Caustic Thoughts

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

The Real Ms. Universe

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My husband thinks I’m beautiful. That isn’t too flattering though considering that his supreme standard of beauty is the female alien in James Cameron’s Avatar. Then again, I would probably have a shot at the Ms. Universe crown if Trump acknowledged the audacity of the pageant title and started inviting real otherworldly creatures to compete. If someone like my husband were to be a judge, he’d probably choose the 8 ft. sentient mollusk from Alpha Centauri besides me, the Na’vi representative, as a top contender.

There simply is no chance in my lifetime for Ms. Universe to be redefined and reformatted. I’d have to stay contended hanging around in my evening gown (i.e. nightgown), binging on my third bag of chips while watching nearly absurd vital statistics take on human forms and sashay in heels, the first inanimate object that will soon be convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

There is no bitterness in my system, mind you. My father drilled into my consciousness by the tender age of five that the pageant is like a great big cattle farm where the cattle are paraded, stared at and branded. By the time I grew up to be the shortest in my high school class, he assured me that he will forever be happy that I didn’t grow tall enough to join beauty pageants.

Neither am I particularly scornful of pageants. I like watching grown women tell the whole world how much they espouse world peace. So yeah, I will watch the pageant and enjoy it even if I find that creating “universal” standards for beauty isn’t fair.

Books on Wheels and Everything Nice

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When I was a little girl studying in a private school, our teachers used to ask us to bring all our books and notebooks to and from school every day. So I strapped on an extra large bag almost half my size. Before there was the fantasy character template of the pretty, goody two shoes, hunchbacked, provincial girl secretly carrying a sinister gremlin inside her hump that we seem to see so often on Philippine TV these days, there was me and my hump full of books. My mom says my gremlins were the reason why I shall forever be denied the chance to apply for jobs where 5’2” is a requirement.

My daughter doesn’t need to grow her own hump. Now, kids have Barbie and Batman on wheeled frames attached to handlebars to carry their books for them and make sure genes and not education are blamed exclusively for shortness.

When I was in high school, we stayed inside warm classrooms for nearly eight hours a day. Each classroom had a single ceiling fan. Each fan seemed to look browner every year. When our fan started to make weird noises, stories of students whose heads had been chopped off by the blades of a fallen fan started to circulate. That’s when asthma suddenly became a fad and a popular excuse to get permission to sit farthest from the fan.

My daughter goes to an air conditioned room where the only threat is the explosion of odor after twenty, small, sweaty bodies that had been out playing under the sun too long pile in. At least only the teacher has to get distracted. There are no thoughts of chopped heads to frighten the kids.

Yeah, my kid enjoys the comforts of wheeled contraptions and air conditioning. I hope that’ll mean she’ll learn a lot more to help her live better and wiser.

*Photo by Arvind Balaraman; www.freedigitalphotos.net

Do I Taste Funny?

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My brother told me I should wake up and smell the flowers. I did and I got allergies.

There! That’s exactly what some people don’t like about me. They think I’m too negative and that I will eventually attract all the universe’s negative forces, cause a planetary collision and forever eradicate my chances of happiness, peace and a group date with the care bears.

If I were to change, would that mean just cutting off a limb or growing facial hair? Will I still be myself or will I be one of Barney’s friends tomorrow?

This may or may not be who I am. I don’t know. If I can’t figure out basic multiplication (I still use my fingers), how can I figure out myself right this very minute?

There are others who find my acerbic flavor funny. I make them laugh and I make myself laugh. This is all really just for fun. I think the key to stay intact is to never use muriatic acid for marinating.

Trouble at Twilight

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werewolfI was all happy and ecstatic when we finally decided to live on our own apart from my in-laws. Even the impending birth of a second baby didn’t stop us. Armed with determination and a tummy that was the only thing larger than my resolve, I moved heaven and earth to get us an apartment. The tummy helped a lot because everyone seemed all too eager to help me get around. It’s been seven months and I wish I can say we made the best decision.

Like most Filipino communities, we live in one where people are always friendly and helpful. There are just some nights though when scenes jump right out of a vampire book and I’d wish I read Twilight. That would have been bearable punishment compared to the cold, clammy sweat I bathe in every time the friendly neighbors start drinking, bickering, breaking bottles and destroying private property.

I used to live in a place where the neighbors sometimes mutated at twilight too but I had nothing to worry about. They all still seemed to recognize me in their hairy, fanged conditions. That’s thanks to the many long years of friendship forged by countless beer bottles that my own pet werewolf (my husband) has had with them.

