More histrionics and drug-crazed musings

Something Like Life
June 29, 2007

INFLUENZA sucks.

I say this with the little strength I can still muster while I lie in my bed, half-upright, half-comatose, tapping on my notebook. No energy. No exclamation point.

My bones are all achy and creaky, while my breath is ragged and shallow, in between the hymen-breaking coughs that spare me no mercy throughout the day. My nose constantly drips, even as my sinuses are congested. I try to seek relief in sleep, but then I wake up tired and sluggish as if I’ve downed a whole bottle of Rivotril.

So too bad for you, dear readers, there will be no advice to the lovelorn nor intimations of other people’s slutty behavior. I shall bore you instead with ague-laden details of the past three days (I write this on a Tuesday evening) as I lie feverish and pained on my 100-percent jersey cotton bedsheet (yes, the kind that’s used for T-shirts and just what Oprah likes), surrounded by my fluffy pillows which, sadly, now hardly provides me any comfort. And as every sixth hour of my illness is marked by a round of paracetamol (1,000 mg), carbocisteine (500 mg) and antibiotics (625 mg), you can bet that this piece will be chock full of histrionics and drug-crazed musings.

I don’t remember the last time I had been downed by the flu. I’ve been pretty lucky. I hardly get sick despite my lack of exercise and a mostly unhealthy diet. I make up for that by eating lots of veggies now and then, and having seafood every chance I can, walking a distance, and downing loads of vitamins and minerals. Then, as you recall, I did go back to the gym. Which is pretty ironic. Now that I’ve decided on taking the path to a healthier lifestyle, I get the flu! A friend of mine thinks I could have picked up the virus in the shower. Ick! Remind me next time to take a bath at home after my workout.

The illness just crept on me, not giving me any fair warning at all. One day I was up and about doing my yoga poses at the gym, the next day my muscles were sore to the bone, my body wracked with the chills, a cough and the stuffy nose. Of course, in between all that, I had chomped down a whole bagful of cheese-flavored popcorn. And as is the usual, my throat got all scratchy the next day despite the glasses of water I guzzled in between the fistfuls I shoved in my mouth.

Normally, the scratchy throat goes away after I gargle with warm water and salt, and suck on two or three zinc lozenges for a day. This time, it didn’t. I started sneezing like mad, one, two, three blasts in succession. Then my scratchy throat gave way to full-blown hacking. Soon thereafter, my bones were groaning like an old lady’s and the chills started.

It’s driving me mad. I go under the covers for a few hours, trying to seek protection from the cold permeating through my entire anatomy. Then the next minute, I am sweating. I switch on the air conditioner to give me some relief from the mugginess that's making the dogs outside my window pant their poor little tongues out, but also because of the heat that running the course through my poor defenseless remains. Then I get the chills again. What’s worse is that my mouth is always dry, and my taste buds have given up the ghost. Despite the hunger pangs, it’s pure and simple torture not being able to taste any of the food I eat. So I quit after a few spoonfuls. I have no joy.

The last time I got this sick, I was bored out of my wits watching afternoon soaps and endless repetitions of HBO and Star Movies. My saving grace this time around is my torrent downloads of Little Britain, Entourage and Ugly Betty. (Yup, that’s Betty La Fea to you, telenovela fans of yore.) And, of course, I had just finished the much-talked about, endlessly debated finale of The Sopranos. Was Tony whacked or not? (I think he was; after all, that’s how mob bosses are supposed to go. And for someone who has suffered a whiny wife like Carmela, death would surely be a welcome release.)

If not watching my torrents, I am catching up on my reading. Not books, unfortunately, because I can hardly keep my eyes open while I’m shot up with all these drugs, but Vanity Fair. If there is any magazine that you must subscribe to in your entire life, it has to be VF. It has a bit of everything. Heavy investigative pieces of criminal or political activity (yes, crime and politics now seem to be synonymous with each other), lavish spreads of gorgeous celebrities with in-depth interviews, and lots of amusing sections and sidebars along with gorgeous photography.

(VF cover of US President George Bush and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. Why couldn't I have gotten the George Clooney cover?!)

