Warning: the post below involves frontal nudity

this is my one and only topless photo. the sex video traders in the country will just snicker at it, but in my opinion, it's very, very appealing.


this is me, zero years old, with my mommy. i know its me, and not one of my six siblings, because of the trademark furrowed brow and downturned mouth. i still wear this frown with pride to this day. it is my face's default setting. but the saggy boobs, eh. i will not discuss that here. former and current students drop by this blog from time to time. as my dad loved to say, i have an image to project, a name to protect.

but the most remarkable thing about this photo, aside from my incandescent cuteness, is not my frown nor my infantile boobs. its the dress my mom is wearing. because. because. because i got to wear it twenty two years later.


that is me in 1995 with our son rashdi.

in the photos above, mommy and i are wearing a circa 70s jumpsuit. but i guess i don't have to say that it is from the 70s because there is no such thing as an 80s jumpsuit (in pleated georgette?) nor 90s jumpsuit (in minimalistic shantung?) nor a 00s jumpsuit (this fashion history is still being written). its made of a very 70s fabric as well. huge synthetic-feeling thread, huge weave, heavy, in colors that are a bit muddy.

for those whose brains haven't been damaged by reading too much vogue magazines, you can wake up now. i will resume talking about the dress and the frontal nudity in sane terms again.

the pantsuit has huge flowers scattered all over a red orange field. it has pretty simple lines, zips at the back and like any self-respecting garment from the 70s, its pant legs end with a huge flare.

Wikipedia says a jumpsuit originally referred to the utilitarian one-piece garments used by parachuters and skydivers, but has come to be used as a common term for any one-piece garment with sleeves and legs. Starting in the 1960s, the jumpsuit has made occasional appearances in common and high fashion (particularly in the 1980s), but has never been a common item of everyday wear. They retain connotations of futurism because they have been frequently featured in popular science fiction.^[3]

unfortunately, you cannot see a lot of my mom in our photo but those are definitely her lips and those are her fingers holding on to me. as for me, in the spirit of my outfit, i flipped the ends of my hair out.

rashdi, our eldest, was less than a year old here. we have the same shape head (like coconuts), but he doesn't have my frown. if you look closely at the photo of me as a mom, i am smiling but the frown is still there, flittering about the outer edges of my brows. i bet even vicky belo doesn't have anything for that in her clinics' menu.

my baby photo was taken when we were still living in hinunangan, southern leyte, in my lola's old house. my mom would be in her early 30's. she had her first child quite late, at 29. i on the other hand, could not wait to be a mom and had rashdi at 22. that photo of me and rashdi was taken in front of the white gazebo my parents had at that time. when mommy renovated her house, she took it down, but with a little advance and unsolicited help from a termite colony.

i am not sure if i could still put on that dress now. my mom was slim (she'd brag about this to us again and again. peace, mommy, hehe) as a young woman. us, her five girls, however, mostly took after the huge-boned blancos. the last time i had a 23-inch waistline was at grade four.