I tried to push the envelope yesterday by attempting to paint another scene last night after producing that starry sea scape in the afternoon. Because I drained my creative juices to the hilt, I ended up with a less than desirable interpretation of my photo of a tree at Hitachi Seaside Park. I stopped and slept.

I said I will sleep and fix it today.

I used an old chipped ceramic plate as a mixing palette because plastic ones get stained and it’s hard to remove the paint that could contaminate my other colors. Since I told myself that I would be continuing this tonight, I didn’t bother cleaning up but it was sooooo wrong. I ended up working on my day job around this mess. And to think I was so busy today editing time-sensitive stories, one of which is a follow-up to our market-moving story two weeks ago. I was editing until 7 pm tonight…

In between edits, my seamstress arrived to make a final fitting for the sofa covers. I needed to have my covers custom made because 1) I want sturdy but comfortable fabrics that are resistant to my cats’ nasty claws; 2) they have to fit perfectly to my sofas for a more elegant look.

Yes call me boring but I had no choice in terms of color because the material that I wanted is not available in other colors. My priority is comfort and strength rather than aesthetics. Once I have more fabric options, I will have another set made for my two sofas. I need two sets because I can’t leave the sofa bare while I have the covers washed.

Meanwhile, I was doodling, practicing on making human figures while I was on a call.

Ok let’s see how my rehabilitation efforts on my disaster of a painting would look like…

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Tree in the sea of nemophila at Hitachi Seaside Park in the style of Van Gogh.

Hitachi for me was like Arles for Van Gogh. I cannot capture its beauty but I can translate on paper how I felt about it.

I can now sleep.

Tomorrow I can try painting á la Studio Ghibli.

I need to drive first to Quezon City for some banking KYC stuff and meet a friend who needed career advice. Actually two friends needed career advice, both asking whether they should stay in journalism or not.

I both told them leave their respective companies now if they’re not growing. It doesn’t matter if it’s still in journalism or not.

I messed up the sky. It was just supposed to be a few “stars” but I sprinkled too much white gouache onto the sky, so there…I can’t undo it since that velvety sky is made up of layers upon layers of different hues of blue.

I’ll just have to make another painting to wash the shame away. 🫠

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I was just mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, searching for gouache paintings/inspiration when the memories function of IG slipped this on my feed, this photo I uploaded on Feb 6, 2022 :

I had already forgotten that two years ago around this time I was so crushed.

I didn’t realize that it has already been two years since my last major breakdown. Two days before this IG post, I received a painting from the ex, which had an opposite effect of what he probably intended. After so much digging that day, I learned about the woman whom he cheated me with. The digital creator wanna-be who didn’t have any other content on her page but selfies, showing off her boobs, and her multi-level marketing whatever (and as a business journo, I know MLMs are scams). A friend asked me seriously, “Is she a transwoman?!” I said, “you’re so baaaaadddd!” He said, “no, really, she looks like a transwoman!” My girls also said the same, on different occasions. 🤣

Another friend said, she looks like comedienne Ai-Ai delas Alas.

I know we shouldn’t put down other women to feel good about ourselves but at that time, what my friends were pointing out was I shouldn’t feel worthless “because you’re waaaaaaaayyyyyy beyond her. Don’t try to measure yourself against her.” Of course, I wasn’t listening at that time. I felt so ugly, fat, and unworthy. For a long time.

I was on medication and was still in therapy that time that’s why I didn’t crash but it was a very, very tough climb from the bottom of the barrel.

To ease the pain, I turned to drawing, to express whatever I had inside. Everybody was asking how I was but words were not enough so I sent them drawings to capture how I was hurting.

Because I had to heal myself, I was able to unearth my old hobby, laying dormant for 25 years.

Should I be thankful for this episode because I began to draw and paint again? Nope, I’m not yet at that stage but I’ve already gone so far in terms of being able to forget significant dates, being able to tell myself that nah, I’m better than her, and that I’m finding more value in myself than what he (the ex) used me for.

As for the art, I’m still so far. Watercolor is much harder to use than gouache. Getting the colors right and making the paint behave as you intended them to behave is extremely hard in watercolor. I mess up so much, like those stars in that painting above, but hey, that’s gouache so…that means I’m also bad at gouache.

But I’ve come far because now I paint not because I hurt, but because I love it.

The kitties are getting bigger and I guess they’re healthy as their mama had been very well fed when she was pregnant. Mama cat is having a hard time fitting into this box while feeding them so I finally brought out the house I bought from Lazada.

I had barricaded the entry with cardboard so they won’t stray and fall off my stairs.

She’s just so grateful for a warm, dry and comfortable place to nurse. Safe, too, since she won’t get bullied as much by the neighborhood strays because this is just right by my doorstep.

What about when the kitties can climb over the barricade? I guess I can put them in a bigger box?

I finished and sent the draft of the piece I labored over the weekend. Had to gut it because it was too long. I deserve to take it easy this week because I worked overtime on my rest days.

It’s so hot! It’s summer 😑 Too early 😢

After church, my girls and I decided to have early dinner at the local Thai restaurant. We had the staple street food, not the ones we order in restaurants in Bangkok that required reservation.