Without familiar faces, I find myself losing more and more sleep watching over my human children. I’d probably sleep better if I had a silver stake beside me but all I have is a short wooden stick that probably can’t even hurt a cat.

A friend once asked me, “So what do you prefer, living in a place not your own but where you’re good friends with the drunkards or in a place of your own but where the drunkards are strangers?”

Tough question.

Motherhood Smile On Me

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Baby FeetI read somewhere that women in Canada are given a year’s maternity leave, three months of which are paid. After a year, they can expect to have a job waiting for them. Wow!

It isn’t so bad here. Mothers get roughly two months off for normal deliveries or a little more than that after C-sections. The female body doesn’t take long to get up and running after childbirth. What’s really difficult is the separation. I remember crying when I had to leave my first baby to get back to work at which point my father-in-law took me to task and reminded me that I had to pull myself together and work for milk, diapers and seventeen years of tuition fees.

Two years after I gave birth to my eldest child, I decided to go freelance, a term I prefer to use for picking odd tasks in a constant state of panic to make ends meet. So by the time I gave birth to my second child, the situation was a bit different. I had another C-section but I couldn’t take time off from my laptop. I was hooked back to my virtual dextrose only after a few days in the hospital. I swear I could feel my intestines jiggling to the tune of Jingle Bells as I typed away.

Within a few days, my stitches popped and I nearly fainted. The doctor assured me that an ingrown nail with a sprinkling of nail fungi on the side was a far worse condition than my dislodged stitches but I just couldn’t help myself. One part of my wound was pouting like a pale lip. At night I dreamt of my gut and the possibility of finally getting intimately acquainted with them through Emperor Palpatine’s cavity infested grin on my belly.

But I survived and that belly grin is settling into a smiley smudge, a reminder that I have a lot to be thankful for even if I don’t live in Canada. I’m a live mother to two live, happy, healthy babies who still love me even if they can talk to me sensibly only on weekends after I’ve come off of my internet dependence.

I Wake Up in the Middle of the Night Thinking of… Money

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I now personally know of two people who never finished school but are earning thousands of dollars a month online. One of them earns more than a hundred thousand pesos a month, more than what one top corporate executive I know of earns. Both these new acquaintances of mine know of several others in their circles who earn even more. Their common denominator? They all know how to sell themselves.

Should I tell my kids not to go to college and just focus on learning how to sell? I know of an eight year old who already earns dollars online through some basic form of online marketing and a teen who’s asking his mother if he can quit school so he can focus on selling website designs online. The question is a dangerous one that I’m not willing to confront or answer now or ever.

But it’s tempting to get twisted.

I graduated at the top of my class but I’ve since learned that the only way I can make money out of my academic achievement is if I have my medal melted. That’s if it’s even made of real precious metal and if I can risk being labeled persona non grata by my alma mater.

I’ve never really been at the height of financial desperation. Parenthood though can make people transform in crazy ways. I haven’t yet devolved into an automated sales spiel dispenser but I’m beginning to think I need to have some marketing skills injected into me fast. I’d imagine that would feel like having a huge chunk of squid stuck in my gut. Aside from math, science, computer and physical education, high school entrepreneurship also felt like some esoteric alien discipline designed to cause digestive disorders.

I don’t have much of a choice but to devour the esoteric and hope my intestines are strong enough to digest it. Two cute, wide-eyed kids wake up every dawn beside me. They kiss me good morning before they scream for milk. The older one is about to go to school and unfortunately I don’t think the school principal will kiss me good morning before screaming for tuition fees.

I need to gain financial skills fast but I need to be kind to my digestive system. I’m starting off with the 8 Secrets of the Truly Rich by Bo Sanchez. So far I haven’t suffered from indigestion, diarrhea or constipation yet. So far, it’s the only resource I’ve ever come across that makes me feel like business, marketing and investing are Barney and Friends.

I still honestly think education is vital because it helps build character but I wish our schools could drill into us more the importance of financial wisdom.

I will make it. I can do this. I will succeed. I will not have my academic medal melted.

Nightmare in Mindanao’s Streets

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woman_screamingThere are times when I wish I didn’t have to wake up from a nightmare. I’d rather die in my sleep than wake up, for instance, to a thousand cockroaches competing for a spot on my cheek. The past few days have felt worse than cockroach infestations. The power crisis in Mindanao is in full swing with Agus dam’s water level below critical level. It might fall below a second critical level and then a third and a fourth until I imagine there’d only be rock bottom. The experts have pictures to prove that they aren’t lying for the sake of some lucrative political ploy, April fool’s day or just for kicks.

