Gratis

Achilles (and I'm not kidding you, that's really my editor's name), sent me this joshing message as soon as I got in this morning: "You're alone". I replied with: I know. Rub it in! And do you know what kids do when they are home alone?

The art director is on paternity leave, the sales managers are in places where the bosses can't reach them, my editor is banging (no other meaning intended) his laptop at home, and everyone else is on a slave plane on their way to Cebu for a convention. The lucky one gets to be left behind with lots of coffee, a tall glass of red tea and a few crackers. And that is me. The idea of being left alone didn't mortify me although it was strangely comforting to say: Oh my! I'm gonna be alone the whole Friday! I was only half-listening to myself.

Oh wait. I forgot to turn on the water dispenser. I also have five gallons of water, promising to have undergone a very scientific process, all to myself. I don’t know what it is about me but I do read labels. Sometimes I think I may be obsessed with propaganda and all sorts of advertising gimmicks. But I wish never to be confined in the MRT longer than ten minutes ever again with that iterating ad about “big ship, small ship and friendship.”

It's a week away from production time and the climate is working on the panic button to go off, however not really discombobulating me in any way. Imagine if you go affright in every production then you'd be dead in a year. No more, no less. Cause of death: Asphyxiation by the “core” (a personal joke among the Big C people).

Yet as I am enjoying my solitude, I have no claim to power tripping among hiding roaches because I am free to put my feet up on regular days. I am free to feed my frequent hunger. Free to write blogs. Free to laugh in different pitches. Free to sing. Free to drink more than the maximum number of cups of coffee in a day. Free to send real time messages. Free to breathe. Free to take a power nap (although I never do this). Free to sit and think and just think some more. Free to panic whenever I want to for no reason at all. Free to speak to the ‘big ones’ if I feel like it. Free to answer the phone or refuse to budge when it rings. Free to be grouchy and be happy at the same time (which really is the embodiment of myself).

I can almost write a song about what I do everyday and it’s going to be a very bad song just like that one from that cheesy movie DoReMi. The niftiest of thoughts won’t save me so let’s leave the song writing to the chosen few.

So I sit and allow thoughts to stir me, whip me, raise me, concern me. It’s liberating to know you still breathe for free and free you are to live.

Time for coffee and gratitude. This photo was taken by Rod Banzon. But Sir Rod, you're not the central character of this story. We will get back to your paella later. I'm going to make this really quick because I get high fevers from talking about hair, especially if it's my own.

Kingpins in the hair styling industry, Jude Hipolito and Rose Velasco of Univers Phyto by Kaizen, gave our models a free hair make-over using high-end but plant based hair color and hair treatment. We were collaborating for a story that I’m doing for the Christmas issue.

I get queasy in salons that's why I only visit the salon in every blue moon and get quickly out of there every time. Rose was showing me the organic shampoo when she suddenly looked at my hair and knowing right away what she was thinking, I defensively said, "Oh no, Ms. Rose, I'll pass." Taking no for an answer, I was hauled to the shampoo area where I got to ‘experience’ the pricey (and I mean pricey) shampoo and the orgasmic head massage that came with it. Then the good-looking, soft-spoken stylist, Rod Awid, spoke to me about my hair and from the conversation I realized that I only give two seconds of my time thinking about my hair every other day. Click-clack-click (a poor imitation of the scissors’ sound) and he was done with me after twenty minutes. Like stories with happy endings, mine went that direction as well.

A haircut worth P5,000 is much too much for the average Pinoy’s budget but the experience will be worth every cent of it. The great thing about it was that the gods and goddesses of the universe conspired so I could have it gratis.

For any of you who want a scientific and correct approach to hair care, I recommend Univers Phyto by Kaizen on Heaven on the Fifth, Rustan’s Makati. You will love it.

By the way, if this photo does not look "magazine-ready" and by that I mean I don't look like I just came out from a shampoo commercial even after the P5,000 haircut and looking like an unreal version of me, which happens when your photo undergoes a photoshop process, it is because this photo is as raw as it can be. I've no make-up on, no nothing. It's just me with better hair and I'm telling you not to let the photo of my hair talk to you. The real thing is way better, I tell you.