legit. I mean, just as long as the guy doesn't say, yo ladies, Imma get you on the guest list to the hottest club in town: Kidnappinz and Murderz Lounge.



Dinner is Served

Oy, slowpokes, everything may be open late in Vegas but most restaurant kitchens still close at 11pm. Hypothetical situation: you and the girls lost track of time thanks to endless drinks (from your pre-funk Walgreens/CVS liquor run), spinach dip, chips, pretzels, penis candies (whaaat), panty gift-giving, and all sorts of activities at your swanky suite. It's 10:30pm and you've all just finished getting dressed/made/prettied up and no restaurant will take you in.

So what?!? There's a place at your hotel that's still open, surely the servers will appreciate your fancy duds. And if it's 1am and you just finished dinner? No big deal. Go back to your suite, set down your take-home boxes. Rest your eyeballs for a second. Or two. Or, ah, don't wake up till morning... So, um, yeah, umm if that happens, you know, just in case, just sayin', no one says it actually happened, this is not real, I'm making it up.

Battle Buffet
Two words: Elastic waistband. Two more words: Chunky jewelry... Four Words: Distracts from big belly. Four More Words: Go for the proteins. Six Words: Fear not, take a mid-buffet dump.

Poolside

Aside from your swimsuit, don't forget to bring a roomy canvas bag. Your bag is your best friend. How else are you going to go on the cheap and bring your own cocktails to the pool. I mean, there's a reason why the pool check-in guy has a stack of platic cups at his station.

To the Club

For your night out, again this is the time to be adventurous. Go for something outrageous. It's your chance to let loose and not be seen by people from where you live. Or, go for the Vegas norm of tight-and-short. Or keep it classy in a revealing yet tailored look. What you shouldn't do is recycle a bridesmaid's dress. Lady, hey lady, come on?! I can tell. Black and white. Floral applique. Knee-length. You're not fooling anyone.

Well, that about wraps up this Style Guide. Toodles, Classy Ladies! Stay fabulous!

Face Parts

So, my sister turns to me this morning and mouths pimple, pim-mple, pimPOL, PEEMpoool, pmpl, PMPOWL. I think my pimple actually blushed. And guess where it was? To the right of the tip of my nose. Like a little fairy dancing on her tippy toes, spreading sebum on my face. You should have seen it before it popped its ugly head out. It almost looked like a tumor. Oh well, what do I know? This whole time my pimple could have been telling itself: shit, what's this face growing on me? Dancing like a giant, spreading face parts on my skin. Eew.



I just celebrated my birthday a week ago. My sister tricked me. She was really good, too. We agreed to meet after I got off work. She told me she was looking for jeans. She actually tried stuff out at varius stores. Except, guess who lost in this little 'shopping' pretense? ME. I ended up buying something (or some things, my memory is foggy on the details). And then she goes, I have a Groupon that expires. TODAY. For happy hour.

So we head to the fabulous, and great-smelling Alexis Hotel for their Bookstore Lounge where, upon entering, the first thing I see is what looks like my cousin's hair. Trust me it's hard to miss, she likes experimenting with Big & Sexy hairspray. And in my mind I was thinking, wow, that was one popular Groupon. So surprise! They were there to take me out for an early birthday celebration.

In random order, the evening's events were: get rained on and have puddles form in our shoes, beer and birthday cupcakes, arcade games, a Moroccan dinner, witness an over-excited adolescent belly dance, catch the end of the Mayweather/ Ortiz fight, lose at billiards, attempt belly dancing (belly? yes. dancing? nooo).

On my real birthday, I had the day off and it was just as nice. 6am Birthday phone call from my sister and nephew from back home. And a call from my best friend, whose rendition of Marilyn Monroe's Happy Birthday did not reach its completion.

I think she got as far as the first to you before we both burst out laughing.

P.S. She just had her birthday too!