Monday, May 28, 2012

Skinny Sweets in SMX

To begin, I'd like to thank my team of ever so supportive friends who stood by my side, day in and day out, all throughout this entire endeavor! I couldn't have done it (as happily) without you guys to help pass the time! So Mack, Jandi, and Kalvin, whom will henceforth be known as the Skinny Sweets Afternoon Crew, thank you!

I'd also like to extend a big thank you to my friends who ventured all the way to SMX just to support and try out our newest products! Kyra, Mykee, Gio, and Kristine, thank you! I'm glad you guys enjoyed the sweets :D

Thank you to my family who came to show their support, and a big hug to my business partner, Raleene, and Gigi for working as hard as I did on this! We did it! (= After our mad dash and scramble days before the actual bazaar, I'm so happy we had the chance to put Skinny Sweets out there on an ever bigger map.

We have another bazaar coming up on June 2 so please stay tuned for further details! Also, we're expanding to very new waters soon and I hope everyone will be just as supportive, if not even more so. Again, thank you everyone!

Monday, May 21, 2012

Kuya Manny

An Open Letter to Manny Pacquiao From a Gay Filipina American

By Laurel Fantauzo
May 17, 2012

Dear Manny,

Hello, Kuya1 Manny. May I call you Kuya Manny? You feel like "Kuya" to me: Whenever you fight, my other Filipino American friends and I light up our Facebook feeds with pugilistic patriotism for our parents' homeland. You feel like ours. Your wins are our wins.

But today my friends had a lot of names for you. "Bigot" and "idiot" were their favorites. I keep looking inside me for some anger at you, but, weirdly, I just can't find it. Instead, I find that I just want to talk to you.

Well, Kuya Manny, I have to say, first: I'm glad it turns out that you don't want me to die. I believe you when you say you haven't read the Book of Leviticus yet.

But I have read Leviticus, Kuya. I've read it too many times. When I was in Catholic high school, and I couldn't help but know, more and more, what I was, I'd page through it in secret. I'd page through that passage in the Book of Romans, too. And I'd look at the Corinthians verse you cited. I kept looking for those passages, hoping that maybe, somehow, magically, their verdict had changed when I looked away. But the verses didn't change. So I repeated to myself what the verses meant — that I was condemned to death and/or a life alone. That I should be left outside of every good, lasting kind of intimacy. That I would never get the chance to make my own family, because I was different in a way that prevented me from getting to do so. Knowing this at age 16 made me feel OK about dying early. Knowing this at age 16 made me wonder if I should speed my own death along.

But like I said! You don't want me to die for being gay! That's good. I'm glad. (I hope you don't change your mind about that when you finally do get around to reading Leviticus.)

I know, though, that you also don't want me to be married. I know you think this is a perfectly reasonable, justified stand to take against me. You're like a lot of Filipinos: Catholic. Powerfully, post-colonially Catholic. Catholic na Catholic.

I've stood in front of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo Church that you pray to after each fight, Kuya Manny. I've felt the power and the grace of it. I get it. I get why you look at the long-suffering statue and feel the vindication of your own brutal bouts. When you grow up Filipina — or Italiapina, as I did — your parents give you Catholicism as a kind of heavy gift. A centuries-old guide for every life transition a human can go through. Birth, death, the burden of any wrongdoing, and, yes, marriage. But as I grew older and realized the dreaded word applied to me — lesbian — I realized the Church was what I'd have to feint and duck; the Church's cruel, untrue dictates about me were what I'd have to dance with and defeat.

I watched your last fight in a movie theatre in Manila, Kuya Manny. I watched it sitting between two other women who are like me. Oh, we winced and worried for you. We felt like we were at Mass, leaning forward and praying together with all the hushed Filipinos who watched you stagger and darken with bruises. We wanted you to win. Marquez looked stronger, but we wanted you to win. And when Michael Buffer declared you the winner, we got up and cheered and clapped for you. Because we love your story, Kuya. We don't love what you say about us — we don't love that you say we'll be left out of the Kingdom of God for being gay. But we love that you grew from a poor, underweight little boy on the streets of General Santos City into a champion the world knows as Filipino.

But between your time in the ring, your time in Congress, your time at your game show, your time tending to the poor crowds who gather, palms out, wherever you are, hoping you'll bless them with your wealth, I wonder if one question rings quietly inside of you: How did I survive?

It's the same question that still rings inside of me, at age 28, 12 years removed from the moments when I thought I should speed along my own death, actualizing everything the Bible said I should endure for loving the way I love. When I faced Proposition 22, Proposition 8, DOMA, Amendment 1, and too many dictates from the Church, and relatives, and leaders like you, who called me disordered, dangerous, diseased, doomed, how did I survive?

I'll tell you what helped me survive, Kuya. The team of friends, teachers, and family — even a priest! A Catholic priest! — who coached me that my need for partnership was as natural as your union with your wife. The barkada who put their hands on my shoulders in my own tough corners and taught me again and again this lesson: God did not intend for any of us to move through this life alone, gay or not.

And you know who I think about most, when I look back at this moment in the movie theater in Manila, Kuya? When I leaned forward and worried and prayed for your painful victory? I think about your wife. I think about your Jinkee. I think about how, fight after fight, she's watched you from ringside. I think about how fiercely she still defends you — how you'll probably have that defense for the rest of your life.

