mobile blogging

im creating this post through my android, which should explain why it is " text-like." i wonder if ill ever be able to get used to typing in stuff with such a small screen but it's fun to try new things. also, if i want to diss somebody, i dont have to wait to get home just to update my wailing wall. to quote chaucer of the movie, a knight's tale, "i will eviscerate you in fiction!" and now, on-site at real time. :)

Order In Disorder

There is one thing that very few people realize about me. In fact I may be the only person who knows this so I hesitate it to write down.   It is a claim that would raise quite a number of eyebrows (including yours) and bring down my already hurting popularity rating.  Anyway, like it or not, here it goes: I’m sort of organized.

Sprinting to work every morning with my hair uncombed and my blouse unbuttoned (or inside out), this is really a claim I shouldn’t make publicly.

Once, when I was on a date, I misplaced the movie tickets a few minutes before the show so I had to empty all the contents of my bag in front a very embarrassed boy and a very annoyed ticket lady just to find the darn tickets. And who forgets to bring their wallet before leaving and thus not be able to pay for public transportation? What kind of person does that?

But whatever I lack in order, focus and sanity, I make up for in self-awareness. I always say this and I can never say it enough: when we suck, we have to know.

So at the beginning of every year, I buy a notebook which contains a very strictly implemented To Do List. I spend the first few hours of a working day doing nothing else but updating it.  For the rest of the day, I work my way through each item until they’re all done. I won’t survive otherwise.

I take my lists very seriously. In fact, the only reason I always forget to bring my phone or my wallet is that they’re not on the list. (I will find way to fix that before the end of 2012.) My point is when it comes to things matter, there’s a good chance I won’t let you down being all too aware of how badly I can mess things up when I allow myself to be myself.

What I do not have a list for though is my life. Until I write every minor and major task down, I wouldn’t really know what I’m supposed to do next and would probably spend every idle minute just googling shirtless actors and reposting them online. (I don’t even know why I do that.) 

It’s high time I put structure where there is none. This is what I hope to accomplish in the succeeding days, months and years.

1. Learn how to get online traffic and practice.  This is more challenging than it sounds because I really have no interest in writing about any topic other than myself.  However, it seems that everyone else wants to read about everything else. Quite a challenge. Certainly, quite a challenge.
2. I’m screwing with you. I do want to write about other things. I just can’t. I can’t do opinion columns, book reviews, movie reviews, food reviews, fiction and non-fiction. If you want me to write about contraception, I will most probably claim that the greatest hindrance to safe sex is the belief (maybe fact?) that condoms take much of the fun out of, you know, that.  I will then be fiercely bombarded with criticism by those who know better because as a matter of fact, the poor can’t afford contraception and that they really need a safe-sex-how-to.  And I’m that certain they are correct. That’s why I’m pro RH Bill.  But I wouldn’t be able to resist pointing out that some of those boys who knocked somebody up had the money (just saying). Anyway, this should go to show that I can’t do socially relevant writing.  

But if I had the skill, opportunity and lightning strikes of inspiration, I would write about people  who can teach us a thing or two about life and do a couple of bedtime stories for kids (to put some of my self-righteousness to good use).

I will start with one that I’ve been meaning to do for years but never had the confidence. Tomorrow.

3. Find a decent place to live and once and for all feel like an adult.
4. Find a way to make more money without getting sick to my stomach. This is related to Item #1 and #2.  If I work hard enough I could probably earn a bit of extra cash every month, but happiness is important.  We only live once.  Somewhere in this mess is a fine middle ground. I will find it.
5. Study something. The problem with this is that Item#4 is a prerequisite. Actually, there’s a huge problem with Items #3, #4 and #5 in terms of prioritization. Which am I going to do first without going broke?
6. Thus it is imperative that I really really save money.  I have to commute more and spend less on take out. Damnit burger champ. I’ve been meaning to get another notebook just for expenses but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Tomorrow.

These are not at all easy. Just thinking about them makes me want to sleep or google photos of shirtless actors but there has to be more in this life and writing things down is a bit of a start. When the things we hope for get too overwhelming, what else is to be done but to take everything one To-Do item at a time?

Father

It doesn’t happen often –very rarely in fact—but there are days when I miss my father. Strangely enough, missing him isn’t at all like missing friends or other loved ones. I don’t sit around thinking dreamily about how great it would be if those guys were here. We’d be arguing about this and making fun of that. Oh, what fun. 

