Before the Flash Mob...

...it was just giddy, spontaneous, unchoreographed bustin' out. For real, just people dancing. With people. For no good reason but to dance.

 I was reminded of this over the weekend, when a bunch of us took a shopping sidetrip distraction between brunch and happy hour. We were at a quaint Brooklyn shop called Something Different and they were playing eighties tunes. Who can resist???

This 'Reality Bites' scene below is a close approximation of what happened when Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now came one. Except in our case, we were all dancing and joyful. We love each other, and celebrate each other's gangsta. And danza.

Where Have All the Best Friends Gone?

You may or may not have noticed the radio silence, but the day job has kept my mind preoccupied lately. Working through a brand's character and personality (at least if you do things the way I tend to) sends the thoughts on wild rides. As I looked through Jungian psychology, the fundamentals of branding and a snapshot of female popular culture I could not help but as the question: Where have all the best friends gone? The last big chick friend flick was "Thelma and Lousie." This was in 1991, then close to the end of that decade "Sex and The City" took the world with its real-talking, stiletto strutting strong women and their deep friendships. Sadly, with the success of the show and consequent increased production budget and caché, the fashions and romance often seem to have eclipsed the heart of the matter: women nurture women.

Gratuitous bromance hunk shots appear
thanks to www.sheknows.com

Meanwhile the world has come to embrace male friendships, celebrating them through the birth of the bromance and it seems the tides turned on female friendships with the introduction of the term frenemies. Granted, it isn't exclusively for female use only, it is quite alarming that while the press celebrates the shirtless Lance Armstrong + Matthew McConnaughey tandem training for the NY Marathon they taint the Oprah - Gayle friendship with speak of closeted lesbian love. I started to worry. Then, I found a spark of hope in the most unlikely place - the box office! 

This summer's top grossing film
was by and about women.

This summer, guess which comedy flick kicked every other film's butt at the box office (well, except for the one that utilized similar gratuitous hunkiness in its promo)? A charming, heart-warming, witty, well-written, well-acted film authored by women, celebrating the friendships of women. The film is called Bridesmaids and it was the summer of 2011's top grossing film, with an impressive $26 million the weekend it opened and Box Office Mojo reporting box office sales of $283,444,100.

I realize life gets busy and hectic, blog posts take time to write, Facebook and Twitter can make us forget to actually stay in touch but we gotta gotta gotta romance our most treasured friendships, we simply must. I am not asking anyone to run around shirtless (unless of course that's what you and your girls are into, then by all means go!), I am simply putting a loving reminder out there: your girls need you, this girl needs you. 

My blood sister, my treasure
www.motheringearthlings.com

Before I go walking and not talking, let me salute my girlfriends, and the men of my inner circle. You are the loves of my life, the sass to my shimmy, the chili salt to my body shot. You all know who you are. We brunch together and poem together, we dance together and booze together, we have seen so much life together and look ahead to so much more. I only have one blood sister and she's the bomb, still I must be doing something right because lucky me, I get to choose an arsenal of amazing women (and men!) I am thrilled to call my girls, my sisters, my friends.

I will probably tag you on this post, or  tweet at you - but that's just right now. Just you wait till I see you, you'll get an old fashioned hug and then some because that is how we love.

A New Place to Call Home

There is no exact number I can come up with when I try to count the number of times I've moved in my life. More cities than the fingers of two hands, and enough countries to occupy all the fingers of one hand. Even still, finding a place that feels so much like home in a city that is so far away from most of the people who know you best and love love love love you is always a magical thing. It's been a week to the day, and the report remains stellar.

An early drawing by Gaél, a foto with a story I might tell you, an old-school writing kit from my brother.

The place is warm and nurturing, somewhere between a beachside fire and a shot of whisky. Neat, of course. It sits on a tree-lined street, where today an HBO series will be shooting (yep, it's THAT pretty). My desk sits facing the street, so I get a cool breeze as I think and work surrounded by mementos from friends and family. This new life is punctuated by touches of where I am from, a pair of ash trays bearing the words "Casa Vallés" from Abuelo's collection; the scapular my great grandmother brought to the Philippines from Spain - a present during my First Holy Communion, one one side The Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin on the other. It is all part of the dichotomy of who I am, and I like it like that.

This is how we do breakfast chez nous.

For all the time I've lived in New York and for as much as I love this city, I have not felt like I could claim a space and call it home until now. The art that sits waiting for me to get my bearings will soon board a ship and find themselves, as I have, in a new place to call home. Until then, I continue to get to know what this new home will mean to me and my story. I invite you to come over for a meal, we do quite well in the food and beverage department. I may be a New Yorker but I will always be a hospitable Filipina at heart, ready with a big hug, warm meal and clean sheets for my friends. Come visit us in Brooklyn, donde hay vino para el vecino.