MussoLOLen is Always Right! |

Which would you rather be:

a) pretty but constantly depressed (and I’m not talking about the “I’m sad” kind of depression. I mean the sort where you spend hours either crying your eyes out for absolutely no reason at all, or staring into space because you honestly don’t care whether you live or die the next minute) and picking stupid fights with your boyfriend just because you can?

or

b) not-so-pretty, but at least you’re capable of being as happy as a mentally unstable 22 year old can get?

Believe me, this is not an easy question to answer.

I’ve been taking this birth control pill Yasmin for some time now, not so much for the “I’m too young to get knocked up” reasons as the “my skin has been ugly ever since I hit puberty and I’ve done everything to make my skin stop breaking out and for just once in my life I’d like to be pretty” reasons. My mom wasn’t too thrilled about my decision to get on the pill due to our family’s history of breast cancer. She was convinced that the estrogen in the pill would transform my breasts into little tumor farms. To appease her I had my gynecologist run some (rather expensive) tests on me and when everything checked out okay, I made my way to the drug store with my prescription of Yasmin.

Little did my mom or I realize that breast cancer is the least of the more serious side effects to get worried about.

Over the next couple of weeks, not only did my skin do a wonderful job of clearing up – I debunked the myth that the pill fattens you up like crazy. The other positive side effect I got from the pill is that it took my appetite to a place far far away and made me almost skinny like a model. For about two weeks I couldn’t bring myself to eat more than a couple of mouthfuls during every meal, no matter how delicious the food in front of me was. It even came to a point where the only reason why I bothered eating was to make the grumbling noises in my tummy stop. Every time I went out my friends, the first thing they’d tell me was that I looked prettier and skinnier than the last time they saw me. That made me feel damn good – but not good enough to make up for the huge waves of depression that kept hitting me once I started taking the pill.

It started out as me being ten times more cranky and sensitive than I usually am. Random little things that wouldn’t normally have bothered me, like getting lost in a strange city, became disasters of epic proportions – and I would deal with it all like some helpless heroine. (If you had gone with us to Cebu and Bohol, I bet you would have insisted on leaving me on the roadside. I would have done that, if I were another person.) When Ale left the Philippines I cried for hours everyday, but I wasn’t too worried since that was obviously normal reaction. However, the depression didn’t go away once we settled back into our familiar, comfy, long-distance routine. In fact, it got even worse. One minute I’d be okay and the next, I’d either be crying for no reason or picking a fight with Ale for some ridiculous reason or another. Like he’d make some offhand comment that wouldn’t have bothered me on a normal day, but because it’s been a while since I had a normal day I’d end up blowing things completely out of proportion. Really, with the way I’ve been acting up the past few weeks, I’m surprised I’m not single yet.

I can’t decide which is the worst part though – the moments where I’d be staring off into space feeling numb and empty because I pretty much lost the will to do anything (except stay in bed and watch Dexter or Grey’s Anatomy for hours), or the unexplained crying fits like the one I had last night. What frightened me about that episode is that it wasn’t just any kind of crying. It’s the way women cry when they’ve just been dumped or when someone they love has died, except I haven’t been dumped and no one I know died recently. For over an hour, my bed was practically shaking because I was sobbing so hard. I tried to calm myself down and figure out why I was freaking out so badly, but that made me cry even harder because I couldn’t come up with one good reason for that heavy, profound sadness. I wish I could attribute the mood drop to yesterday being my brother’s death anniversary, but that wasn’t even it. I had a similar crying fit just a few days ago, and it was just as unexpected and unexplainable as last night’s.

Getting depressed or crying for no reason is nothing new to me, but it’s never happened this frequently nor this intensely. I did some poking around the internet and discovered that the progestin component in Yasmin (or any other combination birth control pill) wreaks havoc on your serotonin levels by increasing a brain enzyme that inhibits the production serotonin. Serotonin is that neurotransmitter in your brain that affects your mood. If you have too little, you’re probably depressive and not much fun like I am. If you have too much, you’re probably one of those irritatingly chipper people who deserve a bullet in between their eyes. So I guess when you already have too little serotonin to begin with, and you take a pill that kind of kills what little serotonin you already have – it’s amazing I haven’t tried to kill myself yet.

