GIGI GOES GAGA

WHILE I WAS AWAY

These last nine days have been crazy; I haven't noticed that so much time has gone by. Just a quick update before I get back to the usual blog posts.

My mother arrived in Los Angeles and will be staying for a few weeks. I see my parents once a year at most so I know immediately when something is different about either of them. The first thing I noticed was that she now walks with a cane. (This is not the mother I know.) Then she told me that on the plane she sat beside a man who had purchased the cane in Macao; she told him it was beautiful and that he must be an artist to be carrying around something so exquisite. It turned out she assumed correctly; he decided he wanted to give it to her and now she walks around with it proudly. (This is the mother I know very well.)

I purchased a roundtrip ticket to Manila and I'm going home in a couple of weeks!

Which explains why I've been crazy-busy at work. My co-workers now have to drag me out of my office to get lunch and even to take restroom breaks.

Got together with 27 of my high school classmates last week. Doesn't sound like anything remarkable until you consider that I graduated high school in the Philippines and that many of the girls flew in from San Francisco, Orlando, New York, and even Milwaukee just for the weekend. I haven't seen most of them since we grabbed our diplomas and marched out of the Manila Cathedral all those years ago. Regardless of what anyone else thinks, we believe we all still look the same (only better, of course).

My bestfriend has been going through one of the most challenging periods in her life and I feel completely helpless because we're thousands of miles apart and I can only listen to her cry. I want to tell her that we learn most from our worst days rather than our best (but I won't -- yet -- because sometimes you don't really give a s**t about learning anything when you're going through your worst). The other thing I want to tell her is that I've never been more proud of her in all the 25 years we've been joined at the hip, and that it will be all worth it in the end.

I cringe when I look at myself in photographs because I think I look deformed, especially when I'm laughing. Then I cringe even more when I realize that everyone else in the picture looks just as I see them in person.

Mom and I had a long talk the other day and I found myself giving her advice about how to be happy and enjoy the rest of her life by not stressing over things she can't possibly control. My mother taught me well.

I finally admitted to myself that the main reason I implemented the "burgers and pizza (either one or the other, not both) only once a week" law at home is because I really don't like burgers and pizza. It just so happens that they aren't that healthy either.

Sign that I'm really getting old: When I feel naughty, when I want to be a BAD girl...I eat a handful of peanut M&Ms. Goobers work just as well, too.

Another sign that I'm old: when mom asked me if I had any books on personality development (for a project she's working on), my husband showed her my collection of sex handbooks. Mom didn't even flinch, like there's nothing wrong about her daughter owning such things! (And now he's not getting any until I get over my deep sense of shame.)

WHILE HE SLEEPS

I got the news last Friday that a couple of days before, my cousin Olan suffered an aneurysm followed by a massive heart attack at his home. The news didn't connect with me then and somehow it still doesn't right now, even if I've actually seen him lying in his hospital bed at the ICU (although all those tubes were obstructing my view of his face). It just doesn't make sense, not any of this.

My cousin is -- as he's always been -- hyperkinetic and boyishly charming. At 40 years old, he also seems to have it all: a loving family and fiancee, a successful career, and -- at least up until last week -- his health. For almost four years we worked in the very same building though we'd seen each other probably only a handful of times. I suspect we're the same in the sense that we don't get out much once we're inside the office; I bet we both don't take breaks until we're off for the day. Still, just knowing he was slaving away somewhere in the top floor made it seem like he was always right there nearby.

And although I'm just as guilty of not dragging his ass out for lunch or coffee at least once in a while (we had lunch once and I made him pay), when I would see him coming or going I'd accuse him of being a rotten, no-good cousin because I knew more about the life of the guy who came in once a week to water my plants than about his. We also live perhaps 15 minutes from each other now, and yet we've never seen each other's homes. But I always assumed we would...eventually.

I never thought about this before but I suppose I also figured we'd be just as our parents were (and still are) and see each other during get-togethers and family gatherings, playing catch up until the wee hours of the morning. There really never was any reason to assume any differently, considering I'm especially fond of his family (they are as hilarious and as interesting as any half-hour sitcom familial unit) and I always intended to stay in touch.

I suppose I could end this post by saying something about how time is too fleeting and how it's important not to leave for tomorrow what we could do today. But I'd already known that (or at least I thought I did) before I saw Olan peacefully sleeping yesterday. What I am thinking of right now, however, is that I hope he hurries up and wakes up already. I still owe him lunch.

