It’s about doing errands with joy and you own your time. You can choose not to do anything or make yourself more productive.

Twin I asked if I could make lasagna even though we no longer have a slow cooker (I gave it away). I picked a box of dried lasgna noodles, a small pack of Italian spaghetti sauce and figured out the rest at home. I researched online how long can I cook lasagna in the Instant Pot. One recipe says 20 mins. I didn’t have the pan that it prescribed so I decided to just plop everything straight into the inner pot.

I already have ragu sauce in my fridge (leftover from my previous spaghetti dinner), made béchamel sauce, then added the cream cheese that has been in my chiller for quite a while. I threw in some quick melt cheddar cheese to finish the small cube that has been hanging around my fridge.

I alternateded the layers of ragu, beéchamel,and noodles. I also made sure there was enough liquid to help create pressure.

The noodles are still al dente, not mushy as I feared it might turn out, while the cheesy sauce is gooey but good.

We went to the weekend market this morning to have my hand soap pumps refilled (I’m more into sustainable consumerism these days) by a green store I patronize. It makes environment-friendly products and bringing your own containers for liquid hand soaps, laundry detergent, and dishwashing liquid soap is a must. They also make shampoo bars and conditioners, and handmade soaps that I also buy for myself.

Aside from buying breakfast and lunch for me and my girls, I lugged home three plants that I bought for PhP 50 each. I didn’t bring a car and we just walked from our house as a form of exercise.

What I dragged home were herbs that I will use for cooking. I realized I have more success keeping herbs alive than ornamental flowers. 😒 My sweet basil and dill are still alive despite the horrific summer that we had.

So I bought very leafy Thai holy basil because I wanted to make pad kra pao at home. Spearmint is for tea-making, while tarragon is for cream sauces. I can also make omelettes with tarragon and cheese. My rosemary died after the blazing summer that we had because it drowned in the torrential rain in the last week of May. Rosemary doesn’t like water that much.

I tied the herbs on my balcony railing because it’s near my kitchen. Culinary herbs should be accessible so they won’t be forgotten.

Since I was already gardening, might as well go all the way.

I removed the dead plants or whatever that’s left of them. I used the grow bags with the same soil to grow the seeds of bird’s eye chilis and bell peppers I had been collecting from my kitchen scraps. I also sowed some Chinese cabbage seeds in some grow bags. I placed them on my stairs so I can easily monitor them. If I’m successful, then I will start building my garden beds. But first I have to have the huge sampaloc/tamarind tree trimmed so there will be more sunlight in the garden.

I figured that I would be better off planting lettuce and pechay or bok choy in hanging planters to keep them off soil parasites and for them to have access to more sunlight since my fruit trees are giving too much shade.

Hopefully the oncoming typhoons will not destroy my starter vegetable garden.

The main reason why I traveled to Ortigas and brought my girls with me was that I was invited to a special block screening of the movie Inside Out. I just added some meetings on the side to make my trip worthwhile.

And ohhhh boy, this movie made me tear up. My girls are the same age as Riley Anderson and they could relate to her on the surface level, like the struggles of trying to fit in, the initial feeling of losing friends because they won’t go to the same high school after being together in middle school…

But the entire movie is about what makes a PERSON human. Overwhelming emotions, like anxiety, controling us do not define US. Life is not about just keeping all the good stuff and erase all the negative ones by suppressing them. What make us the persons we are now include all the horrible memories, all the bad feelings, and the experiences that you would rather forget.

It’s just like this song:

I’m not gonna fight back what I’ve become
Yeah, I’ve got bruises where I came from
But I wouldn’t change if I could restart
I ain’t gonna hide these beautiful scars
I’ve been going way too hard on myself
Guess that it’s the reason that I’m feeling like hell
But I wouldn’t change if I could restart
I ain’t gonna hide these beautiful scars

Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) has been trying to suppress those, kicking all the negative memory balls to the back of Riley’s mind, thinking that Riley is just going to be comprised of all the good stuff. Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke) has other plans.

As we grow older, more complex feelings creep in and all these try to control our brains, our lives. They fight for their right to define who we are. Maturity is about how we embrace and at the same time master all these.