The problem is real and has been compounded by the fact that we just happen to be a location that El Nino loves to develop into a playground that he can trample on with pronounced impunity. If he doesn’t stop, the power curtailments could drag until June or July.

Why am I in a state of horror?

It’s not just because I feel like a turkey on slow roast. I am one of those who thrive on milking the internet. Those of my kind throng like parasites on the dark alleys of the online world and the internet welcomes us into her loving arms like a mother would her children except when there’s no electricity. I’d imagine our mother blabbering in JavaScript and HTML, “You’d better not come home without your kilowatts per hour.”

If there was a 25th hour, I’d probably still be up by then trying to catch the last train to my virtual haunts. Unfortunately, no caffeinated treat can keep my mental cogs in perpetual motion. I can’t imagine not sleeping for more than three months, but it’s either that or someone goes hungry.

In the meantime, accusing fingers are pointing to the current administration for failing to do anything about this foreseeable crisis in the last nine years it has been in authority. While the debate rages on whether Arroyo needs special powers or not to resolve the issue, the nightmare for us in Mindanao continues. As if we didn’t have enough bad dreams already.

The Game’s Afoot

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The first national automated elections is three months away and with impeccable timing, problems have come gushing in with the force of class VI whitewater rapids. For the first time, those of us who have envisioned our country finally catching up with the rest of the modern world sit down and wonder. Wait a doggone minute. Was there a thorough proposal, a comprehensive study or at least a drinking session among government entities to discuss the applicability of automated polls in the Philippines?

We’re almost done debating (or throwing sticks) over the issue of hacking election results. The most recent issue is signal jamming. Yes, those misfits in power, or any kind of misfit for that matter can jam electronic signals just as well as they can ram concentrated, MSG-flavored lies down our throats. Globe Telecom says, “Aw shucks. No worries. We’ll take care of that.” Yippee! So full automation will push through? Sure, that is if Globe can stretch its arms and declare, “Let there be light.”

My baby’s nanny comes from a province where there is no electricity and no modern wonders. She came to the city and experienced for the first time the magic of electric hand driers, the delight of car doors and the power of toilet pumps. She has yet to explore phantasmagorical electronic thingamajigs like computers and her town has yet to discover the incandescent bulb.

Seeing how far behind we are, only Merlin the magician can whip up full automation in this decade.

*Photo by Maureen CC license

The Nanny

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I don’t like the idea of getting hired help. This is not because I am too finicky. I just hate the idea of hiring someone who has to stop going to school so she can work. I feel guilty that I seem to have an unfair and unfortunate advantage over someone. Hiring help here seems almost like enslaving someone especially since the wage for nannies isn’t enough to pay for a pair of Levi’s jeans.

I am in a rock and a hard place. It’s either I send her back home so she can go back to school or I stop working so I can take care of my kids myself. If I stop slaving over a keyboard my family will go hungry. So what will it be?

I wish I lived in a country where education is a right and not a privilege and where married moms with kids can work without having to hire out of school youth.

Swimming Lessons from Villar

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Manny VillarYou can easily find out who spends the most on presidential ad campaigns. Have some toddlers watch T.V. all day and the owner of the jingle they start singing at the end of the day is your best bet. I have a kid who sings Manny Villar’s jingle with so much energy you’d think she was a walking ad commissioned by Villar.

It’s scary really. I work at home where the T.V. is on for fifteen hours a day so I know for a fact that Villar’s ad recurs with the same level of frequency as untreated bad breath. At first, you squirm at the cheesiness but listen to it long enough and you start to imbibe the kind of desperation that might just push you to darken the circle beside Villar’s name come election day. This is hypnosis at its best and proof that candidates in the Philippines don’t need to speak candy-coated trash to be convincing. They just need to know how to swim.

“Have you ever gone swimming in a sea of trash?” Villar asks. No, none of the other candidates have or those that have may have died of leptospirosis. Only he has ever done that, evaded bacterial infection and gone on to become a top presidential bet we should all vote for because he bears the scars of poverty. Villar knows one must woo the poor to win in the next elections, hence that excellent swimmer’s form. All the candidates know this but not everyone can look good in a sea of trash.

I don’t know if I’d like to take swimming lessons from Villar. I get bothered by the thought of voting for someone who has no qualms about spending millions to appear one with the poor.

*I saw the photo on top a couple of days ago in the news and I found a copy in Facebook. I don’t know who made the photo but I must say that it gave me quite a good laugh. Thanks to whoever is the artist.