JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Photographs of our friends in Hello Kitty eyeglasses.

Sheryll is a shoe entrepreneur, Francine is the lifestyle editor of InterAksyon. Sheryll’s label Shoes by Kai produces handmade shoes using indigenous weaves—abel from the north (Ilocos) and soon, yakan from the south (Zamboanga). Francine welcomes contributions to the Lifestyle section. Pitch your ideas at…(hold on, we forgot to ask).

Jaemark is the managing editor of InterAKTV, which makes him the Lord of the Rings.

Editor-in-chief Roby hosted the second InterAksyon Cafe event with talks by Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez (20 Months of ‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’) and coffee nerd Bobby Timonera (who depressed us with his assessment of local coffees but recommends Craft in New Manila and Curator in Makati.)

In the audience were Roby’s real bosses, Joy and Kia. (Roby: O. Us: Buti lang nagmana sa mommy.)

Incidentally, we gave a talk about movies at the first InterAksyon Cafe event. It went well, but we asked the team not to upload the video on YouTube because we had three chins. Two chins is normal, three is an invitation to trolls. (Never get shot from below.) We will post the audio as a podcast next week.

Afterwards we had dinner with Rene, who had to be home by 9:30pm to watch you know what. We caught an episode recently. The exes meet in the street. The music rises. A gust of wind disturbs the leaves on the ground and ruffles Eric’s hair. They have a strained conversation and a brief handshake. Then they spend the next five minutes in their respective apartments staring at their hands, unable to bring themselves to wash them. (Text at 10:27: Ayan na! Vincent is OUT!)

The chronicler of boredom told us he was planning to start a journal. Having maintained a journal since we were 12, we can vouch for the benefits of journal-keeping.

1. Writing forces you to organize your thoughts so your life feels more orderly. In our case, writing something down makes it feel more real.

2. It’s an excellent forum for venting, and unlike Facebook and other social media, the things you say in the grip of strong emotion will not come back to bite you someday.

3. The physical act of writing on paper is very relaxing. There’s nothing like defiling good paper. When you’re young it won’t matter if you write your journal on the backs of bus tickets; as you get older you may find that you like having nice things. As Raul says, “Luxury is our revenge on the young.” (We do not approve of the young having too much luxury. They haven’t earned it.)

4. As Oscar Wilde said, you need something sensational to read on the train or during long voyages.

5. It trains you to hold a conversation with yourself. If you can do that, you will never be deathly bored or lonely.

6. You deal with your feelings directly, saving you the cost of going to a psychotherapist.

7. You can express all your romantic obsessions, declarations of eternal passion, and half-serious threats to kill yourself for love without making your closest friends throw up. (In which case you should keep your journal in a very safe place because if other people read it, you’ll want to kill yourself.) Years later, you can re-read your hysterical entries and have a good laugh.

8. Very important for people who write: You can pilfer your journal for material.

9. You’re less likely to forget something if you write it in your journal.

10. If you become famous, it would be of great help to your official biographer. If you intend to become famous, you might want to make your days sound more fascinating than they really are. Embellish. You wouldn’t want to bore your biographer.

– Especially love letters. The last words our best friend, a lawyer, said to us before she died. She knew of our propensity for writing everything down.

On a rolltop desk: Added risk of strangulation.

How Often Do People Have Sex at the Office?
By Arianne Cohen in Businessweek

As someone who reads people’s sex diaries professionally—for my books and website I collect thousands of them—I am here to report that former CIA Director David Petraeus is really just a talented guy who, considering his marital and work history, is a typical American male.

Various news outlets reported that Petraeus had sex under his desk at CIA headquarters. This makes his case a rare one. Although the workplace is the most common place to meet a new partner, few people actually have sex at the office—in the 3,500 diaries I’ve read, a grand total of 11 office affairs actually took place within the workplace walls. Workaholics logging long hours, particularly those working 12- to 18-hour days, account for seven of those 11. (Oh, and regarding the issue of on the desk vs. under the desk, I’ve discovered that people who prefer steadiness and balance—and the kinds of sexual positions given names such as “missionary,” for instance—opt for the floor. The desk is the domain of more acrobatic love-makers.)… Read on.

Dear Auntie Janey,

Late last year I saw how biased and narrow-minded he really is. A new batch of staff had just come in. The new staff and some of the tenured staff had a miscommunication. Instead of making things better, my boss sided with the new staff and made it appear like we were bullying them. He continues to give the newbies preferential treatment even if some of them are clearly incompetent and in need of training. Because of this I’ve had several meetings with our department head (the boss of my boss). He’s already taking a drastic course of action that is bound to shake some feathers in our department.
(more…)

You try to get some writing done but there’s a cat at your computer and she will not budge.

You can’t even sit at your work table because there’s a cat under the table biting your toes. Fine, you’ll take a nap.

There’s a cat on your bed, hogging the pillow. You’ll have to lie on the side and try not to fall off.

My domestic life.

Wake up!

You have deadlines to meet so you decide to stay at home and get work done. This is a bad idea.

Little work gets done at home. You will surf the internet aimlessly even as you wonder why you are surfing when you should be toiling. If you really want to accomplish something, go to a public place and work there.

Get to work!!

You have a pile of books to read and you really want to read them but somehow you manage not to. You have a stack of dvds you’re eager to watch and somehow you avoid them. Instead you sit doing nothing, inwardly kicking yourself for not reading or watching. Desire is overcome by torpor.

Another full day in our quest for world domination. Right, Duck Vader?

Eventually your annoyance boils over and you finish your assignments in a huff. Strangely, they read better than the stuff you write at leisure. So sloth turns out to be an efficient approach. But this is not the way to live.