Here's a link to using the pill, for those who still don't use it. If one is active, so to speak.

I was slighted some few days ago by a person who couldn't think of anyone's success except hers that it was so difficult a task for her to utter the word, "GREAT" versus the obligatory word "good".

Here's an article from Psychology Today about how to make amends.

Especially those one should make to oneself. No one need endure anything not worth one's while, especially the unimportant details we can all fritter away as easily as saying "Goodbye."

Adieu, faux bon femme.

It's quite interesting how an article like this–an article that claims to solve the male-female non-verbal MIScommunication puzzle–is published in a Pakistani newspaper. Well, it must serve for some cultural foregrounding for non-Europeans and non-Britons who need to interact with them on a regular basis.

Here's an excerpt from a stub from the Social Issues Research Centre website on flirting:

Evening Herald – 13.12.2003
Turning yourself into a festive flirting sensation. Kate Fox, of the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, says that anthropological research has shown there is flirting of some kind in every culture in the world. The author of a flirting guide for Martini, Fox says: "Flirting is a basic instinct, part of human nature. "It's not surprising – if we didn't initiate contact and express interest in members of the opposite sex, we would not progress to reproduction, and the human species would become extinct." (emphasis mine) But if flirting is instinctive, why do we need tips? Fox says it's because flirting is governed by a complex set of unwritten laws of etiquette, dictating where, when, with whom and how we flirt.

A big thanks to our ancient female ancestor who chose to and initiated the practice of flirting, thereby making the human race flourish the way it has.

Kate Fox of the Social Issues Research Centre at Oxford is the author of the book Watching the English. Her chapter on "courtesy flirting" is eye-opening.

Now I know why some of the English abhor people who are too, too earnest.

Related articles below:

• Secrets of women's flirting revealed - This left me dumbfounded, especially when I realised that I can be accused of such behaviour. I can't help myself – I'm really like this!
• A summary of the first two chapters of The Anatomy of Love by Helen Fisher
• The Biology of Attraction – Note: an American publication, which makes the statement about human beings as monogamous still contentious; other social scientists like Geoffrey Miller would disagree
• Five Non-Verbal Sexual Cueing Secrets - This is where men would most likely go to for flirting advice

It's quite fun, actually, the prelude to seduction. Just the prelude, mind, and for as long as both players know and understand that the exchange is all wordplay between Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

Courtesy flirting 101. Let's take one example. The scene is at a bar, and a stunning woman walks in, and a friend of hers wants to compliment her but does so with innuendo:

Him: You look so gorgeous I'm going to eat you in that dress.

Her: So WEAR my dress, and THEN eat me.

Something like this would probably get a laugh from the boys, and shut Clark Gable up.

I no longer understand why I seemed to cling to all that angry feminist, man-hating dogma when I was in my teens. Picture this scenario:

Woman makes her way out of a building via a narrow corridor. She realises she hasn't enough money and thus needs to withdraw cash from the ATM across the street. Man is late for the party and is just about to enter. Man and Woman bump into each other in that narrow, narrow corridor.

Him: (blocks Her way) So, where do you think you're going?

Her: To the bank. I need some cash for drinks.

Him: If I don't see you up there at the party tonight, I'm never speaking to you again.

Her: There's always the phone. (She inches her way out slowly; he gives way slowly; some interesting body parts touch here and there - she giggles secretly, for this is no scenario for a schoolgirl.)

Him: Mark my words, young lady. If you go, I'm letting you go.

Her: We'll see about that.

She walks away. Then she turns slightly to check if he's watching her, and he is! So she keeps her head looking front to play hard-to-get.

The spiel is fiction, of course. Never mind if they never see each other again. The fun is in the quibble that feels like a scene jumping out of a movie.

Your very own independent film or reality TV show in medias res.

A quote from English novelist Julian Barnes:

"Don't misunderstand me. I'm not one of those women who 'likes to be dominated.' The idea of a man storming into my life and taking control and sorting me out is not one of my fantasies. I'd rather sort myself out. And I don't like bullies, or defer to them. I'm talking about something different, about that moment when someone is suddenly there, and says, without using the words, 'It's me. It's you. That's all there is to say.' As if some vast truth is being guessed at before your eyes, and all you have to do is reply. 'Yes, I think it's true too.'

Not all guys cherish the eternity of romantic moments when such things are said. Some of them shift their gaze and look askance while cracking a joke; others make silly faces to ruin the moment.

At times, I wish they would just hold it and establish the connection. Perhaps one has watched too many chick flicks. Then again, maybe men are scared of being vulnerable, too.

In any case, the excerpt is taken from Barnes' Love, Etc. which is a sequel to Talking It Over.

Here's an essay about the male gaze, (le regard) as coined by French psychoanalytical intellectual Jacques Lacan. Do females gaze with the same objectifying intent? This essay explores the issue. And when women gaze at men, how do they purportedly think? Lacan's student Julia Kristeva collects some thoughts.

Forget about who's looking. Notes on the gaze by Daniel Chandler here.

Here's a movie worth watching:

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

It stars Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson.

Based on a true story, this is a narrative told by a fifties' housewife who wrote prize-winning jingles to support 10 kids and a short-tempered drunkard for a husband.

The original novel was written by Terry Ryan, one of the 10 kids.

Here are some tips on how to become the perfect wife. and here's a parody. Make of these links as you will.

My grandmother used to say, "Make use of all the advice you can get from your age and from the ages." Outdated or not, side by side Three Guineas, That Feminine Mystique and The Second Sex on my shelf are the following books:

1. The Art of the Table by Baroness Suzanne von Drachenfels

2. Etiquette by Emily Post, or any edition of her letters, dining, style and entertainment books

3. anything by Edith Wharton, and ESPECIALLY, The Age of Innocence.

