'You are glasses."

this is like needing glasses.  when i was a kid, i would get these headaches and i went to the doctor and they said that i needed glasses. i didnt understand that. it didnt make sense to me because i could see fine and then i get the glasses and i put them  on and im in the car on the way home and suddenly.. i yell.   because the big green blobs that ive been staring at my whole life.. they werent big green blobs.. they were leaves!  on trees!  i could see the leaves..and i didnt even know i was missing the leaves.  i didnt even know that leaves existed and then.. leaves! you are glasses.  -- dr. ericka hahn, grey's anatomy

before i was a mother, i thought i saw the world.  i was a 25-year-old-miss-independent-head-over-heels-in-love-bad-ass-bitch.   last year at this time, i was pregnant with twins, just moved into our first home, and celebrating life.  then i got sideswiped with a twist of fate that i never saw coming... and my vision clouded. my head spun, and i swore i would never see the world with clear eyes again. i just could not understand. i just WOULD not understand.  i was existing, and not LIVING.   

i reflect on the last year, i see the soul searching, and the pleading and the tears.. i also see the inquisition in my son's eyes.. the way his teeth are growing in just a little bit crooked, the way he loves bananas and climbing on the bed and listening to his papa sing..  and i realize that he is my glasses.   since he has been in my life, the world has been different.  my vision was not clouded.. it was just changed.  i no longer see the world in regards to myself, but i see it for him.   he has changed my entire being, and no wonder!!!!  i have been waiting for the world to go back to the way it was before, but it  never will be, because have been irrevocably changed from the inside out.   i see that.  i understand that.  i accept that. 

its about forgiveness.  forgiving myself.  accepting that i could not have foreseen what happened, nor been able to change it.  not blaming myself, or God, for something that had always been in His plan for me..  this is never the road i imagined taking, but exactly the path i'm supposed to be on. i know that now. one step at a time.   Adonis is my glasses and my shit is 20/20. i can see me. 

around the way girls..

between making sure my son is eating enough solid foods, changing his diapers, checking my bank acct, keeping my make-up fresh, stepping my shoe game up, buying new clothes, e-mailing or texting my friends, having sex with the husband, complaining about my weight, smoking and/or drinking, daydreaming about my next vacay, and not dying of boredom at work.. i sometimes come up with random shit to obsess about until i get over it and start obsessing about something else.. at the moment, my current obsession is on my kris kringle wish list... so i need something else to oogle over. until i find it, i'm writing this blog just because its the day before thanksgiving and i refuse to work because i think its illegal to do so when its so close to a major holiday.

in the spirit of thanksgiving, i'd like to take a timeout to say that i have THEE most amazing people in my life and am so grateful to the lord for blessing me with positive, uplifting souls to surround me. so here, in a nutshell, is a list of my around the way girls... the girls that, around the way, have been inspiring, uplifting, and the source of lots of laughter and great memories.


in no particular order..
cat - my very best friend. 8 years strong and counting!
bern - i told u that u were a keeper!
queenie - nbf! three words. travel. photography. food.
jae - you are the strongest woman i have ever known.
anna - my nbf's bff. your humor is always a breath of fresh air. can u move here already?
michelle - my sister! my best friend! brito's fo life.
wella - fuck bitch i hella miss you. buncha bullshit!
janass - the biggest bitch that i've known thus far.. and that aint a bad thing. =)
iya biya - the biggest little girl i know.
abi - sooo homo, hayati. the fuck is a purple happy face?
adri - boob talk all dayyy. u tried to make me go to rehab and i said YES. YES. YES.
leslieannnn- team jada on my mama, nigga!!
kris - three words. single. white. female.
nes - roti nigga, roti!
dyna - i love my baby mama
gailey - ho sista wea u stea? i love you mary!
tee - when can we make peach sangria again?
tat - my living diary. thank you for knowing everything about me, and still loving me.
baning - ninang healthy.. im hungry! potato casserole pleaseeeeee
char star - be.bella
baker - kailua will always be our beach. always.
ape - mama mia, here i go again. my my, how can i resist you?
angggg- "why is she fat? and ugly?"
chey - dude where we gonna have ur bachelorette.
patti - lets go buy red velvet cupcakes and gush over edward cullen.
agnes - cuz we O.G. triple O.G.! vegas baby!