I don’t have such day dreamy thoughts about my father. I can’t even imagine him in this cramped little room of a flat where my mother and I now live. When I’m blogging and my mother is watching her Korean dramas, what would he be doing? Having passed about six years ago, he just doesn’t seem to fit into this new world where neighbors aren’t good friends and people read the news online.  He used to struggle desperately with a cell phone and only agreed to carry one so he could send me text messages.  I knew he found it very hard to use because his messages were always in caps and sometimes preceded by a couple of blank messages, failed attempts at typing in some text apparently. 

My father probably had to go.   And he went indeed with more pain than we’d hope but what are you going to do? That’s life. Or more accurately, that’s death.

The passing of my father was not at all difficult to accept.   He was in such pain in the last days of his life I almost did not recognize him. His strength was gone along with his patience and reason.  The grieving process was easier than I thought as well. Immediately after his death, there were so many who genuinely mourned his passing that I was sort of preoccupied by their grief, a bit curious and somewhat surprised.  People I’ve never seen in my life cried in my living room, shoved money into my palms and offered me and my mother words of condolence.  I’d be like, “Who was that?” And she’d be like, “No idea.”

For many who knew him, my father was a jolly fellow, the kind of person whom you would always be happy to see and invite over for a meal.  

For my mother, he was a companion, an occasional headache and the kind of husband who would insist on buying chocolate cake for her birthday even when times were hard and she would rather not spend on luxuries like cake. 

For me, he was the guy who shined my shoes in morning, made my meals, took me to the dentist, fixed my broken things, sent me money and picked me up having come from God knows where.  He taught me how to watercolor (although I never really got that), lent me the first ultra thick novel I ever read (entitled “The Eight”), and yeheyed with me when after eons, I was finally done.  He was my father and his greatest gift to me was being present to raise me.

And I miss him these days.  I feel like an aching hole in my chest is being stretched open by feelings of regret, guilt, frustration, need, loss and disappointment all fighting to come out.  Oh, but what’s done is done and that’s a scary place to get into.  At the end of the day, I will manage.

Just once in a while though, I get this need to be with the person who taught me how to cross the street just so I could glance back one more time and ask if I should take a step forward already. Am I going to be all right?  All I need to do next is to trust that answer and with full confidence, soldier on.

Margaret Heffernan: Dare To Disagree

"But it strikes me that the biggest problems we face, many of the biggest disasters that we've experienced, mostly haven't come from individuals, they've come from organizations, some of them bigger than countries,many of them capable of affecting hundreds, thousands, even millions of lives. So how do organizations think? Well, for the most part, they don't. And that isn't because they don't want to, it's really because they can't. And they can't because the people inside of them are too afraid of conflict.

In surveys of European and American executives, fully 85 percent of them acknowledgedthat they had issues or concerns at work that they were afraid to raise. Afraid of the conflict that that would provoke, afraid to get embroiled in arguments that they did not know how to manage, and felt that they were bound to lose. Eighty-five percent is a really big number. "

American Idol Blog

From Dulce to Aegis to the most recent product of our own local singing contests (done on our own terms), we've always known that we, as a race, sing like crazy. Why the desperation for an American stamp of approval? That, right there, is probably where we burn.

At some point, we just have to stop measuring ourselves by other people's standards and learn to love music the way we make it with or without international approval. To be told that we do a pretty good Whitney Houston has got to stop being a compliment even though we really do. We make us second rate.

One day, another white boy, who couldn't sing half as well as we could, would be able to move a crowd more powerfully than we could. Shocked, we would once again cry in protest and say to each other "but we sing better?!" And because we in fact do, we would agree among ourselves that it must be white supremacy. 

The blacks with their own brand of soul have overcome this so-called white domination so we really can't hide behind that forever, can we?  The blacks have created for themselves a very special niche in music, one which has been astounding people from all over the world whatever the color.

All the Filipino singers who tried and miserably failed to make it big abroad lost their chance when we decided that Aegis and April Boy Regino are bakya and that we absolutely love Mariah Carey.  

I am Filipino.  Nothing ups my alcohol consumption more than a full blast "Luha" playing in the background if for no other reason that it speaks to me in my own language. Sung five times in a row in full power, perfect melody and sans the vocal gymnastics we never needed to manufacture soul, I'll remember every shitty thing that's ever happened to me and I just  might decide to slash my wrist as a dramatic expression of my unspeakable pain. If you doubt me, try listening to Aegis drunk. 

But somewhere along the way, we decided that this was uncool.

The white boy has a little bit of that unidentifiable quality which we unknowingly got rid of. He didnt wake up one day and said, "hey, I can sing like crazy. I'm going to sing." He struggles with the singing and he knows it. He probably just stumbled onto a guitar one day, liked it, did it more, sang songs with it, did some gigs, tried out and won. And he won it fair and square if for no other reason than he sings for himself first, for the music next and for the American crowd last. 