Based on the *wisdom* of the above-listed books, including Woolf, Friedan and de Beauvoir, I've devised this list of "grandmotherly" advice:

Horses sweat, while ladies glisten. (Thank you, Andy.)

Work as hard as you must, but let your achievement look effortless. (Roughly by Baltasar Gracian)

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." – Eleanor Roosevelt

"Curtsy while you're thinking of something to say. It saves time." – Lewis Carroll. My idea of a curtsy is a modest but firm handshake upon introductions. )

Babies cry, while ladies dab their eye. (Something Edith Wharton would have told me, I suppose.)

NO MORE TEARS – says every Johnson's Baby Shampoo bottle.

P.S. I have one more book missing; my grandmother gave it to me when I was ten, because she didn't want to talk to me about puberty or relationships. I suppose she didn't know how and wasn't about to consult "modern-day" guides; or perhaps she wanted me to find out for myself. Anyway, the book is called FRANKLY FEMININE, and it seems to be out of print. It's a hard-bound book that contains everything from dresses, stitches, table- and flatware to handling relationships. I lent it to a "boyish" friend of mine back in Grade 6, but she never gave it back to me. If you ever find an olive-green hardbound book with the same title at Book Sale or any second-hand book store, please buy it for me, and I'll pay you back. Thank you.

A few months after giving birth to my daughter, I decided to get out of the house for a few hours on Saturday afternoon to attend a bellydancing class here. My back suffered from chronic pain, and I wasn't about to drown myself in painkillers the whole time.

After four sessions, I felt flexible again. Perhaps I should sign up for a new class again.

More on the art of belly dancing. Here's an article enumerating its health benefits per muscle group. Here's another article that discusses a study conducted at the University of Worcester about its health benefits.

I would like to post an article illustrating how belly dancing prevents sciatica, as soon as I find it online. 

My Aunt Lydia makes the best cakes and pastries in our neighborhood. Hers are the fruitcakes circulated around the Scout area a week before Christmas Eve. Hers are the pancakes on Sunday afternoon; oatmeal cookies in the summer; puto and kutsinta on Saturdays; and maja blanca on special occasions.

My Aunt Lydia must have inherited my grandmother's marvelous cooking skills, and because she makes such great sweets, especially the processed ones, her nieces and nephews used to tease her for having a big belly.

Uh-huh. On with the belly series. For now, yes. I'm on a roll.  

It turns out that Aunt Lydia had uterine fibroids, or myoma, in her abdomen, which rendered her unable to bear children, even when she still had a few good years to go before reaching menopause. Caution: If you must see a photo, here's one.

She had married at 41, having devoted her energy to caring for my grandparents and all six of us cousins, while my parents and another aunt were at work.

Because she had lost the ability to bear children, her husband decided to leave her. An annulment is in progress, but I am glad to hear that she's been travelling and meeting new people. Alternatively, if a woman's husband has abandoned her for a minimum of seven years, the marriage shall be considered void by court order. Let me look for a link to that. Here are some sample annulment proceedings in the Philippines.

At 60 but looking 20 years younger, she welcomes the idea of dating other people with partial excitement. More on dating over sixty here. But she needs to have worked out her annulment, otherwise there's the adultery law which stipulates that women can be jailed for a maximum of six years when charged by their husbands. But some groups are working towards the eradication of the adultery law.

Recent reports have traced the cause of myoma-growth to foreign estrogens, or xenoestrogens, introduced into our bodies by way of insecticides and shampoo. Here's another new development: Xenoestrogens are also found in chickens and other greens (possibly from the insecticides). Many girls not quite in their teens, are beginning to experience puberty at, say, age 8. An article here and another here.

There is also the possibility that these same children whose body parts are growing faster than their emotions and experiences can handle shall also be prone to the same myomas.

"Gimme spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees – please!
 Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone."

– Joni Mitchell, "Big Yellow Taxi"

It's not uncommon for some women to gain weight after childbirth, especially in the abdominal area. What I find interesting, however, is how the rest of my body seems to have shrunk (3 1/2 years after childbirth) while my stomach has remained the same.

All this time, I have attributed my swollen belly to a laparoscopy performed on me in 2003. The operation was meant to remove my gallbladder and a gall stone that was trapped right at its entrance. Now I'm beginning to re-think the cause.

Perhaps it might be endometriosis, in which some uterine tissue may be growing in the wrong places. But my previous x-ray of a year ago shows no sign of tissue growth. What's more: women who have given birth are less likely to develop it.

Perhaps it might be a case of female hernia, in which fat and other intestinal parts may be pushing their way out of a punctured abdominal wall.

Perhaps, and this may be the likeliest one, it might be intestinal obstruction, in which food is partially or not at all digested by the intestines, especially if one is lactose intolerant.

Colon cleansing would be in order. What an awful thought.

Women who have undergone multiple births are prone to miscarriage. When a woman loses her child by spontaneous abortion, most doctors prescribe a routine procedure called dilation and curettage, or D&C.

The purpose of a D&C is to remove all remaining foetal tissue in the womb so that infections may not occur.

A D&C is also the same procedure used to perform a *real* abortion.

Some women take too long in getting this procedure done when they've lost their child during the first trimester. Others insist on keeping the foetus in a jar filled with formaldehyde when the body has expelled it.

Women have many options these days to avoid miscarrying, or the unwanted pregnancy in the first place. Here is the list.

If you're on the pill, please don't forget to follow the instructions to the letter.

One can save the life of a potential child in two ways: by having it, or by not conceiving in the first place.

Pardon the didacticism here, but this part is for my sister.