I don't have a wife yet, Kuya, but I hope one day I will. And you know what? I hope my wife will be like Jinkee. I hope I'll have a wife who will wait for me beyond the ropes as I step into whatever ring requires my own personal fight. I hope I'll have a wife who forgivingly remains with me, in spite of any fits of un-Catholic disloyalty that may grip me. I hope I'll have a wife who will tell everyone that she believes in my power, despite my ridiculous, laughable acts. I hope I will deserve that kind of wife. I hope I will be that kind of wife.

Kuya Manny, why would you deny this of me? In those quiet moments I imagine for you, when you ask yourself how you survived, I believe that your wife, more than anyone, is the one who helps to lessen the loneliness of your greatness. Ask yourself: Could you have survived all of this without her?

I'm glad I didn't die, Kuya Manny, and that I survived to this day, when more people in my life decry you than support you for wanting to prevent my marriage in the name of some cold, removed Church and God. Every day I am amazed by the wealth of my survival. I'm as amazed as you must be, or have forgotten to be, about yours.

So I'm going to extend an invitation to you, Kuya Manny, that I don't think a lot of gays would extend to you these days. I want to invite you to spend some time with me and my friends.

I want you to hear our love stories. I want you to eat with us. I want you to laugh with us. I want you to see our bruises. I want you to sing karaoke with us. I want you to see how we sing even though we're bruised, too. I know there's a better heart in you, Kuya Manny, that would beat with more than the repetitive ill will you bear toward us in the biblical abstract. If you spent some time with us — if you saw the specific sweetness that makes up our human pursuit of love and marriage — maybe you'd think, you'd feel, you'd change. The way my parents have changed toward me. The way my President has changed toward me. The way I've changed toward myself.

Kuya Manny, I want you to want me to win.

But maybe you never will. Maybe you'll simply reopen your Bible, find those selective passages, and recite them to me again. Maybe I'll simply have to sigh wearily and turn away from you, the way I've turned away from all of the idiotic bigots I've come across in my life, carrying a cross or a heavy book or a Constitution.

Either way, Kuya Manny. I feel too sad to celebrate your fights right now.

But my invitation is open to you.

I hope one day you'll take it.

Sincerely,
Your Ading

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Traffik

Watch 'til the end. Chills. The faces. The reactions. The message. So powerful.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Dad

"It is admirable for a man to take his son fishing, but there is a special place in heaven for the father who takes his daughter shopping." - John Sinor

Dad, some great man said it long before I did! Alam mo na yan! Haha!

Happy birthday to the strongest, smartest, funniest, and above all, most handsome man in the world -- Jimmy Stewart! And to you too! (Oha, I researched that pa!!!) I'm kidding, of course. You surpass them all. :P

I love you so much, pop!!! Thank you for everything! ♥ ♥ ♥

Thanks for being my hero, and thank you for being my dad.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Superb Bazaar

Skinny Sweets is heading to the Superb Bazaar at the SMX! Don't forget to drop by for a little bit of heaven! See you there!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Hanging Rock

Stumbled upon this comic/ diary/ blog of this 17 year old girl and it is one of the most fascinating things I've ever read! Her razor sharp wit and affinity for the darker things brings me back to days of yore, when I was once an angry, young girl suffering from severe teen angst. Fans of Daria will be delighted with her!

Check out here blog HERE (:

Monday, May 14, 2012

Dark Shadows

Though a bit disjointed with an array of confusing storylines and unimportant characters, I immensely enjoyed Dark Shadows. It is what you can expect from the dark comic genius of the terrible twosome that is Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Dark, humorous, and campy good fun, Dark Shadows is a treat for Burton and Depp fans alike. Backed by some stellar performances by the wonderful cast -- Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, and Chloe Moretz, the film won't disappoint fans of the occult. Especially those whose memories of darker days still mingled with their childhood humor and imagination.

Barnabas (Johnny Depp) has the world at his feet-or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy...until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Mother's Day

Some of my favorite people in the world are mothers so I'm always happy that at least once a year -- the collective human race gets together to celebrate the beauty that is our moms! (: Of course, it needn't be said that we should shower our moms with love all year round. Duh. But seeing as how we're all so busy and important, I think it's nice that on this day, we celebrate not only the love we have for our mothers, but our mothers themselves!

My facebook dashboard is already being filled with thousands of photos of beautiful mommas the world over! Good job, friends!

With that, I'd like to greet my Mom a Happy Mother's Day! I love you! You truly are one of a kind. There is no heart softer, nor spine thicker. Thank you for everything.

I'd also like to greet my sister, Mommy Mai, for raising the smartest, most beautiful, kindest, spunkiest, fiercest little girl in the world! Only you can accomplish that. My other sisters as well, who are honorary mothers to our little bundles of joy (the doggies), ate Blu, ate Iyay, and ate Jill.

And last, but certainly not the least, my friends who are mothers. No one in the world is as strong as you guys. I love you!

Friday, May 11, 2012

The Boutique

I'm one of those few people who actually go on vacation to stay in. I do what I basically do when I have time to veg it out at home. So when my friends asked if I was game to check in to Tagaytay's the Boutique, I jumped at the opportunity. Of course, I've already seen the wonders that is their rooms when I accompanied ate Jill to do ocular for her wedding, but really, staying in is an altogether different experience.