But here is a spoiler alert: get your copy of the July issue. It’s all about Africa and is guest-edited by Bono, who says he had always wanted to become a journalist. Now how cool is that? I just hope you have more luck than me getting a better cover. (VF shot 20 separate covers for this issue—Oprah Winfrey, Don Cheadle, Madonna, Barack Obama, Iman, Bono, of course, among others—with celebrated portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz at the helm.) I got George Bush, yes, a first on the cover of a usually anti-administration publication, with a prayerful Archbishop Desmond Tutu. You can guess who he’s praying for. (They have Condi Rice, too. Wipe that smirk off your face. You must understand, this is how Bono gets his philantrophic work done. He sucks up to the right people in power. I love Bono but he is human just like the rest of us.) All I can say is, I would have been happier with the George Clooney cover in my hand.

Okay, I’m off rambling more than usual. I just hope I get well by the weekend. My back is killing me from all this lying down. And I’m afraid my hard drive will give out from all this downloading. I’m also running out of VF issues to read. Mother! I need my drugs!

****

MY deepest condolences to the family of the late Renato Faustino, “Mang Ato” to all of us reporters who had covered the agriculture beat. Mang Ato was an old-time government publicist who endeared himself to the journalists who made it their business to investigate every piece of BS coming out of the mouths of his often lofty-minded bosses. (True, there have been one or two exceptional heads at the Department of Agriculture, the present dispensation not one of them, though.)

Mang Ato just did his job, disseminating information to the reporters, getting officials to explain themselves out of the messes they got themselves in, ringing up editors to ask for some support to the agency programs. Even when his beloved DA was dragged in the mud a few times in the last few years, Mang Ato never cast aspersions on the motives of the reporters or the columnists for the negative stuff. He knew they were just doing their job as well.

The last time I saw Mang Ato was last year, at a friend’s wedding. We had joked that he became teary-eyed because our friend was getting married for the second time. I imagine the buckets he would have wept if I had been the one who got hitched! But that was how Mang Ato was. He was always a softie, and I have never once heard him utter a harsh word about anyone or anything, even if he was the one put at a disadvantage. He was truly a friend we could always go back to for a few laughs as we reminisced about the good times at the DA.

Thanks, Mang Ato, for being the kind of person many of us can only hope to be.

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. Photo from BusinessMirror – nope, that's not my bed!)

Some kind of fitness story

Something Like Life
June 8, 2007



A NUMBER of my friends texted their congratulations.

Some, curiously, asked, “Ano’ng nakain mo?” which I don’t think has a proper translation in English. (The closest I can think of is “What’s up with you?” but in the tone that meant, “What the hell were you thinking?!”)

Anyway, what my friends were referring to was my sudden decision to enroll in a gym. Okay, don’t laugh. Yeah, yeah, it was a sperm of the moment decision, as I like to say. But bear with me as I try to entertain you with tortuous details of this life-changing moment.

When I went to the mall near my home, I had all the intention of purchasing a spare cell phone to replace my battered one, which has missing keys, and already unreplaceable as it is a Siemens phone. (An aside: I don’t know why Siemens gave up on the Philippines. Its cell phones were, quite honestly, pretty good workhorses, easy to operate, with designs that were actually ahead of their time. Very stylish. The company just lacked the right marketing strategy to sell its units to keep up with the competition. So Siemens has pulled out its service centers from the malls and now I can’t replace the keys on my S57. I am told that I will have to go all the way to Siemens’ head office in Mandaluyong or thereabouts just to have my phone repaired. Tama ba ’yon?)

Not finding the cell phone I had saved up for, and still having enough time on my hands before the hordes of people swarmed the building, I checked out the health and fitness floor of the mall. First, I went to a popular medical clinic to find out what its membership fees were, because I was due for an executive checkup; then, somehow, my pretty feet just brought me next door to the fitness center.

I’ve been to that gym before with Mrs. M, as she was a member, and I was aghast that there were so many people working out almost side by side. It was like walking around the mall on a weekend in the afternoon, and all you do is bump into other people. Which I absolutely detest.

