but first, a little vanity

I mentioned it here, so I have to update my thoughts on the matter here as well.

If you remember, I wrote about a recent photo shoot where I felt particularly ugly and unattractive and unphotogenic. Luis even sent me an SMS after reading it that I had no right to feel that way (but in his sweet, gentlemanly manner, of course). Still, I felt really panget in that photo shoot and I was inconsolable.

First why? - The photog didn't want me to smile my normal smile. He kept saying, "Not too big, smaller smile..." and I couldn't do it, and he had to make me blow air from my mouth to relax my lips and "Now, small smile." I was not accustomed to this and felt like a freak.

Fast forward a few months to the release of Isang Bagong Bituin souvenir programmes. Most of the photos used in the company artists section were from that photo shoot. I had seen most of them before in the MB programme, but not mine because we had, well, been on leave. In this programme, I was very shocked to see my photo - I was gorgeous. Not even just okay looking, given how bad I felt about the photo shoot, but I was so stunning (as in, I stunned myself) that I couldn't keep my eyes off it.

You know how there's a certain way you know you can look in pictures and wish you looked like that 24/7? Or, at least, in every picture taken of you? This was the very look I always wanted.

I loved it so much that my Dad was making fun of me. At first, while staring at myself in the programme, I kept saying, "Shit, ang ganda ko! Grabe!" And he would say, "Sino naman nagsabi na ang ganda mo?" And I would smile and say, "Ako, baket?"

Mom said, "Sanay na sanay ka na sa Daddy mo no?" and I said, "You know, Ma, I think I kinda look like you here..." because something about the photo looked really familiar to me. And Daddy said, "Ay, ang kapal ng mukha mo!" Amid the laughter, I finally got it and said, "I know now! I look like Mamia's portrait!"

Mamia has this big painting of herself as an early 20-year old hanging in her living room. She's very gorgeous in it that she jokes that it's not even her. "Tisay ka na pala," Mom chides as Daddy exclaims, "Nako, ang ambisyosa!!!!"

Later, Mom tells me how all her sisters-in-law are always saying that Mamia's old pictures all look like me. "Maybe you'll also look more tisay when you get older," she adds. Ha, pigs will fly. But then, I guess there must be a really valid reason why I'm Mamia's favorite in the first place, other than I'm her first granddaughter.