BE KIND: DON'T REWIND

A good friend of mine is at the tail end of a relationship -- the point when you both know it's over but can't seem to let go quite completely, at least not just yet. So a few weeks ago she unintentionally hooked up with an ex who was in town for the weekend from all the way across the country. He's gone now and she's trying to sort out how she feels. (Does she or doesn't she feel guilty? Did she do this to kick herself into gear and shift her present relationship from not-really to not-at-all?)

F: Part of me wishes I feel awful about what I did but I don't. I don't really feel like I cheated on J. I should feel guilty, I know, and I'm trying to -- but I just don't feel so bad.

G: Is it because you've felt for a while that the relationship was really over but sleeping with S just confirmed it?

F: Yes, but it's not just that. It's because I was with an ex. I mean, I would never sleep with someone new. Now THAT would definitely feel like cheating.

G: Oh God, I think I know what you mean. Because with an ex it's just like rewind and with a new guy you're hitting the record button. You're committing to something new.

F: YES!

G: It's easier to delude yourself into thinking that you're simply having a flashback moment...

F: Because you've done the same exact thing before -- the only difference is the timing.

G: (Quickly pondering over implications of entering a time machine and being hurtled to years back. If you chose to sleep with an ex at the exact same point when he was still your present, would you be cheating on the current guy you were with before you went back in time?) Ugh, this is so wrong on so many levels. We are going to hell, for sure.

F: See you there, sister.

Don't worry: for the most part, I do know right from wrong. Cheating is cheating, however it's explained or justified. (I will confess, though, that regarding the time machine scenario I'm not too sure. Just another example of how new technology is always accompanied by unique ethical and moral dilemmas.)

Yet I do understand why my friend feels the way she does, as much as I fully empathize with her struggle to get her head straight and do the right thing. You see, between divorcing my ex and meeting the man who is now my husband, I met up with someone from my past. After years of no contact between us, he picked me up from work and took me out to dinner. After a few initial moments of uncertainty and awkwardness we found ourselves talking and laughing freely again. The evening ended with a tight, at-first grateful, embrace and then segued into what seemed to be hours of passionate kisses. Everything about it -- how he smelled and tasted, the feel of his hands, the rhythm of my heartbeat -- was all too familiar. It was like I was transported back to then, when I didn't know where life was going to take me or where I would choose to go.

But the magic of his kiss, I later realized, was not in remembering the uncertainty of the past but in understanding the clarity of the present. I already knew that he and I couldn't be together and why and I had no desire to go through that all over again.

The past is a familiar place, even a comfortable one. But the comfort often comes from knowing how the past has led you to the here and now. If you hit the rewind button because you think that it might change the ending that's already been written, then perhaps you didn't learn anything at all from the experience. It's as pointless as asking all the same questions when you may already have the answers.

As for my friend -- well, she already has her answer. She only needs to realize that her past should not be the thing to propel her into action. It ought to be her future.

GIRLFRIENDS

I have a handful of girlfriends -- all who have absolutely nothing to do with one another. Their only common denominator is me, and if I gathered them up and sat them at my dinner table it would probably take a while before the conversation started to flow. Considering they are all intelligent, interesting, gregarious, and funny, I find this a bit puzzling. One would think we could form some kind of group and get together on weekends and special occasions at the very least. But we never have and perhaps never will.

All through my life (the majority of which was spent in an all-girls Catholic school), I've never liked being part of a crowd; when I was I'd always end up splitting off from the rest and go off on my own. I never chose to join a college sorority, even when asked to, and still now at work I'm not part of any clique or lunch group. (On the other hand I've joined student and community organizations but only because the whole point of being together was about the work or the cause.) I've always had a handful of close friends whom I'd spend time with separately, one at a time, and if you were to ask them to describe who I am, you would most likely receive different answers depending on whom you asked.

There was a period which lasted for a few years while I was in college when I preferred to spend time with my guy friends instead, whom I then found much less complicated. With a boy there was no competition, no fighting, and no dealing with moodiness. And because I grew up with no brothers, they gave me insight into how men thought and acted when there were no women around (even if I was -- though I thought of myself as "one of the guys"). The only downside, however, is that usually there came a point when someone would want to cross over from friendship to a romantic or sexual relationship and then it could get a bit awkward, even yucky. When it didn't, it would be good for a while and then we'd realize it wasn't working out; after we'd figure how to disentangle ourselves we'd discover things between us could never be completely the same again even if what we had now still wasn't quite bad at all.