We've been singing for the American crowd even on Philippine stages. And music with all its glorious pain, exhilarating triumph, consuming love, undying hope and sunshiny happiness has decided not to reward us with its magic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoRkntoHkIE

Madunot

Four events: First, improper waste disposal and that fierce southwest monsoon which recently hit the country have led to yet another devastating flood in Metro Manila. 

Second, apparently the government is serious in its efforts to promote the mother tongue taking a cue from studies which show that kids learn better when taught in their own language. Schools are now teaching Hiligaynon in class.

Third, my coworker in charge of cleaning up after us is getting pretty tired of seeing plastic and tin cans in bins marked "bio-degradable" so he changed the marking to "madunot" which is Hiligaynon for bio-degradable.

Fourth, I was going to throw plastic in that same bin (I always do. Sorry.) but stopped when I saw that marking, “madunot,” on it and looked for the other trash bin meant for plastics.  I met that brilliant coworker on the way out of the pantry to ask if the marking made a difference. Apparently, nobody throws plastic there anymore.

There is always one good thing in one day and one odd lesson to learn.

Jessica Sanchez

So I have an ear infection, which my mother characterizes as potentially debilitating; I could lose hearing on my right ear for good. That’s being dramatic considering there are antibiotics and precautions one could take. All the same, I put on my earphones, turn up the volume full blast and search YouTube for something interesting to listen to.  I may never get the chance again. (I live for the drama. At the end of the day, what else is there?)

To make the long story short, I stumbled upon Jessica Sanchez, Filipino-Mexican contestant on the 2012 American Idol. At 16, she is leading the race for super stardom, which is great. I am rather happy about it.  She’s very good too in a genetically engineered sort of way getting the standing ovation nearly every time, an accomplishment so rare CNN found it newsy enough to share to the world. She’s very good, no doubt. In a genetically engineered sort of way. 

I can’t put a finger on what keeps me from liking her more than I should. So in an attempt to break this down, I listened to all versions of I Will Always Love You on YouTube (strange hobbies, I know).  Plenty of the versions were great but none better than the Whitney hit from that ridiculous movie with Kevin Costner, which I liked.

I want to add that I particularly disliked Charice's rendition of the song. She's a powerful singer; I did notice that much but you can't look like you've conquered a giant when singing  I Will Always Love You and smile as though you absolutely love listening to yourself. Contrary to popular belief,  it is far from being the hardest song ever written or sung.  (Don't kid yourself, kid.) It ain’t even one of the best songs in its class.

It is however one of the most ridiculously dramatic songs ever written about the glory of love that cannot be.  If you wanna nail it, you have to get it (Just stop before you OD on dangerous substances. That's a little too much honesty.)

Anyway, back to Jessica Sanchez. She reminds me of someone I couldn’t figure out until a few minutes ago: Ella May Saison. Unfortunately, Ms. Saison, as talented as she was, didn’t make it big enough in show business. She had a couple of US released singles but none propelled her to the super stardom Jessica Sanchez has so determinedly set her eyes on. Saison  is still sort of “iconic” locally but that's about it. We won't be reading CNN articles about her now. That girl could sing though. She was raw talent honed by gig after gig trying to eke out a living. Take away the attempt to sound like Beyonce and add a tad bit more honesty and Jessica will sound a lot like Ella Mae Saison, a high-pitched, rough and throaty kind of great.

I love OPM and I miss Ella Mae Saison. I was in high school at the height of her popularity and I think she had a hand at screwing me up for the rest of my teenage and adult life. She and the Little Mermaid. Click play to get it.

It must be difficult to be an artist aspiring for something really big.  You work hard to perfect your technique. You surround yourself with decent influences and find some way to mix them up and make it your own. You define your style. You work on your stage presence and performance and then some bitch, who can’t even sing, has the gall to say the magic just ain’t there because that is what happens when you sing solely for the spotlight.

To be fair to Jessica Sanchez, I thought her version of Prayer was really special. And all the other performances truly deserve the raving reviews.

But the greatest songs in this genre were written in the midst of a train wreck and are sung at 4 in the morning by hapless souls who still believe Gabby actually loved Sharon and Ariel did Regine too.

