You’ll know you’re living in a prudish neighborhood when they start changing Halloween to “Holy-ween” and start asking children to dress up like their favorite saints. *sigh* Just got a flyer for the thing.
Sunday morning, 2AM. Have the whole McDonald’s for myself. A cackle of Korean teens enter.
The bus home: a policeman in uniform evangelizes.
Yes, we’re busy. Yes, we’ve been busy. So we procrastinate, putting off time to get together and catch up, not knowing time itself will catch us up, and it’s too late.
It’s the Guilt talking Grachelle, sorry.
What’s with progressive groups and their murals with inverted flag?
Pictures taken after this year’s La Naval. Wala lang. I don’t know why I’m posting this. Must have something to do with Cabangon singing in the background while researching for the seniors’ send off.
And then there’s Halloween. (Courtesy of A)
Why do these things happen to me?
Going home, a drunk man, dripping wet from the rain, flagged the FX I was in. When he got comfy, he asked me for the time. I told him. After a while, he started narrating to no one in particular how bad he was in business, he lost some money obviously, and then he singled me out and said, I looked like someone who finished college, what advice could I give him?
(Why me? Why not the guy sitting next to me? The one wearing a doctor’s uniform?)
He then started recounting this high school episode where he was scolded by his teacher who told him… erm, what did he tell him? Anyway, the effect was disparaging. He said he has become afraid of his shadows — his personal ghosts. You know the kind — fear of failure, fear of the future. He kept on repeating these ideas. Seems like he’s stunted by the high school experience which happened 13 years ago. His story was going nowhere, he was circumlocutory, must be the effect of alcohol or maybe he’s borderline schitz, nonetheless his judgment was still intact (he asked the guy sitting next to me to change seat because rain water was entering the vehicle and the guy was getting wet).
Anyway, my part in the story is deathly pathetic. I need not feign interest because I was curious to begin with (me, being a student of human behavior and all), I asked the customary shrink-y leading questions while giving the Freudian affirmative nod and Jungian encouragement. (I wonder if the commuters were secretly laughing at me for talking to the guy, or worse, annoyed).
In the end, when he asked for an advice I could give him, I replied, "Face your shadows. Stop thinking of what your teacher told you. Do not dwell on it. Move on. Do your work the best way you can."
Argh! The horror! I’m echoing an after-school TV special from the ’60s. Good thing I was near my drop off point, hate to skewer the guy’s head any further. Hope he didn’t entertain searching for a noose once he got home.
It’s a slow day, so I have an excuse to answer those wayward text messages I’ve been getting. This one, I couldn’t resist answering:
UNK: Wat f, im 0n t0p of a 99-flr bldg…redy 2 jump…Gv me a 1-line sentence, 2 c0nvince me dat i shud nt die.
This is too easy. So I wrote:
ME: There is no life after death.
And then he replied:
UNK: fuck! who are you?
ME: Sorry, my phone does not recognize your number. And it’s rude to curse someone you don’t know.
UNK: what is your name?, I txt my cousin not you…
ME: I’m Azrael. Good. I thought you already jumped.
UNK: I thought you are an angel of death. Where you from?
ME: Nice to know that you’re literate. I’m mostly everywhere.
**I wish I didn’t jump the gun in calling him ‘literate’ as I’ll be proven otherwise later.
UNK: Where is everywhere? Fuck i dont play games!
ME: You started it when you sent me a text.
UNK: im not txting you., i txt my cousin not you… Where do you live?
ME: I live in the Netherworld. Now, why would you text your cousin that you’re about to jump off a 99-storey building?
UNK: Where is netherworld? what is that place?
ME: You’ll find soon enough if you still feel like jumping.
UNK: Can you call to my phone now, can i talk to you? I dont believe in heaven and hell but i believe in death.
ME: I seem to have misjudged you. I thought you weren’t one of them — ordinary.
UNK: One of them? Who? I have no time to playing games…
ME: See how insignificant you are? You don’t even know that you’ve just been insulted.
UNK: Im not insulted! I wanna know where do you live,i dont know where is netherworld because i live in netherland with peter pan and tinker bell.
**Duh! Netherland?!?
ME: (laughs) How old are you? Pray, tell. And I might just visit you tonight while you sleep.
UNK: Im 22, dont visit me if you are a guy,visit me if you are a girl. Why you visit me do you know my address?
**At this point I stopped replying. For the love of Zeus! He’s 22 and he texts like 12. Should I start complaining about poor education in the Philippines again?
I had a peanut butter craving last night, but I had second thoughts when I saw:
It’s made in China. It’s a local brand, but it’s made in China.
With a lot of sinophobia going around these days, for a split second there I wanted to have the peanut butter tested for mercury, lead and aflatoxin levels.
And it’s not just the local peanut butter that’s been from China. Jollibee’s Kiddie Meal toys are from China, clothes wear Bench and Penshoppe have their apparels made there too. And there are more examples out there, where known Filipino brands use and market Chinese-made products. And it’s pretty much understandable: low wages, low product costs. It’s good business. And it also does not necessarily mean that everything coming from China is substandard. (We hope.)
Someone told me that China’s economy is in trillions of dollars and they can easily bankrupt a country like ours. They’ve conquered us, even before F4.
Anyway, in the end, knowing that the peanut butter came from China didn’t discourage me from preparing a sandwich and eating it. I was hungry.
That must be it. We’re all hungry. How to feed 6 billion using the least amount of dollars? Darn globalization. ^_^’
Taxi driver upon seeing a group of rallyist against charter change: "Okay sana ang pinaglalaban nila kaso mga galamay naman sila ng NPA."
I guess the government have gained ground in discrediting the militant groups.