Riley repeating the statement, “I am not good enough,” is very familiar to us who have been paralyzed by this mantra, causing us to doubt ourselves after getting beaten down  by life. For Riley, this self-doubt pushed herself to the limit because she desperately wanted to be accepted. She got fried instead. For me, however, this self-doubt took hold of me for a long time after a seismic shift and caused me to completely break down.

When Riley was experiencing panic attack, with all the hyperventilation and repeat of “I’m not good enough” over and over inside her head, something clicked within me. I HAD THE SAME EXPERIENCE. During those times, anxiety and depression owned me.

Since Riley is just 13, she was able to snap out of it because she had a good support systen. But for us who had experienced the earth shifting beneath out feet and destroyed the walls we have put up, anxiety can indeed short-circuit our brains and stay for a long time.

My eyes began to water when Joy saw the negative memories that she had been working hard to banish began flooding the brain pool then started shooting multicolored strands. She realized that all the suppressed memories were important to make a beautiful crystalline tower of Riley.

It’s hard to explain everything if one hasn’t seen the first and then this second installment of Inside Out. The script was brilliant and mental health professionals approve.

Speaking of panic attacks, I remember having one while I was driving along C5 and I thought I was having a heart attack. I had reflux and palpitations—I called my cousin-in-law who was an OR nurse at that time at The Medical City. He told me to go to stop and leave my car and head straight to the ER.

I was reminded of my father who vomited when he had a massive heart attack.

My ECG showed I was normal and they diagnosed it was just acid reflux. I was sent home with an Rx for antacids. However, my sister’s friend told my sister that what I was experiencing was clearly a panic attack.

It wasn’t the only time I had a panic attack. I had several of those thereafter, while I was still married.

I couldn’t understand at that time why I was having those. My first psychiatrist made me realize that it was trauma response to the great burden of being with my ex-husband who has narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). I didn’t realize that the anxiety of having him around was already eating me alive.

I thought my panic attacks left me when we separated.

I was sooo wrong. They returned with a vengeance everytime I discovered or had bad realizations about ex-J. I clearly remember clutching my chest because of palpitations and while having an acid reflux when I was at the intersection of Kalayaan Ave and V. Luna. Luckily traffic was not bad and I was able to stop by the nearest curbside where I could temporarily park. I was hyperventilating. That was the time when I discovered about the transwoman-like (Twin I’s and my friend L’s term) gf whom the ex-J cheated me with. I called up my friend, B, and talked to her, crying-screaming at her. B just told me to let it out.

Just like Riley in Inside Out, a voice inside me kept echoing that I wasn’t good enough. It was anxiety talking to me.

And I quote myself from that time:

“I could never measure up and will never be enough.

I’m just me. Simple. Earthy. I live by my wits. I don’t have the body, I don’t have money, and I only just have my brains to live on. I live by my hands, I want to create things, I’m not glamorous and will never be.”

Yes, Riley, anxiety gets the better of us. But don’t worry, it doesn’t define you. A little anxiety is good to guard is from harm or prepare us from challenges but it shouldn’t take control of who we are.

This is what Senator Riza Hontiveros has been telling the whole world: Chinese spies had been living among us and Duterte made it easier for them infiltrate the Philipoine government. Sen. Hontiveros’ research team has been harping about the fake mayor in Tarlac, who is a Chinese citizen and a spy by China’s Communist Party.

Whether these PLA uniforms are used for scams or they’re indeed members of PLA, the Philipoine government shouldn’t rest and leave the investigation hanging.

Even foreign media has uncovered the connection of “Alice Guo’s” father to CCP.

And what makes me angry is that Chinese military is already in Palawan, which is clearly ours. The fuckers!

I will never set foot again in mainland China. Nope. Last I was there was 10 years ago and what I brought home with me was a very bad strain of pneumonia.

If I still have that printing shop, I would have made a T-shirt with a print of the Kalayaan/Spratley’s islands and Palawan map and the words “West Philippine Sea is Ours!”

Meanwhile, my wound is covered with the only available medicated plaster at home.