When I became a bit older, after I'd gotten married (the first time) and was focused on my career, I realized I needed my girlfriends after all. Only they could understand what it was like to be a wife and climb the corporate ladder as a woman; only they knew what it was like to sometimes want to be married and single again at the same moment, or not want to go to work because you were on your period and cramps were killer.

Although I still have my guy friends, I have to admit that something inevitably changes whenever someone gets married. For instance, when I did, they all disappeared in an flash and no longer phoned or showed up at my door (they didn't think my husband would think it was cool for them to still be around). When I became single again and then they got married, the same thing happened, too, even if their wives had no issues with me.

My girlfriends, however, are still here, the same way they've always been. I can express the different sides of myself with each of them and yet feel like I'm still totally being true to who I am, and I never have to worry about being judged even when they tell me what they think I'm doing wrong. Sometimes we don't hear from each other for months -- and then when we're together again, we can pick up where we left off in a heartbeat. I can admit to them things I can't even bear to think about, if only to stop myself from acting on them; if I mess up they help me put things back together again.

Birds of a feather may flock together but we don't, at least not collectively. But if you want to know who I really am, get to know all my girlfriends. What you discover may not make any sense at first -- but then again, that's me.

THE OTHER WOMAN

My family tree is almost as tall as it is wide and has more names of people whom I have never met and unfortunately will never meet in my lifetime. A few months ago, I planted a small one on Geni and it has quickly grown and expanded into a thriving orchard, with countless seeds strewn on every spot of clear ground, waiting to germinate.

What my tree doesn't show are the numerous epiphytes and parasites that attach themselves mostly to its male branches, whom I will kindly refer to as "the Other Women." Please note that I am normally not as kind when referring to these (unwanted) attachments, and I will not reveal their specific locations (at least, of the ones I do know about) -- not that doing so will cause any to dislodge itself. These things have no shame after all.

All my life I have been equally disgusted and fascinated by these creatures. Early on I assumed, although not quite accepted, that they would always be a part of my (hopefully, distant) landscape, as they forever have been. Sometimes I am obsessed with them; I've wanted to curse, hex, and even kill them. And once I nearly became one of them. (You can become what you are consumed by, after all.)

I think about them constantly, more than they deserve: I wonder about their motives, their rationales, and even their raison d'etre. I've tried to understand why they would choose to break all bonds of sisterhood, tear families apart and thereby quake society by rupturing its foundation. I imagine how they might face themselves in the mirror (do they look yet not see?) and I ponder over how they might reconcile what they do with what they know. And yet I also understand that they are not the only culprits; depending on the situation they may be mere accomplices and not the main instigators. Still, they are never innocent.

I've learned that mistresses and concubines have existed as long as the history of marriage as an institution. Men married women not for love but for practical reasons (form alliances, avert war, care for household or help till the soil, etc.); once they were safe, secure, and comfortable they found an outlet for love and romance elsewhere.

According to Binnie Kirshenbaum's thought-provoking essay "Once Upon a Time It Took Three" in the excellent anthology The Other Woman: Twenty-One Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love, and Betrayal:

For each strata of society, marriage was a purely pragmatic affair, an economic and domestic arrangement set up with a clear intent, a determined division of labor, and the pooling of assets necessary to survival. You got married to keep house and to have children. If you were lucky, your parents chose for you a husband who didn't beat you or a wife who was very fertile and very strong. It was fortunate for the man if his wife did not smell too terrible and fortunate for the woman if her husband was not fifty-six years old to her twelve. And if you were exceptionally blessed, you and your spouse came to care for each other, maybe even to love each other. Not romantically love each other, but you might develop an affectionate love, a tender and caring love. As a component of marriage, passion and romance were frowned upon. Marriage was a rational affair; there was an order to marriage. Rules and laws and honor. Nothing goopy.

So there. History and tradition have often been used to justify any status quo and I suppose there are many who will rationalize their infidelity and betrayal by explaining how both are really not so but simply practical applications of the way things are and have always been. How convenient: we always manage to find ways to defend our decisions and actions by relabeling them so that we cannot be accused of what we are guilty of.

The only thing I have to say to those who use the past to defend the present is that people evolve. Or at least, we should. I understand love, romance, passion, and lust -- I really do, as these have been major elements in my life, for better or worse. But I also believe that all these can make us better people; that they can bring us happiness without destroying someone else's. Not that I will ever understand how we can ever truly be happy while knowing fully well that it was at someone else's expense.

Apparently, the Other Woman can.