Despite the wonderful things the pill has done to my physical appearance, I stopped taking Yasmin last Sunday. Being prettier and skinnier doesn’t mean anything when I can no longer appreciate the simple fact that I’m alive. Hell, these days it takes a Herculean amount of effort go out and show the world that I’ve gotten prettier and skinnier. I’m a little worried that my mood hasn’t improved yet, but I guess I’ll see how I’m like over the next couple of days.

So have any of you ever tried taking the pill or know someone who did, and had a reaction as bad as mine? How did you or that person deal with it? And do you think I should stop taking the pill, or take it with a combination of serotonin supplements? Really, I should be asking my gyno all these questions instead of consulting random Internet doctors. Unfortunately, her waiting room is always filled with pregnant women, screaming babies, and (for some reason) nuns, and I don’t really feel like surrounding myself with a lot of estrogen right now.

The downside of having friends who sometimes read your blog is that you can’t blog about certain real-life events without risking getting kicked out of that social group. I’m going to take that risk anyway and write about this guy I spoke to last Friday. Besides being interesting enough to be blog-worthy, somewhere in here is a valuable lesson that may be useful the next time you go about trying to impress girls (or people in general).

This guy, let’s call him TMF (you’ll realize what the acronym stands for as you read along). He’s a friend of my bandmate who goes to our gigs, though we’ve only exchanged a couple of sentences during those times. One those sentences he threw at me had something to do with how he spent some time in France hanging out with “real” street punks. Right. He piqued my interest, definitely, but only because there was something in the way he spoke, carried himself, and dropped random details about his life that seemed a little…off.

TMF and I got around to having a real conversation on Friday when my bandmate congratulated him on his promotion to COO (chief operating officer).

“COO?” I asked, my eyebrow raised.

“It’s all really hush-hush right now, and I’m sure you’re wondering what a guy like me in a place like this–” This referring to the small artsy-fartsy place we were playing at tonight “–is doing being the COO of a car dealership. You don’t believe me? Come on, I’ll take you to my car and show you my suit.”

Before I could say that that wasn’t really necessary, the bandmate and I were standing outside TMF’s shiny new car. True enough, he did have a black suit crumpled at the back seat, and he put the coat on to dispel any disbeliefs we had about his big corporate job. Disbeliefs that we didn’t have.

“Oooh, big capitalist monkey,” I said.

He must have detected the sarcasm in my voice because as he removed the coat and tossed it back into the car, he went on to tell me about how he had no real choice in the matter. His dad owns the car dealership and if he hadn’t accepted the position, he’d have gotten kicked out of the house.

“I need to eat too, you know,” he explained. “Everyone’s been congratulating me left and right for being such a big success at 23. Truth is, I hate my job and I hate what I’m doing right now. You know what I really want to do? All I really want out of my life is to go to New York, study, and make music. That’s all what I want to do.”

He almost had my sympathy there. Nothing tugs at my heartstrings stronger than people who feel trapped in their jobs and who can’t afford the freedom to do what they want with their lives. Then TMF ruined it by saying something that killed any sympathy I had for him whatsoever.

“Just think of me as a subject from a Virginia Woolf novel.”

Nothing irks me more than people who name-drop in ordinary conversations. Half the time it’s because I don’t know who those people are and what they’ve done to become name-drop fodder. The other half is because the name-dropper does the name-dropping with all the arrogance in the world. The worst part is when I see their eyes go “Aha! So you’re not as smart or as cool as I thought you were.” when I admit to not knowing who they are. Most of the time, I end up playing along because I hate it when people make me feel like I’m stupid.

Oddly enough, the vibe I got from TMF when he name-dropped Virgina Woolf, feminist writers, and indie bands was not one of arrogance. He was going out of his way to impress me or everyone else. I noticed that he was carrying a bunch of books with him throughout the evening, the Belle and Sebastian graphic novel included. Seriously – why would you bring that many books with you to a social event unless you wanted to show how cultured, sensitive, and artistic you are?

