Is this the lifestyle or the laughstyle section?

The trouble with working for the Lifestyle Section of the Philippine STAR is that we develop a style (or so we think), but we don’t have a life (or so we realize).

With so many pages to close every day, how indeed, can we have a life? In between press lunches and office work, we do manage to catch a sale at Rustan’s and do some window shopping at Glorietta or Greenbelt. In between press work at the office, sometimes we do manage to have dinner at Raj and a few drinks at Portico in Malate. In between our Hell Fridays and Hell Mondays, we do manage to make heavenly quickie trips to Boracay or even Hong Kong, pre-SARS.

Are we complaining? Not really. Because despite the rare in-betweens in our stress-filled working life, we do relish bonding lunches together, to de-stress, celebrate birthdays and milestones. Whenever we get the chance.

Such as last Wednesday. The original plan was to have a birthday lunch for April and May celebrants among the staff. (It used to be a monthly thing, really). And that included May 7 celebrant Eric Catipon, our dear colleague who passed away a year ago in between a working trip to Bali and a working trip to the US. We were to leave a vacant seat for him during our lunch and sing Happy Birthday.

But then Kathy Moran, our Power Puff sub-editor who is a physical fitness buff, sighed: "Why don’t we invite Young Star writer Marc Nelson to our lunch?"

Fine, I said. But we might as well invite the rest of the YS writers. Okay, let’s also call Tingting Cojuangco and Mons Tantoco who are April celebrants. And Lucy Torres. And Maricel Pangilinan. And the list got longer and longer, we had to stop at three tables. If we invited all the STAR Lifestyle Section writers, we would need the ballroom!

What a lifestyle – or is it laughstyle – lunch it turned out to be at the Shang Palace of Makati Shangri-La!

As soon as the vegetarian dimsum and Peking duck were served, everybody started serving blind items, a la Ricky Lo, such as:

• Who is this STAR lifestyle writer who goes to bed with a tall, dark and handsome hunk? Clue: They had their first hot date after they met each other during a shampoo commercial shoot. (The answer, of course, is Lucy Torres-Gomez.)

• Who is this writer from Down Under whose down under people fantasize about? (Marc Nelson)

• Who is this writer who composed the popular SM jingle You’ve Got It All, and has got it all, being an architect and seminar resource speaker as well? (Dero Pedero)

• Who is this sub-editor who is said to be a lookalike of Beau Bridges? (Joseph Cortes)

• Who is this writer who braved the SARS epidemic just to be able to interview the Rolling Stones in Bangkok? (Igan D’ Bayan)

• And who is this assistant editor who got Shanghied, and quarantined herself at home for a week, and almost went crazy because she couldn’t go window-shopping? Fortunately, she was declared SARS free. (Ching Alano).

• Who is this assistant editor who, when given a foreign assignment, asks first: "Is there an Ikea in that city?" Clue: She loves writing about beautiful homes. (Tanya Lara).

• Who is this writer who was a citizen of clean Singapore for the longest time and had the city sense to move to polluted Manila? Well, he also has a nationalist sense. Clue: He is a landscape architect who used to be a member of the Adrenaline dance group. (Paulo Alcazaren).

• Who is this sub-editor who is a pet lover but who behaves like a bulldog when running after late YS writers? Clue: Her hair style is as cute and colorful as a shih tzu. (Kathy Moran).

• Who is this writer who was once named one of the world’s most beautiful women by a foreign glossy mag? Clue: She remains a most beautiful woman. (Tingting Cojuangco).

•Who is this writer whose favorite TV show is Sex and & the city, favorite movie, The Hours, favorite actress Nicole Kidman, and who may someday direct a biopic about his presidentiable mother? (Lanz Leviste).

• Who is this writer who once worked for President Cory Aquino and whose father is now the Little President? Is there truth to the rumor that she may, like her siblings, someday run for Congress? (Mons Tantoco).

• Who is this writer who feels Delilah because her pet dog died of a heart attack recently? Not even a glass of her favorite martini can console her. (Celine Lopez).

• Who is this writer who fantasizes about meeting a handsome archeologist someday? She thought she met one during an assignment in Taal recently, but he turned out to be the bus driver. (Lynette Corporal).

• Who is this writer who may one day become an edgy filmmaker just like his idol David Lynch? (Erwin Romulo).

• Who is this tall and pretty writer who just finished college Down Under and who’s a real hip and cool dresser? (Audrey Carpio).

• Who is this writer who comes from a family of journalists? Clue: Her father is the STAR business editor. (Michelle Katigbak).

• Who is this tall and cool writer who always claims to be broken-hearted and loveless, but actually never runs out of hot dates? (Matthew Estabillo).

• Who is this nerdy writer who loves ketchup and who’s a champion swimmer? (Luis Carlo San Juan).

• Who is this writer whose post-college barkada included Bongbong Marcos and Bong Daza, but who is now a domesticated husband and loving father to three boys? (Philip Cu-Unjieng).

• Who is this La Sallite writer who loves cooking and may one day open a resto of her own? (Jennifer Ong).

• Who is this Palanca Award-winning writer who has been working on the biography of John Gokongwei Jr. for the past 10 years? His book is constantly delayed by his attempts to write other books on the sex lives of tycoons. (Wilson Lee Flores).

• Who is this writer whose family owns a chain of fashion specialty stores in the country, but who prefers to go shopping in Paris and New York? (Marielle Santos).

• Who is this writer who will hold her debut party soon, during which she will launch her first book, a compilation of her articles in YS? (Monique Buensalido).

• Who is this writer who is in love with a newscaster? Clue: They have four children with whom she is also in love. (Maricel Pangilinan).

• Who is this writer who used to write for Cosmopolitan Magazine but whose fave mag is FHM? Clue: She teaches at Ateneo de Manila University. (Paula Nocon).

• Who is this writer who recently married her dream boy and is now in love again, this time with her little dream boy? (Ginggay Joven).

Over hot prawn salad, suahe, seafood noodles, chicken, steamed fish and vegetable fried rice, writers grabbed the microphone and said one-liners about themselves.

Samples:

Some dirty writer: Marc Nelson, you are overdressed. We can hardly recognize you with your clothes on. We’re used to seeing you the way you look in your Bench billboards.

Marc: I’m just a piece of meat!

Ching: Don’t worry, we love Australian meat.

Over mango sago, Paulo Alcazaren had the sense to ask the YS writers to talk about their first kiss, the whos and the whens.

"My first kiss was with my best friend in high school. Up to now, we’re just best friends," said Luis Carlo. "I hope my Mom doesn’t find out about this."

"My first kiss was with a little boy. Now he’s a little gay," said Celine.

The non-Young Star writers wanted to talk about their first kiss too, but we just had to stop them or else it would take another three hours.

For me, the most touching line came from Luis Carlo: "Being a Young Star writer is the best thing that ever happened to me."

Well, having that get-together lunch – co-hosted by Globe Telecom and Shangri-La Makati Hotel – was the best thing that happened to us recently, and we promised another one before Christmas, this time including all the STAR Lifestyle Section writers. Even if it takes a ballroom – or a gymnasium – to make it happen. In this post-Iraq, SARS-beleaguered era, we need more laughs to give us life.