So honey, take a break from the voice lessons and take a brief trip down the road of the hopelessly devoted and extra cheesy. Well, it’s not necessary. You have more spunk and sophistication than they do and at the rate you’re going, it seems you might actually make it. Sure, you'll miss out on the rare opportunity to screw up teenagers on the brink of young love but that's not even a good thing anyway.

pop pop pop

Knowing It All

Once in a while, I make a big joke and such fuss about me knowing everything. I say that a lot in tone which rings of self-amazement.  Superman: Super Strength. Charmaine: Super Sure.

The most annoying thing about my as-usual-I-am-right spiel is that I’m not really kidding so those with the great misfortune of being within earshot are rolling their eyes thinking, “Somebody shut her up.” Sometimes I do because I know everyone hates an insufferable know-it-all. Sometimes though I’m too in love with myself to even notice dagger looks thrown my way. (If you’ve ever played a round of Cluedo, I’m sure you‘ve experienced that incredible high when you’ve successfully figured out where Dr. Black was murdered, who did it and how. It’s all very Sherlock Holmes. Anyway, what was my point? I forget.)

Ah yes. I was going to provide an explanation why I think I know everything, and that is: I just do. It’s really freaky. I am however exaggerating when I say I was born with this…err…gift. No. I was born temperamental but good natured (if that is at all possible), kind of “lost” with my heart out on my sleeve. My yaya would tell me stories about large black dogs turning into people who ate other people and that would send shivers up my spine.  She'd explain to me that if she touched my eyes I’d be able to see them too. I would debate long hours with myself whether or not I would like that.

But life happens and somewhere along the way, you pick up a thing or two because you won’t survive life lost in your own universe regardless of how much fun that is. So you watch, you listen, you compare, you read into everything, you go back to the archives, you think, you put together a theory and you test your theory. And you do it all the time because right around the corner is another human being poised to screw you out of everything you have.

Most important of all, you make a genuine attempt to avoid the pitfalls of ineffective, inaccurate and potentially confusing life research techniques.  Nothing will muddle your findings more than false, simplistic, biased and inaccurate data. 

I’m going to start you off with a couple of dos and don’ts because I’m nice like that:

• Never believe what people post on Facebook or Twitter.  As a general rule, don’t believe anything that people take at least five minutes to put together.
• Never believe what people say about themselves. People are more likely to launch a lengthy nonsensical explanation or concoct an interesting highly unlikely story before you could get them to say, "I was wrong," "I made a mistake," "I suck," "I got dumped," and so on.
• Never believe what people believe about themselves. Everyone is the star of her own Hollywood movie. Self-awareness is rarer than amnesia caused by a car accident or a blow to the head.
• Never believe what people say about other people. They’re likely to be bored or bummed by their own lives. Otherwise, they wouldn’t bother with yours or anyone else’s.
• Never believe what people believe about other people. To be able to correctly judge the lives of others requires a certain level of I.Q. but everyone thinks they’re qualified.
• Never believe quotations, proverbs or stuff like that. They’re oversimplified at best, full of shit in general. For example, “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.” Dude, cry if you want to.  Period. Just don't do it forever because even the most heart-warming tear-jerking scene in an Oscar-nominated movie gets old.  “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” No, geniuses have an I.Q. of 140 and above and they’re born that way. If you’re not a genius now, you will never be. In any case, it’s not that big a deal.
• Never believe that the experience of others applies to you. The most fascinating in the universe are anything but uniform.
• Never trust your eyes.  People are themselves when all alone.
• Never trust tears. Trust only genuine laughter. That my dear is your one true thing.

• Here comes the big however: Trust a good majority of people you meet even when they’re trying to screw you.  They were all born good-natured with their hearts out on their sleeves until their own lives took their own unique twists and turns.  Evilness is genetic only in soaps.
• Trust the dreams which force their way to your head even when you’re supposed to be resting and not thinking.  They are persistent for a reason.
• Trust the beating of your heart, the calm of your soul and the rhythm of your feet. They are fail-proof joy and sorrow indicators.  Learn to feel that in people because genuinely happy people with rich lives won't screw you on purpose.
• Trust what you know.  If Columbus weren't brave, we'd still be thinking we'd fall off the Earth if we traveled very far.

Drops Of Jupiter

Now that she's back in the atmosphere
With drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there's a time to change, hey
Since the return from her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like June, hey, hey

But tell me, did you sail across the sun?
Did you make it to the Milky Way
To see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated?

Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star?
One without a permanent scar
And then you missed me
While you were looking for yourself out there?

Now that she's back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation, hey
She checks out Mozart while she does Tae-Bo
Reminds me that there's room to grow, hey

Now that she's back in the atmosphere
I'm afraid that she might think of me as
Plain ol' Jane told a story about a man
Who was too afraid to fly so he never did land

But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?
Did you finally get the chance
To dance along the light of day
(From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/t/train-lyrics/drops-of-jupiter-lyrics.html)
And head back to the Milky Way?

