'I've had the best-best-best and the worst-worst-worst,' she said in an interview in her apartment, with its golden upholstery, its Masters paintings, its ranks of framed photographs and its buckets of artificial flowers.
In the 20 years since she and her husband, President Ferdinand E. Marcos, were driven into exile and disgrace by something called People Power, she has retrofitted her tangled philosophy of life into a truly incomprehensible Power Point presentation.
Her patter is so realistic that it gives the illusion of making sense.
'Beauty is God made real,' she said, and, 'The opposite of love is not hate, it is selfishness,' and, 'The only things we keep are those we give away,' and, 'Common sense is common to all.' She has run through it so often that it gives her relentless mind a chance to rest, and both she and her listener follow the peregrinations of the red dot half asleep. 'The Seven Pillars to Moral Regeneration — ecological order; human order; economic order; social order; moral order; cosmic order; peace and order.'
Her mind wandered and she touched her fingers to a very large yellow brooch pinned to what seemed to be a well-worn blue dress.
'Plastic,' she said.
She was met with surprise.
'I don't wear jewels anymore,' she announced. 'They stole all my jewels. These are recycled garbage that I make into jewels.'
'It's beautiful,' she said. 'Here, I have a plastic ring. I did it. I designed it. I have hundreds and hundreds. I have a room full of jewels made of plastic.' Servants began carrying in trays of plastic jewelry — tray after tray — and Mrs. Marcos hovered. It was a breathtaking re-enactment of the years when she had more of everything, from shoes to sunglasses, than she could ever wear.
'I have jewelry for every dress and for every shoe and for everything,' she said, inspecting an elaborate brooch. 'This is garbage.'
She stood tall and proud, as she always has, somehow alert and distracted at the same time: blue scarf, yellow shoes, her hair a little loose.
'I'm more bejeweled than before," she said. "Bejeweled with garbage.' "
Honestly, you should read the whole article. I find it a constant source of inspiration and guidance.
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