I had to go out and buy transparent plasters for my trip to Ortigas since I have a meeting tomorrow. I can’t look stupid with a cartoon-printed plaster on my forehead!

I have to fill up my calendar with meetings and conferences before I disappear to Bohol. I need to produce 10 stories for July and one long piece. The coming month is traditionally dry in terms of stories in my experience and I don’t want to be scrambling for stories towards the end of the month, especially we have a moratorium on traveling for work these days. 

If I would spend from my own pocket to be able to set meetings, I would rather travel to Vietnam or Thailand because 1) it’s cheaper; 2) I need more contacts there. I could try Cambodia but it’s really not a big market for me. Before the coup, I intended to visit Myanmar as I have already met some contacts there. Oh well.

Maybe if I get my bonus, I’ll try to fly to Vietnam in 3Q or before the year ends.

My surgeon used a dark thread for my stitches so for now I look like Harry Potter with a misplaced lightning scar. But it’s so refreshing to see my forehead without that lump. It’s only now that I bothered to search in my archives for some photos that would show when the lump started to appear. I saw that way back 2016 there was a visible lump already but it wasn’t that glaring.

At least now the bruising is gone and it seems like the wound will close up nicely.

I don’t think I have to be in the OR when the doctor removes my stitches on Monday. Hopefully my forehead doesn’t look weird by Tuesday because I have a meeting in BGC, then the next day I have an interview with somebody in Vietnam, then 30 mins after that is my breast ultrasound. I have to jump into my car and rush to the radiology dept of the hospital where I had my mammogram.

Friends were flabbergasted that I didn’t take time off after my surgery. Well, it wasn’t a major surgery so there’s no need for long healing period but it sure was painful.

I want to finish all these health checks so I can focus on other things.

I just ordered from Lazada a 30m utility rope to attach to my diving buoy, some carabiners, and diving weights. Also bought a bag for my fins and my girls’ fins because I need to have these checked in when we fly to Bohol in a few weeks. I have to bring my portable air pump to inflate my diving buoy.

I should plan our next diving trip. Coron perhaps towards the end of the year to avoid the huge typhoons from the southeast up to northeast.

Anesthesia resistance goes hand in hand with pain reliever resistance, I guess. When I had my gall bladder taken out in 2014, I remember waking up in the middle of surgery and asking why was I still alive—I meant to say “awake” but confused it with “alive”. It seemed like people panicked and my anesthesiologist told me that, of course, I’m supposed to be alive. Then after surgery, I was told by my anesthesiologist that they couldn’t knock me out. She said I kept on talking and telling stories but for the life of me I couldn’t remember any of it.

When I got back to my room and woke up, the anesthesia wore off and I experienced unbearable pain. I guess it was more painful than my caesarian surgery because they only had to open me up and get the babies, who were just lying on top of my messed up organs. But getting my gall bladder out involved digging through a lot of fat and muscles so the stitches had to go down deep.

They had to increase my morphine dosage because the previous dose wasn’t working. I was in agony.

The same is happening now but to a lesser degree. My head fucking hurts. I was able to see the bruising through the plaster and watchamacallit that keeps the wound from getting wet after I washed my hair and bathed my body. I decided to keep the band around my forehead because I don’t want the hematoma to go down further and it keeps my forehead from moving when my face is showing expressions.

Moving my eyebrows is painful enough. Damn.

On the flipside, just as my doctor warned, my hairline above my stitches is numb because there was some damage to the facial nerves when the lipoma was excised. It will take three months before my hairline would feel normal again. It feels weird not to feel anything at all along my scalp. So the numbness is above my wound but my wound and everything below it hurts so much. Even wincing hurts. Moving my facial muscles hurt. My right face hurts. The oral pain reliever is not working. Well, normal morphine dose didn’t work for me 10 years ago. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Gaaaahhhhh!

To keep my mind off the pain, I was entertained by my fluffies.

As Twin I said, Kimchi is God’s laziest soldier.

I warned my surgeon that I have a weird resistance to anesthesia, so he said he will slightly hike the dosage. At some point when he was prying the lipoma out of the muscles it was buried under, I felt some kind of stabbing pain but it was minute. However, technically I shouldn’t have felt that but 🤷🏻‍♀️ what can I do?