"i dont remember many girls, cuz they talk too much."... but these girls got my back, my ear, and make sure i dont have food in my teeth and that my makeup still looks good. MY GIRLS SHIT ON YOUR GIRLS. and i gives a fuck if u beg to differ.

so happy thanksgiving and eat lots of turkey and get food coma cuz thats exactly what i'm gonna do tomorrow! adios habibis!

my face, u guys.. my face!

so i've been getting a lot of compliments on my makeup from a couple weeks back...i dont usually wear so much makeup on the regular, but it was a full M.A.C. face and here's the entire list of products used. i like to say that i just wake up looking this fabulous, but it actually takes some kind of work.. about 20 products and about 30 minutes. lol.

all products are listed in order of application and brush numbers are written next to item

face
fix +
strobe cream moisturizer, 189
prep and prime skin, 189
studio fix fluid foundation in NC45, 189
studio finish concealer in nc35 (under eyes and on blemishes), 217

powder blush in gingerly, 129
mineralize skin finish medium dark (contour), 138
mineralize skin finish light medium (highlight), 138
fix +

eyes
fast response eye cream, 217
prep and prime eye in medium dark, 217
paint pot in painterly (lid to brow), 217
shadow in charcoal brown (brow fill), 266
eye shadows:
-nylon (brow highlight), 252
-soft brown (crease), 224
-embark (corner V), 222
-paradisco (lid) , 239
fluidline in blacktrack, 266
eye kohl in smolder (waterline)
eye shadow in star by night (along bottom lashline), 219
zoomlash in zoomblack

lip

lip conditioner

cremestick liner in cream 'o' spice

lipstick in hug me

lustreglass in love nectar

and TADA. im ready. =)

it dont take a whole day to recognize sunshine..

its been unusually warm and sunshiney for winter... especially for san francisco where the only season we have is called fog. but when i get the chance to wear a dress in november because the weather permits, ima take full advantage.

sometimes the clouds cover the rays of happy sun, but whats comforting is that you still KNOW the sun is there, even if you cant see it. i read a really good quote on kris' blog the other day.. (click the pic to hit up her page). amazing isnt it? smiling is the new black, and i have the sun to thank for that. =)

fresh off the boat, B.

mommy - anak, how do i open my email attachment
me - double click it
mommy - i do, but hindi naman na bubuksan.
daddy - rach, it opens microsoft works.
me - am i on speaker?
*silence*
me - ohhkay, just fwd me the email and ill see about the attachment.

(dad forwards me email with the message "how the hell do you open this thing?" i call back.)

me - mommy? its a power point attachment. you have to open it in power point
mommy - ano? power plate attachment?
me - no power point
mommy - power plate
me - power POINT!
mommy - why are you yelling. ang hirap mo kausapin.

hahahahahahahaHHAHAH. i love my parents.

freedom is in the mind so let me speak it

"they call it the past, cuz i'm gettin past.. " - a.keys

i keep writing these rants about this damn situation and then deleting...but fuck it this one's staying up. everything she says is bullshit. he said she's cancer. she said she's a liar.. but to me, she aint a liar, but a bullshitter. for those of you who are confused, let me explain...

it is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. producing bullshit requires no such conviction. a person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. when an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false.

for the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. his eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. he does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. he just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.

she's been fired, and i started to clean my closet and weed out the rest of the bullshit.. and i'm happy to say, that after taking stock of the inventory of my life, i found nothing but good, positive people. love is blind, but friendship closes its eyes right? fuck alla that im done! my eyes are open and i need my shades cuz its a bright and sunshiney day.

so thanks to the rest of you no bullshit/ real talk / no homo/ yes homo/ not for nuthin people in my world who prove to me everyday what a friend is all about. i aint done.. i'm doing. and i'm doing it with the best set of bitches next to me... i know, i know, i'm a cold heartless bitch. but how much fun would i be if i wasnt?

rant over. done. pau. NEXT!

thanks Tee

"Rachel? She's not friendly, but she's a good friend." - Tee

i couldnt have said it better myself. =)

99 years.

today is my lola's 99th birthday.

she has been witness to 2 world wars, to a man walking on the moon. she has moved her family from the impoverished third world of the philippines, to the san francisco bay area which i now call home. she has seen many things in her century of living.. and yesterday, together, we witnessed the election of the first african american president of the united states.

we made history. and she is just as hopeful as i am that change is coming our way. told ya! obama fo yo mama! and apparently, my daddy's mama too.