It’s not as spicy as normal—it’s adapted to local palette but they left you options like if you want your Pad Kra Pao to be spicy, you have the red bird’s eye chili on the side and it’s up to you to mash it with the Thai holy basil mixture. Normally, you mix garlic, chilis, and shallots, make a paste by using mortar and pestle. In this case, the ground beef was stir-fried with the garlic-shallot combo (as you normally do with Southeast Asian cooking) and not as a paste. I asked to take home the dipping sauce for the chicken as I could use it for pork chops the next day.

Let me rest for a bit for my gouache trial tonight.

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I now know why animators and illustrators use gouache for their art. Its opacity allows elements to pop out.

I want a studio so I could spread out. It’s hard to paint with my huge gouache tray eating too much table real estate; I had to hold my ceramic plate (as mixing plate) the entire time I was painting. It gets tiring.

Weather is lovely; not too hot. Compared to Sikatuna, which is 26 degrees right now, I’m in an enviable position.

I just finished the tedious car registration renewal yesterday afternoon…you would really wonder why we Filipinos can’t have nice things in life. It took quite a while to finish the process because the IT stystem was down again. I overheard the lady said STRADCOM was down so they couldn’t finish the pending registration of other applicants.

I messaged my transport reporter friend and asked him why the hell STRADCOM still in business with LTO? I thought their contract has ended and this is exactly what I had been ranting about two years ago on TV (when another journo friend interviewed me about this) and on Twitter.

He said some IT services are still with STRADCOM. That company held hostage LTO’s database for a long time…

I wrote a series of Tweets about this and an FB post in 2022. This is what you get for letting corruption flourish. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Ah, let me sleep this anger first. I will have to drive my girls to Ayala Vertis North later today to celebrate the birthday of their friend.

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Since my girls were with their friends, I had the entire afternoon for myself. I was able to finish an analytical piece, complete with graphics that I rendered on Excel. I’m quite satisfied with myself. 😁

I realized that this mall doesn’t have much in terms of retail stores but it is compensated by the number of restaurants and cafes, gyms, and other lifestyle outlets. Like what my Manila reporter and I wrote years ago in an analytical piece, before the pandemic, malls in Metro Manila were allocating 30% (or more) of their gross floor area to restaurants and lifestyle centers. Malls in Metro Manila have become substitute to parks (which are sorely lacking in this metro) and other public places due to poor urban planning. My bosses are surprised that we have clinics, spas, and even churches (Catholic and Protestant) inside malls. Malls are also places where people stay until traffic has eased. At the same time, retail has slowed down a bit because of ecommerce but it’s not as bad as in the US. Filipinos still like buying in person—whatever the traffic situation may be.

Meanwhile, I snagged a complete set of Jane Austen from one second-hand bookstore kiosk at Ayala Vertis.

Let’s see if I could finish this this coming Holy Week.

And oh, I finally caved in. I bought a huge tray of gouache. It’s like playing with acrylic.

And by the way, this is me:

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My sister and I checked the local maar lake after work so we can gauge whether this is a better option than the resort much father from our home. Well this is just 20 mins away and much better in terms of activities offered (kayaking, crossing the lake on a raft, volleyball on the other side of the lake, glamping, archery, rappelling, ziplining, climbing, etc.) and the hot spring pools are really hot—as hot as the artificially heated pools in Lasema in Makati. I had to ask the caretaker if they have in-room massages and yes, they do! This strengthens my observation that water along the lake/s here are hotter than on the other side of the national highway/on the mountainside.

Since this is already under the protection of the national government, the pollution of this lake was halted when aquaculture became banned 40 years ago. It also helped that the land surrounding the lake are already privately owned, hence, no one could disturb the area.

It’s really peaceful here.

Now the problem is when to go here. Weekdays are perfect because no one is here, like today. However, the kids are in school on weekdays. The coming Chinese New Year long weekend guarantees that this area will be teeming with people. Relaxation is impossible.

Because I was called away from home until 6 pm, I didn’t have time to cook dinner. I just brought my girls to a Tex-Mex resto and stuffed our faces with these:

I interviewed one exec of a Cambodian conglomerate the other day and I already know this person from way back. Anyway, we reconnected and I told him that I plan to visit Phnom Penh and Siem Reap so I can interview more people and establish contacts there, which I initially planned to do in Myanmar before the coup as I have already established contacts, one is of them is the CFO of a big conglomerate there, and some advisors. He said they have a hotel in Siem Reap and in Phnom Penh and he said just let them know when so they can make arrangements. Well, I don’t expect them to host me (because their hotel in Siem Reap is really pricey); assistance in setting up transportation from Phnom Penh to Angkor Wat would be great though. I also had established contact with another Cambodian conglomerate through the son of the owner who runs the group now.

Now if the company considers this a non-priority market, then so be it. I will be doing this on my own dime and time.

I just wonder when I can actually do this when I’m flying to HK and work there for a week in March; April in Singapore; May or June we will be going to Bohol (which is still being debated because my sister wants Boracay for convenience whereas my girls want to dive). But I really want to go to Camiguin Island but getting there is a major hassle because flights are not frequent.

When can I have my me-time???