I wonder if he would have kept on talking me if I said that I have never read a word of Virgina Woolf in my life.

Over fastfood dinner at KFC, TMF unloaded his girlfriend, family, and life issues (not without making a reference to an obscure indie band every so often) at me, which I honestly didn’t mind. There’s a lot you can learn about life, people, and yourself, just by listening to people talk. The conversation I had with TMF, for instance, made me realize that if there’s one thing I can’t stand – it’s a Male Feminist.

“I think of myself as a male feminist,” TMF said. “I read all these novels by feminist writers and I feel this connection with them, you know? All my life I was bullied by people for being different, and now my parents expect me to be this and that. I can definitely relate to how women feel about being oppressed by society.”

If he had caught me on a bad day, I would have punched him the face for that. Male feminist my ass! Okay, I’m no expert at feminist theory but to me, a guy who says that he’s a male feminist is like a CEO of a big multinational company saying that he’s Marxist because he can “relate” to how hard the factory workers in China has it. Sure, I understand that men may be able to empathize with how women suffer and agree with feminist theories or writers. But secondhand oppression is not the same as experiencing actual oppression. The pressure you feel from your family and the crap you get from society for being different is on an entirely different ballpark from getting your tits groped at age eleven and being stared at like a piece of meat from assholes in the workplace. I don’t care how sensitive and emotionally vulnerable you are. Anyone who is born with a dick between his legs can’t declare himself a feminist and back up that statement by saying that he can “relate” to how women suffer. The only people who know how women suffer are women. Period.

If all that stuff about feminism was supposed to impress me, well, it didn’t.

I kept talking to TMF anyway because if there’s one thing he’s got going for himself, it’s his excellent taste in music. At some point in the evening we were talking about folk music and he offered to let me hear stuff by Leonard Cohen. I agreed, thinking that maybe he had an iPod with him or something. Two minutes later I was in the passenger seat of his car, being serenaded by Leonard Cohen from the CD player as I recalled a story about myself as a kid from my mom. When I was four she attempted, in vain, to teach me how to fend myself from strangers who might want to kidnap me and sell me into a life of sex slavery. “If a man stops you on the street and asks if you’d like to step inside his car and have a kitten, what would you do?” “YES KITTEH PLZ,” was my enthusiastic reply. Dead in seconds. I don’t know how I lived to see my 21st birthday.

After our band’s set, I spotted a friend I haven’t seen in over a year and went off to say hi and catch up with each other. From the corner of my eye I could see TMF trying to grab my attention, but I was too involved in the conversation for my attention to be diverted. Several minutes later, TMF tapped me on the shoulder and said that he had to go.

“Bye, see ya around!” I said cheerfully before turning back to my friend and picking up where we left off.

The look TMF gave me before he walked away said, “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say to me? No hug? No kiss? No cellphone number and YM name hastily scribbled on a beer-stained paper napkin?”

If this entry made me seem like a total asshole, I’d like to take a moment to defend myself here and say that I’m not. I’m just a normal girl who can’t stand it when people try to bullshit their way into my heart. Now I’m not saying that this guy is a liar – for all I know, he really did spend some time hanging out with “real” punks in France. The point is, when you want to endear yourself to someone – regardless if you want to sleep with her, be in a relationship with her, or simply be her friend – just be. Do not attempt to get close to someone by listing down all the cool things you’ve done or telling her about how oppressed you were by your parents and by society all your life. Even if the latter may be true, these things are simply too intimate to reveal in a first conversation and will only come off as bullshit. Also, people who have done REAL crazy shit in their lives almost never talk about them, even when asked.

Finally, don’t try to impress girls by saying that you can understand their issues because you’re a feminist. TMF was real lucky that I’m too passive-aggressive and non-confrontational to punch him for saying that.

If the verb “to emasculate” defines the act of chopping off a guy’s nuts, what verb do you use to describe getting your ovaries snipped? By surgeons who learned surgery through the Wii? In front of the kitchen sink?