And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?
Was it everything you wanted to find?
And then you missed me
While you were looking for yourself out there

Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you
Even when I know you're wrong?

Can you imagine no first dance, freeze-dried romance
Five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had, and me?

But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?
Did you finally get the chance
To dance along the light of day
And head back toward the Milky Way?

But tell me, did you sail across the sun?
Did you make it to the Milky Way
To see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated?

And tell me, did you fall for a shooting star?
One without a permanent scar
And then you missed me
While you were looking for yourself?

And did you finally get the chance
To dance along the light of day?
And did you fall for a shooting star?
Fall for a shooting star?
And now you're lonely looking for yourself out there

Loser Kid

I need a break from the grind of mass producing sentences which after hours of what feels like endless copying and pasting are starting to read just like the Wikipedia or About.com posts they were taken from and paraphrased entirely and that is not at all good. (It was irresponsible of me to say that but there it is.  Moving on….)

This grand break, I have decided, will come in the form of writing for real, for oneself, for release, a practice I have been struggling to avoid because of its alleged weirdness. And the topic I’ve chosen: Me. Those who have been following my blogs – three or four very close friends and family who love me — know that I do not have the slightest interest in writing about anything else. 

Or talking about anything else for that matter.  In fact, I have so many anecdotes about me that I sort of collect them in my head, and make stand-up comedy routines of them.  They are heavily and very creatively tweaked for a captive audience of some two or three people with obviously nothing better to do or too polite to leave.

One of my favorites is the loser eight-year-old story. This is how it goes.

When I was kid, I used to play by myself a lot, which was really cool because most of the time, it didn’t really feel like I was the only one there. Chita was there and so were Diane, Daisy, Toa, Twinkle and a little plastic baby, whose name I now forget. We were one big happy family who lived in a house of sheets tied to a cupboard and the bed. We had a pet cat and dog, Yomiko and Floffy respectively. And we had toys too. 

We had Barbies, a walking talking doll, an awesome Jedi sword, a couple of remote control trucks and some puzzles. In case we got hungry, we had a complete kitchenware set to make ourselves a special meal.  It was a good home.

Maybe I dance on the border a little bit but I haven’t yet crossed over to crazy. I did want to play with other kids. So I would take Chita out and wander the neighborhood streets looking for party to crash.  I was a small kid, not very athletic, so I learned at very young age, that life is full of cruel disappointments. If the game played was a race, I’d finish last. If it was basketball, I couldn’t get the ball even remotely close to the ring.

Once, when we were playing hide and seek, my friends forgot to look for me. A very long time passed; the game went on without me because I was still crouched under some furniture sweating like a waterfall. Ever the optimist, I congratulated myself for having hidden so well it must be driving my friends crazy searching for my whereabouts. Ever the poker-faced realist, Chita suggested that maybe we had been forgotten and as usual, she was right.

I was so inept at street games that when we played tag, I’d be running along with the other kids—as fast and as enthusiastically as I can fearing for real the dreaded touch of death—but none of them really bothered to come after me. After a while, I did notice. I was what they called kamatis, the kid you allow to frolic along during games out of kindness but not out of real competition.  It wasn’t fun. So I would drag my ass back to the house of sheets and tell my stuffed family and pets all about the depressing play date I just had.

But I was smart and determined to establish a network of friends. So I decided to capitalize on the fact that I was the neighborhood spoiled brat who had the most fabulous toys within a hundred meters.  For one, I was the only one who had Atari.

The suckers did follow me home. A sympathetic accomplice, my mother would make them spaghetti and sandwiches.  I was so grateful I’d let them have the toys they liked. Just come back tomorrow, I’d say.

It is true that you never really grow out of certain traits. Over the years, you just learn to mask them with manufactured adultness. 

Twenty years later, that is how it remains. Barbies and Jedi swords turn into something else. Maybe a favor. A patient ear. Light and funny company. Flattery. A shoulder to cry on. A super human display of understanding. I’ve become a state-of-the-art smart vending machine of unusual treats expertly designed to give people what they need when they need it. Vending machines are very cool gadgets; they’re just there. They’re always just there at one corner with a sort of quiet stance that says please feel free to come back for more.  Not always, but once in a while, it ceases to be funny.  It’s not that I don’t love what I do because I do. I love what I do. There are just times though when I sit around and say to myself maybe, those who came just for the toys and special treats shouldn’t have been welcome in the first place.