Happy Birthday Lola.! i love you!

Can you hear me now?

..because I'm SCREAMING!

A wise man in the rain does not struggle against the rain. He neither tries in futility to walk between the drops or run through them hoping to avoid the rain. He accepts the rain as part of his reality and is released from the stress others might find themselves to be in walking outside on a rainy day.

I want to be that person. I want to be able to accept what I can't change and be free of the burden of the desire to manipulate that which is not within my capability to mold to my own liking. For the most part, I am just hoping. Hoping that equality can be measured today by a growing majority being accepting of gay rights, civil rights and equality for all human beings.

I have heard so much politicking over the past few months that I almost can't believe the world we live in. I have lived in the Bay Area for almost my entire life, and being in the bay area, you almost get stuck here. You get stuck here physically, and ideologically, and for periods of time, you allow yourself to forget that the rest of the world is not the Bay Area. Coming back in to reality, I begin to feel a little nervous for the legitimacy of today's results, should Barack Obama somehow lose this election. I would be devastated, but not completely shocked. I am urging you to voice your opinion. Voice what you need from this world, lift your words and raise your voices and vote for someone who will find it in his capability to change the things we ourselves do not have the power to change. Today is one of the very few days that we as a people are actually listened to, and what we need is to leave no doubt to be found when choosing our next president.

Besides that, I've heard so much talk about proposition 8 that it makes me sick to my stomach to see so many supporters of this message. They wave their signs on the street corners. They have yelled in my face over and over in attempts to solicit some form of support from me. I will not. I tell myself everyday not to conform to pressures that lead you in a wrong direction, and I see proposition 8 for what it truly is. I have no problem with gay marriage. I know that before you were born, God knew who you were and everything you were capable of because he made you the way that you are. I know this to be true, and i know this does not exclude the gay community. They are human. They have relationships just like the rest of us.

I'm hearing from religious leaders that gay relationships are about lust and not love, but how could this be? Are gay individuals without the capacity for love in a nurturing relationship? Simply put,... no. They love just as we do. They make plans for the future and argue as couples just like everyone else. What lust in your life has ever been worth arguing with another for? Lust is not the issue,... the issue is giving everyone the opportunity to love and live life as they wish without hatred and judgment from people who have placed themselves on a pedestal, dehumanized this community and fail at every turn to take in to account how much the gay community suffers at the hands of the ignorant.

I know that proposition 8 seems to have a sure victory at hand,.... but i don't give a shit. I believe that they should enjoy all the rights that we have and you can go on and pander your opinions and viewpoints and biblical verses all you want. This is my opinion,... and in spite of what any campaign might think,... I, and hopefully everyone who reads this, am not for sale. I will not buy in to what you want me to believe. Not today and not tomorrow or any day after that. I know in my heart that this is right. Please,... let your voice be heard today,.... or go out and get a big fuckin umbrella.

thanks junio.
p.s. happy birthday michelle brito! i love you sister!

this is how we chill from '93 till

DUDE. dude.

on halloween we took it back 90s style with a freakin HOUSE PARTY at the brito residence. it was fuckin hilarious! we brought it back to junior high/high school and everyone really got into it.. we saw cybertek suits, timberlands, puffers in the shoes, pagers, g-shock watches, mini backpacks, shell toes, cortez', dickies, windbreakers.. we had the men in black, fresh prince, mario and luigi, wario and waluigi, mary j blige, the spice girls.. u fuckin name it!

just sharing with you my favorite picture of me and dyna. whatchu know bout my puka shells, the hillfiger jacket n my polo sport bag son?! and peep dyna's bopper bangs, her nike cortez' and that ugly ass scrunchie on her wrist. oh and dont forget the finishing touch of our looks, the dark ass lipstick and the non-smile. WORD TO UR MOTHER.

"tonight i'm gonna party like its 1999" (more pics on my shutterfly)