Last Monday, Anne and I randomly decided to cook something for the The Man Blog guys, girls, and friends using my mom’s shiny kitchen. Not that the TMB dudes need to get fatter than they already are, but I figured that it’s high time I learned how to cook. You see, I’ve always thought of myself as a closet housewife. I may be all, “You can’t make me give up my life and career for you! *snap snap snap*” but I have this feeling that once I settle down, I’ll most likely become a devoted wife and a suburban, pot-dealing soccer mom. Well, maybe minus the pot-dealing.

I’m weirdly traditional like that. Shut up.

It occurred to me, however, that there’s one tiny problem to this vision I have of my future self: I don’t know the first thing about being a closet housewife. My idea of cleaning is hiding all my crap under the bed so that my mom, the ultimate neat freak, doesn’t get stroke every time she pokes her head in my room. I can’t cook. I hate kids and toddlers. I hold babies like I hold cats – very awkwardly. I can sort of sew. Oh and once, I picked up crochet as a hobby and attempted to make my then-boyfriend a blanket using extra-soft, 100% cotton yarn I bought from the States. I wasn’t even 1/4ths done with it when I get bored with crochet and moved onto something else.

I can, however, analyze a poem, write songs with no lyrics, and defend my wanton shopping habits using John Maynard Keynes’ paradox of thrift. Other than that, I got nothing.

So in preparation for My Future Self as a Closet Housewife five, ten, twenty years from now, I met up with Anne, Coco, and Fritz at Hypermarket to buy ingredients for chicken casserole and steak. Actually, THEY bought the ingredients; I was coming from The Land of Long Taxi Lines (Megamall) and reached them as they were paying for stuff at the cash register. Yeah, I’m very useful to have around like that.

An hour later we were at my house – the women in the kitchen and the men off gallavanting somewhere. I was to cook the steak, Anne was to make the chicken casserole. I realized too late that I didn’t know the first thing about preparing the marinade, but a quick text message to my mom saved my ass and made me look like I knew what I was doing. Unfortunately, I gave away my kitchen n00bness when I told Anne cheerfully, “The marinade’s done!” Her expert eyes looked over at what I did and asked if I rubbed the marinade into the meat. To which I replied, “You mean, I have to touch it? With my bare hands?” I stifled an “Eww gross!” and proceeded to do as she said.

Once the marinade was all massaged into the meat, I offered to help Anne with the casserole, who then gave me the potatoes and told me to peel them. I’ve never peeled a potato in my life BUT I’ve read enough books and watched enough movies on World War II to know that peeling potatoes involved some knife action of sorts. It’s all about imitating the hand gestures, see.

I had barely begun peeling my first potato ever when I noticed that Fritz was leaning on the kitchen counter, snickering at us wimmin. Anne told me that he always does that when she cooks and that I should just ignore him like you would ignore a fly buzzing about your ear. But I didn’t want to ignore him – I wanted to swat him away from the kitchen with a flyswatter. It’s not nice to make fun of my potato-peeling skillz while I’m holding a sharp object. :(

Finally, Fritz came up to me and said that I was indeed peeling the potato all wrong. “This is how you do it,” he said, with a hint of condescension. I handed him the knife and stood there watching Fritz seriously pwn my ass at potato peeling. Never have I felt so emasculated before. Except instead of balls I had ovaries that were slowly getting whittled down to their atomic numbers by the potato-peeling knife. I know that this is the age of gender equality and all, but come on. Men shouldn’t be better at peeling potatoes than me! That’s just not how the world is supposed to work. T_T

A couple of hours later, dinner was ready and the guests have arrived. I noticed that the comments people made on my steak had something to do with how near or far they were seated from me. Fritz said it was okay, but it would have been better if the steak were grilled instead of baked. He was far from stabbing reach. Luis, who was at the far end of the table, mumbled something about how he likes his steak really bloody. Penny and Coco were smart enough to just eat and stay quiet. Jayvee, on the other hand, immediately began praising my steak after he took his first bite. Guess he must have noticed that my knife was poised for action.

I gotta admit, that wasn’t so bad for a first attempt. But I think I’ll do the cooking alone next time, just so I don’t embarrass myself in front of the experts. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make chili con carne for a high school reunion tonight.