Caustic Thoughts

Random funny thoughts with a taste of Pinoy and a hint of acid.

I Don’t Want to be Darth Vader

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I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I hate having to write for a living. It feels like having ethyl alcohol for breakfast (yes, I’ve tasted it) or having nosebleeds upside down. But I share the fate of Anakin Skywalker. The sequels of my life must have been written way before the prequels and I am doomed to take the form of the looming shadow behind me. Anywhere I go, I am taken seriously only when I parade an esoteric array of words that never cease to impress those who struggle to use cat and dog in the same sentence.

I find commercial writing the hardest to do. When I was still in school, I had a feeling that my papers got As because my teachers involuntarily rolled over and performed dog tricks every time they read words like “traverse,” “tribulation,” and “incontinence.” Business clients are not so easily tricked into parting with their juicy bones. Because their major interest is to sell, they prefer words that even real dogs can understand. When a composition is stripped of its gilded trappings there’s nothing left but either a really understandable paragraph or a naked fool of a sales pitch.

Somehow it helps to be Filipino. I suspect that my husband would rather dance the Can-can than sweat under the midday sun and my mom would rather join a Japanese game show than squeeze some sign of life out of students who are less enlightened than dead fish. But because we are Filipinos, we do what we have to do and just bite the bullet. So Luke, I really am your father.

By the Power of the Bump

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I’d forgotten how powerful a baby bump can be. It seems the bigger my baby grows the more I can strut with reckless abandon and expect everyone to clear the way. They really do. All of a sudden I never have to stand in line and people immediately vacate the doughnut stand when they see me coming. My baby plays his part to a tee. His limbs move every which was as if to say, “Move over.”

This only really happens though when I am in a standing position. Although I am due next month, my belly is small and when I sit, I just look like I have a huge beer belly and people have to look twice to confirm my condition and my gender.

I can feel it my bones though. My boy is going to be a little Napoleon of sorts— all that huffing and puffing in such a small package.

Mar and Noynoy

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Politicians who kiss babies (or drive them in sidecars), use the elderly as props and demonstrate the leakiness of their childhood residences leave a bad taste in my mouth. Clearly, even poverty itself is being exploited. Because majority of our people can comprehend little else than daily bread, the bid to demonstrate who can relate the most to the underfed has replaced substantive speeches and debates.

Since most of the candidates parade shamelessly in borrowed rags, I thought I would have to skip voting yet again rather than risk vomiting on those shiny new million peso counting machines. Recently though, the sidecar driver caught my attention and might just change my mind.

After spending an inordinate amount of cash that defies my ability to count on infomercials, shedding pounds of perfumed sweat driving two scrawny kids in a sidecar and soiling expensive soles on a wet market, Mar Roxas has declared his intention to withdraw from the presidential race in favor of Noynoy Aquino.

He doesn’t care that he is more qualified. He doesn’t care that Korina Sanchez will lose the chance to be first lady. If purging our country of thieves in high places means stepping down for a more popular, less experienced man, Roxas is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice even if it means having wasted campaign money and a weeping Korina.

It’s obvious. No one would have thought of pushing a reluctant Aquino into the forefront if Cory, his mother, had not died and if an emaciated nation had not been thrown into remembering the moving rhetoric of his martyred father. If not for the turn of events, Roxas would still have had a shot driving those kids all the way to the presidential living room. But I suppose Roxas is right. He does not matter. This country does.

I know what I do not want. I do not want a president who had a 2001 net worth of P67 million that ballooned like a gangrened foot to a 2008 net worth of P144 million. I do not want a presidential son who was worth P5 million in 2002 and is now worth more than P99 million. I do not want public officials with unexplained wealth even if they technically cannot be called thieves yet. No one wants even just the suspicion of thievery hanging in the air, not the hungry, not the silenced, not the oppressed. Getting what we want may mean shoving the reigns of leadership into the hands of a lesser but more honest man. Noynoy will not dare shame the ghosts of his parents or he’ll asphyxiate to death in a sea of yellow ribbons.

The question is whether Noynoy will step up and do justice to Mar’s sacrifice. We’ll find out in a day or two. It will take several years though to find out if we’ve been had by yet another unraveling circus side show.

Facebook Yourself

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I once had the misfortune of having had to open a Friendster account for work purposes. If you think, “Well that was fun,” the nonconformist in me was not so amused. Now that the main reason for the account is no longer pressuring me to be falsely amiable and to have a pleasing personality implant, the account has retained the appeal of spit on a wad of tissue. Now I am thankfully back to brooding and plotting the sabotage of primetime telenovelas.

Then I saw him once while I was surfing the net in pathetically continuous waves of boredom and disillusionment. That smooth, pale skin; the outdated glasses and the half a coconut husk haircut diplomatically parted at the side as a compromise were unmistakably his. The air of friendly geekiness gave him away even more.