He said heavy drinkers have this condition. I joked, well I came from this university so…🙃 He got it. He also had his undergraduate in this uni and went to UP College of Med-PGH in Manila so of course he knows.

So now I know it’s not a myth. 🤣

Funny doc, he kept on repeating that the lipoma he removed was “cute.” how can a mass of fat cells be cute?

Then he showed me. Oh well, it’s really round.

I asked if it could have been removed by liposuction. He said it’s too solid for that. It’s also good that I chose to have the incision directly over the tumor instead of doing the roundabout way—in which he would have to do the incision within my hairline—because the lipoma was embedded underneath my muscles and just above my bone. It would have made things more complicated. Even with this straightforward job, he still had to cut through muscles and a lot of blood vessels and nerves. That’s the reason why I’m in a lot of pain after the local anesthesia has worn off.

I also have to wear this band over my wound so that the hematoma would not spread down to my face because of gravity. I may end up with a black eye in the coming days.

He took a picture of the stitches and he used the traditional one, which does not melt, because he said healing is faster via this method. He would take out the stitches next Monday. Hopefully it’s not as ugly as how it is painful.

He sent the tumor for biopsy and will get the result in a week or two. Hopefully, it doesn’t show that I have sarcomas or potentially develop sarcomas.

So the entire day I’m just horizontal. My head aches, not just because I was awakened at 4 am today, but also the stabbing pain on my wound also made my entire head heavy. I drove myself from the hospital with a dull stabbing pain from my wound and I arrived just 10 mins before my video meeting with my boss and my team. When we have calls with my boss, we have our cameras on. Yes, they’ve seen my condition, which wasn’t my intention. The stabbing pain got in the way of my speaking because it distracted me and caused me to to be confused or have brain fog.

I asked my boss for a day off today. I just can’t adult today.

Twin A asked, why did I have to go through this pain when I was told the tumor is not cancerous? I said it’s better to be safe because we wouldn’t totally know it’s not cancerous until the biopsy shows it’s not. However, my doctor is positive it’s just lipoma and not liposarcoma since I described this lump as being there since 2018 or earlier and hasn’t grown dramatically over a short period. But he is still making sure he has covered all bases.

I told my daughter this is just part of my self-care, just the same as my breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings. After years of taking care of other people, it’s time that I take care of myself. It’s possible now to do this because I don’t have a partner to take care of as I have limited bandwidth and headpsace to do all of the nurturing duties in years prior. The mother’s/wife’s/female partner’s healthcare is put in the backburner because she has to keep everything together even though her body is already falling apart. She has to chug along like a train or else nothing gets done. Her descent will hasten if her partner does not pull his weight and contribute to the nurturing part of a family and relationship.

So during the dinner here at home with friends, one bff asked me if I’m still looking for a partner. I said no. I’m ok as it is. I’m able to take care of myself now.

Walk Down The Road

Walked the streets today
Mindless of the way
I argued with my feet
I wanted to go this way
But went that way
Fate had me in its grip
And by chance and grace
Both I wondered why
I suddenly looked up
And in your deep, deep eyes I saw
The smile of all smiles
In my naked wanderings I thought
I heard you whisper my name
And there you are soft and slumbered
And cradled in her arms
Well, I tried to understand
Why you set me free
Was it love or insecurity
You let me be?
I walk down the road
I look up at the sky
Now I know why
Reasoning has conquered me
I can’t and won’t deny the fact
My heart beats a special drum
Only for you
But I’m glad to be on my own
I have never been this free
From all suspicion and the pain
Grown year upon year
I walk down the road
I look up at the sky
Now I know why
Give me space
Give me time
Don’t lose yourself in any harm
Water rushes down my back
Down the water runs
Walking in the rain then seemed beyond conception
But I’ve never been so alive
So much in love with life
And from the grey, grey sky
Fell the tear of all tears
I walked down the road
Looked up at the sky
Now I know why
I walk down the road
I look up at the sky
Now I know why