Nevergirl’s

I’m 26 but I can’t wait to hit 40 – if I live that long, that is. Saints, legends, and egomaniacs die young – and if you’re pretending you don’t know which one I am, c’mon, even our plastic hamper can tell. But I digress. The reason I now can’t wait to turn 40 is Andy Rooney. He wrote this love letter to all women, big and small, young and old, menstruating and menopausal.

As I grow in age, I value older women most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

An older woman will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think. An older woman knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of 50 give a damn what you might think about her. An older single woman usually has had her fill of “meaningful relationships” and “commitment.” The last thing she needs in her life is another dopey, clingy, whiny, dependent lover!

Older women are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it.

Most older women cook well. They care about cleanliness and are generous with praise, often undeserved.

An older woman has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn’t trust the guy with other women. Older women couldn’t care less.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to an older woman. They always know.

An older woman looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women or drag queens.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, an older woman is far sexier than her younger counterpart. Her libido’s stronger, her fear of pregnancy gone. Her experience of lovemaking is honed and reciprocal and she’s lived long enough to know how to please a man in ways her daughter could never dream of. (Young men, you have something to look forward to.)

Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off you are a jerk if you are acting like one.

Yes, we praise older women for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coifed babe of 50 there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22 year old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize for all of us. That men are genetically inferior is no secret. Count your blessings that we die off at a far younger age, leaving you the best part of your lives to appreciate the exquisite woman you’ve become, without the distraction of some demanding old man clinging and whining his way into your serenity.”

signed: Andy Rooney

Pregnancy is hell on the female body. I went from 96 pounds to 130 while pregnant with Charlie. The day I popped, I hit my all-time fattest – 136 pounds, barefoot (so I couldn’t very well pin the blame on my footwear). Still, if there’s one thing a newborn will do aside from cry over just about anything, it’s ask for milk every two hours. So there’s nothing new mothers can do except wake up every two hours to make milk and feed the babe – unless they want to put their newborns on forced diet. How difficult is it to wake up every two hours? Veeeery. Sleeping in two-hour increments will drive you mad. It will make you cranky. It will turn your eyeballs red and veiny. But it will also make you lose weight – lots and lots of weight. By the time we’ve had Charlie for a week, I was down to 115 pounds and had become a steaming, seething mass of hostility and irritability. It got so bad I made uranium look non-volatile in comparison.

Today, I tip the scale at 96 pounds. No, I am not on drugs. The weight just dropped. It’s strange and scary but hey, I’m thin again. I’m still irritable but I take it out on my keyboard. I play ‘Punch Your Co-Worker’ and it’s been good therapy (and no, this isn’t a subtle threat to co-workers who read this blog). I tried to cook but the attempt was short-lived. Even though the hub wasn’t expecting a miracle – only something edible – the meat was so tough it made his fork bend. This reminds me of the first and only time I tried to bake. In Mrs. Ello’s Home Economics class, my groupmates and I ended up with a cake so sturdy it fell off the table and didn’t crumble. It wasn’t eatable, either, as it would require a chainsaw to cut through that chocolate marble. The botched-up meal, notwithstanding, I wasn’t through playing domestic. I tried doing the laundry but just had to give up. Who knew the wash could be so complicated? Stripes, lights, darks, hand-washables, delicates, warm and cold rinses – these concepts make the head spin! Methinks it would be easier to just go build a working nuclear submarine using only staplers and staples.

So there, now you know. The life of a new mom is so exciting the only topics she has for blogging are sleep loss, spoiled meals, and establishing a relationship with the wash.

There’s this friend I can’t NOT write about; first, because she’s crazy and second, because she’s crazy in a way that’s both weird and cute at the same time. She flitted from one job to another, never staying long enough at one to grow to love it.

Then, one day, she went to Bora, spent many a night laughing and dancing by the beach. By the time the vacation ended, wild horses – okay, I exaggerate; it was really a stubborn mother – had to drag her home. She hated going back to her call center job, hated doing what she called ‘soul-sucking’ tasks. Her feet itched to wander but really, when you’re born in Cebu and have spent your whole lifetime in the same place, what corner of the city or the province do you have left to wander?

We talked one night. I told her, “Why not go to Thailand? I know some people who could help.” And that’s just what she did – packed up her bags and went to Thailand less than two weeks after we had that conversation. I know I told you this friend is crazy, but that’s some serious kind of crazy, is it not? Imagine walking out of your job and the life that you know for 25 years just like that.

Then, last night, we talked again. Turns out, her commitment-phobe of a boyfriend proposed marriage. The thing was, she wasn’t really listening to what he was saying. He only caught her ear when he said the magic words, and she was so surprised all she managed to get out was “What???” He didn’t say anything after that and so she had to spend the whole night obsessing about it. Did she hear him right? Did he really propose – or was he talking about marriage in a theoretical, maybe-we-could-do-it-someday sense?

She couldn’t stop thinking about it so the next day, she emailed him if he meant what he said. This is strange for two reasons. One, they live together and two, while she was emailing him, he sat only a few feet away. Yes, my friend is crazy like that. He then mailed her back to say he meant it, of course, but that he was worried because they didn’t have a lot of money and he couldn’t afford a ring and a wedding. Her reply is one for the books, and I’m blogging about it now (even if I just might end up taking this post down because this story is not mine to tell) because I really, truly feel this scene is one that that should have been in Sex and the City — it’s that cute.

She said: I don’t care about rings, and I don’t care if the wedding is smaller than my feet. I just want to be with you.

So yeah, it’s official. They haven’t set a date but they’re doing it, and one of these days, I really should ask her what size her feet are because that’s how small – or large – her wedding will be.

Meet Sage Charlotte Erzulie, born September 26. She drinks two ounces of milk every two hours, makes mewling sounds when annoyed, and hates air-conditioned rooms. She has her dad’s nose and her mom’s intractability. Oh, and she’s charming enough to inspire a surprising, are-you-sure-this-is-you burst of domesticity in a mom who never thought she’d find joy in changing diapers, waking up at the ungodly hour of six just so the little one could get some sunning, and prattling to a little person who never talks back.

A 10-minute old Charlie

Baby and grandma (that's what your daughter should call your mom's sis, isn't it - grandma?)

‘Course, you won’t be seeing any mother and child photos posted any time soon because at 30 pounds over her pre-baby weight, the mom shuns cameras and photo ops with almost religious vehemence.

A big thank you to all those who visited, called, texted, and sent their loves and well-wishes.