I would never admit to having a crush because I am a candidate for the yet to be established nonconformist award but he was probably the closest I could get to having one. Strangely, I married someone who is the exact opposite, one who seems more like an over grilled minion of Hades on rehabilitation than ideal husband material.

It’s been more than five years of fantastic culturally rebellious living with my buff, gruff, brown husband. Seeing the geek however has made me think for a fraction of a second of connecting with the other side. After all, they say Facebook is to basil and thyme as Friendster is to Maggi Magic Sarap. The supposedly sophisticated, some of whom have varying sizes of artificial implants, are all in Facebook. Of course, there are also genuine gems I might have the pleasure of meeting there.

I’m not sure. I’ve been getting invitations to open a Facebook account for months and every time I get one, an internal switch makes me blurt, “Facebook yourself.” The geek may not be worth the aggravation.

And the Meaning of Life Is…

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A thought came to me on a warm and unholy night as I was listening to the self-confessed miseries of an intoxicated 57 year old man. Just what do you live for when all your kids are grown up and you are all alone? What do you do when you are old and weary and you have no kids?

I know of others. At least three of them are approaching the twilight years single and unattached, having spent the duration of their lives caring and providing for their biological families. Whether their status is by design or out of necessity, I can never tell.

I am uncertain too if living mainly for others is a fact of Filipino life. I am nowhere close to unraveling the meaning of life and I suspect I would not come close even if I were also to intoxicate the very tips of my toes. But it seems a pity when one cannot live for oneself.

The spiritual are most fortunate because when the self is insufficient, there is at least a higher being.

I have nothing, nothing, nothinggggg eeeef I don’t haaave youuuuuwooo…

When Numbers Fail Me

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“Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping.”

—Bo Derek

To the utter dismay of my husband, words never failed me, but numbers always did, which allows my husband to get back at me for not failing at words by relying on my inability to compute his exact monetary worth. I wish I could use words to earn tons of cash but in the Philippines, the kind of words I excel in can only earn either impoverished fame or the ire of the politicians with the big guns.

According to CNNMoney.com, the highest paying jobs all have something to do with math skills. I hope my daughter takes after her father and finishes a course that can actually pay the monthly bills. They say money isn’t the answer to everything but it sure helps to have some.

Aquino Dies at 76

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Former president and Philippine icon of democracy Corazon “Cory” C. Aquino passed away today at 3:18 a.m. at the age of 76. She died of colon cancer.

May the nation’s mother rest in peace and may democracy live forever.

State of the President’s Emoticons

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You know you’ve grown old if you can listen to the president’s State of the Nation Address without fidgeting, yawning or thinking that there are worse things than death. You know you are older still if you can sit through the entire SONA and end up criticizing every line and facial twitch.

I discovered I’m not very old. I managed to sit through only a few snippets, those parts where she turned the other cheek and still managed to send acidic spittle via satellite towards her critics. It was like watching an ugly parade of emoticons on the president’s sleeves. Wouldn’t it be horrible to be remembered for that speech?

Then there was the usual display of colorful feathers. I suppose running a country takes more than just average gray matter and she must have done a good job making sure that those esoteric economic figures behave. I know I would not have done a better job. But sadly, the noodle eaters of Tondo cannot relate to the numbers that denote her success because they can only comprehend the presence or absence of food, their only measurement of a politician’s success.

This is why the new batch of presidential aspirants have made it a point to stress that they grew up in the slums feeding pigs, that they can give pedicab rides to the sons of vendors and that they can relate, with matching tearful looks, to the plight of the poor.

Memories of Yore: In the Days of Mailmen

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Before money transfer services and courier companies, there was only the government owned post office. I remember the days when relatives abroad used to write on folded and glued papers or greeting cards in between which were a few pieces of green paper with the faces of American presidents on them. After the “how are yous” and “happy birthdays” they’d write in convoluted, cryptic codes detailing the whereabouts of the hidden stash. Somehow, SOMEONE always found it first and we’d get mail with lots of scotch tape as if SOMEONE fed it accidentally to a pet Chihuahua with issues.

The post office always got blamed. I wonder if they really were to blame or the relatives never really sent Franklins and McKinleys.

The Death of a Croc

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Crocs
I hate them and would rather be caught with my pants down than wearing a pair of them. I did make my kid wear a pair once because there was one free white pair and she had small feet. Mine are already large and hideous and a pair of adult, multi colored, butterfly enhanced Crocs will only highlight their Hobbit-like form and my utter lack of fashion sense. Besides, the price of one pair can already buy thirty six large bottles of beer for my husband or pay for one month’s tuition for my daughter. I’d prefer the beer for my heavily insured husband or the education for my girl than crocodile feet.

But I respect your desire and right to wear them. I may not have to suffer long though at the sight of your feet. According to a report from The Washington Post, the company that manufactures Crocs may be going down the financial drain. It seems people are cutting down on expenses or simply don’t need to buy another pair when they already have one very durable pair.

I may not like them but I find this sad news. It’s always a pity when innovative people who have met with some success suddenly find themselves at the bottom of the wheel of life.