But I was just curious, and inquired how much I would have to pay to be a member of this popular fitness center. Having gone freelance as a writer, I no longer have an excuse not to exercise. My days are flexible enough to have a fitness schedule and if I was serious enough, I could plan the rest of my activities around my gym time. I’m not really exercise-phobic. In fact, I loved doing yoga, and attended classes fairly regularly to strengthen my back which had given me problems in the past. But when I moved to Quezon City, I couldn’t find an instructor in my area that would teach in the afternoons, a schedule which I had become accustomed to, being a late riser.

Anyway, I was surprised at the rate that was offered to me to enroll in that gym, which cost just a tad over the amount of the cell phone I had been angling to purchase. The monthly dues are somewhat expensive but I was told I would be able to use any of the gym’s branches nationwide and even internationally. I was also told that from about 10 am to 4 pm, the gym would be virtually empty since everyone is supposed to be at work. So that solves my claustrophobia. Well, as you may have already concluded, I got sold on the idea, turned over my credit card for swiping, and committed myself to a year’s worth of fitness.

I would like to say that I enrolled in the gym mainly out of concern for my health. True, I’ve been feeling the tightness in my jeans’ waistband the last couple of weeks, and find myself out of breath sometimes when I walk short distances. My family has a history of hypertension and diabetes and I am probably at risk of inheriting these, so it’s as good a time as any to get back to exercising. Coupled with this is my being a foodie. I love to eat. And I know going to the gym would allow me to keep my weight down even as I continue to indulge my, ahem, healthy appetite.

Then again, as my Mader F surmised, there was a deeper reason for my going to the gym. Or maybe, a shallower one. It had to be a man. Guilty! Let’s just say, one night I suddenly realized I was absolutely attracted to him and, quite strangely, wanted to drown myself in his steady gaze. Ick! Ma-drama na ba?

Going to the gym is probably admitting to myself that I feel powerless under his sway and just want to look my absolutely fabulous best the moment I give up control. So there’s my fitness motivation, and maybe it’s wrong, but what the heck! It got me back to the gym, so it’s as good a reason as any. The women libbers out there can throw all their rotten tomatoes at me but I don’t care. I’m just a grrrl, noh?

Anyway, I hauled this tired but sexy body of mine to the gym for the first time in decades and found the experience quite exhilarating! Not wanting to unduly exert myself, I attended the yoga class for starters. After more than a year of not having any regular yoga practice, naturally I felt stiff all over. I couldn’t hold some of the asanas (poses) as easily as I did before, although I still remembered how to breathe correctly, so I didn’t end up panting and wheezing like the rest of my classmates. Mo-ching, my teacher at Mandala Spa, would have been proud as well of my downward facing dog. And toward the end of the class, I still managed to do my shoulder stand and easily dropped my legs at the back of my head while the upper portion of my body lay supine on the yoga mat. Aba, flexible pa din ang lola n’yo!

But, man, how I sweated buckets! For those who think yoga is easy and just for wimps, you have it all wrong. The asanas are very difficult, especially if you’re just starting out. Despite an air-conditioned room, you will perspire, and your muscles will feel like they’re being torn apart. Talk about feeling the burn. But unlike sports or other fitness exercises, there is no competition with others, only with yourself. You challenge yourself to perfect the pose at each practice, and with every effort, your mind is conditioned to focus on your breathing, your practice and your space.

After the class ended, I felt rejuvenated. I really missed my regular yoga practice. It was what my body and mind had been craving for all this time. Sure, my muscles are aching all over right now, but I look forward to going back to the gym again and perhaps trying out the fitness machines next time.

I’m not going to give out any lengthy sermons on the importance of health, the proper diet and exercise. Or how our relationship to our body should be sacred and should be of utmost priority. I’m pretty sure you will find your own motivation to exercise soon enough. And if it’s a man who gets you running to the gym, then embrace it. Perhaps soon, he might just be embracing you.

(My column, Something Like Life, appears every Friday in the Lifestyle section of the BusinessMirror. Photo from Maconstate University web site.)