It Always Rains On My Parade

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The rain and I have a love-hate relationship. It loves me. I hate it. I am perfectly aware that there are numerous benefits that we get from the rain and life as we know it in this planet would not have been possible without it. But that doesn't change the way I feel about the rain. I don't like it. It's wet. It brings flood. It overflows the pathetic excuse for a drainage system in Cebu City and makes disease-causing filth flood the streets. Did you know that a person has a better chance of being hit by a lightning than winning a lottery jackpot? Not cool. How about getting drenched in the rain on your way to work or an important appointment? Not glamorous. At all. Unless you are Mariah Carey singing Through the Rain.

I was born in summer. I'm dark-skinned. Unlike every other Filipino women (and men) I know, I am not afraid of constant or over exposure to the sun. I am not afraid of getting sunburned. I am already burnt. There is nothing more that the sun could do to me that would bring about distress and hoarding of whitening products. I flourish under the sun. I love the sun. I worship the sun. Even if it is scorching outside, I would never bring an umbrella, another contraption I hate with a passion. Which is why I hate the rain even more. Try going somewhere in the rain without an umbrella. I cannot count how many umbrellas I have lost when I was still going to school. It distressed my mother that I had not the slightest inclination to protect myself from the constant ridicule of schoolyard bullies. So what if they call me 'Negra'? They can all froth at the mouth from calling me names but there is no way in hell I'm bringing an umbrella.

It is true when they say that when it rains, it really pours. In the Philippines, it pours a lot. And true to nuisance fashion, it always comes in the most inopportune times. Like when I'm wearing a dress and killer heels on my way to an important appointment and I find that my hair is in sudden need of of blow drying. Or when I'm supposed to play tennis but the court is submerged in rainwater and can be used for swimming. Or when I'm going to meet friends and suddenly the outfit I had previously picked out is no longer appropriate because of the weather. Or on my way to the office when I have a deadline and I get stuck at the other side of the street. Or when I need to run an errand but can't because I have no stinking umbrella. On a side note, did you notice that in the Book of Revelations, the apocalypse is signaled by raining something? Stones, fire, ice, scorpions, frogs, cats, dogs...

And what about the aftermath? Flood water and more flood water. Filth, filth and more filth. Mud, mud and even more mud. Everything is wet and unlike the images that poetry would have you believe, it is not beautiful. It is wet in a depressing and unattractive sort of way. This list could go on. What can I say? When you really hate something, you will not find any redeeming quality in it. Give me something you like about the rain and I will turn it into something awful.

In hindsight, I don't think I will be able to appreciate a sunny day as much if I don't hate the rain. There is always a yin to every yang. Maintaining a cosmic balance is such a pain in the posterior.

Risen From The Fiery Depths

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Meet Dante. He is my voodoo doll.

I have always wanted one, most especially at times when I wanted to hurt someone without actual confrontation. Call me a coward all you want but that's how it is.

But now that I actually have one, there is not one person that I want to prick needles with. There is always that girl next door. Hmm. But it seems so petty so I won't even waste my energy on that.

Anyway, I got my doll's name from the writer, of course. He is one of my favorites although God knows I'll probably be dead before I get to finish reading any of his works. If I do get around to reading them, I'll probably be the first person in history to die of profuse nosebleeding.

Where was I?

Being a voodoo doll, I had wanted a more menacing name for him. One of the names that came to mind was Charon, the ferryman of the underworld who, coincidentally, also figures in the first book of Dante's Divine Comedy. Unfortunately, although it implies menace, it just doesn't sound right for the very reason that it sounds like a cute girl's name. It sounds like Karen. I knew one Karen from Day Care and another Karen who was my seatmate in elementary. Both girls were cute. On a side note, when I was a kid, my brothers and I used to watch this show entitled The Young Hercules. Apparently, it was very popular because when the show ended it's run, the producers had this dumb idea to do a rerun, this time dubbing the whole show in Tagalog. So there was this scene where Hercules went to the underworld and met Charon for the first time. Their conversation went like this (everything pronounced in Tagalog):

Hercules:  Sino ka namang matanda ka?
Charon: Ako si Charon. Bangkero ng mga kaluluwa sa kabilang mundo.
Hercules: Sharon?
Charon: Hindi!!! Cha-ron! Mukha ba akong artista?!

Admit it, that was hilarious. The ferryman of the underworld, a movie star. Not Sharon Stone, the silently sinister bitch (also a writer) in the movie Basic Instinct, but Sharon Cuneta who, despite her apparent lack of cuteness, sings cutely the song Mr Dreamboy (or was that Mr DJ?) to the detriment of the word cute. So I settled for Dante whose main protagonist he named after himself and in the first book, Inferno, literally went to hell. Morever, Dante is also the name of another movie star. I am referring to Dante Rivero who almost always gets the role of the villain or the grumpy old man who makes everyone around him miserable. And he does look scary.

I actually have another voodoo doll, of a different color from Dante. His name is Montressor, from the vengeful guy who buried his friend alive in his wine cellar in the short story The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Alan Poe, who is also a personal favorite. However, I have assigned Montressor as a permanent decoration to one of my bags so it's usually just Dante who keeps me company.

My voodoo dolls have yet to serve their real purpose. But make no mistake about it. They are voodoo dolls and their purpose will be fulfilled. Someday. So if you value your life, try to avoid becoming the object of my wicked voodoo spells. Don't annoy the hell out of me and get out of my way.

"Nemo me impune lacessit." (*evil laugh)

It's Steven Spielberg's Fault

Why, oh why, did I watch this movie? Every movie that I see from here on out will be compared to this film and most of them will fail miserably. Damn you, Steven Spielberg! Why didn't you just stick to making movies the like of E.T. and Jaws? Why do you have to go and challenge my perception of what a great movie should be like?

I never would have thought that I would even consider a repulsive movie to be great. Because that is what it was. It was repulsive and scary but I cannot not watch it. There was a part there where, to make room for more Jews from other camps or settlements, the Nazis conducted medical inspection on the existing Jews on the camp and pick out those who look unhealthy so that they will be sent to Auschwitz. The process involved all of the Jews going out to the yards, falling in line and stripping completely naked. They were then made to run around in front of several doctors. The doctors pointed out those who they think were unfit and immediately a guard would grab that person and pull him out of the line. For the Jews, Auschwitz meant certain death so they did whatever they could to avoid being sent there. During these inspections the women had to resort to pricking their fingers to draw blood and use the blood on their lips and cheeks to appear flushed, ergo healthy. It was the most inhuman proceeding that I have ever seen. Imagine what it was like in real life. Damn you, Steven, for shattering the shield of ignorance that had enveloped me my entire life. How can I go on with my blissful existence now that I know... these?

My favorite part in the film, the part that truly broke my heart, was, toward the end, when Oskar was preparing to leave his employees to flee with his wife after the German's were defeated, he started counting how many more Jews he could have saved with the properties that he still had, even if he was basically bankrupt at that point. It didn't matter that he spent his entire fortune to buy and support more than a thousand Jews for seven months. For him, what mattered was he could have saved more but didn't.

After watching the film, with my brain still on Schindler's List overdrive, I googled Oskar which, of course, only made me hate Steven all the more. After the war, Oskar made several attempts to start other businesses, all of which failed. He lost his wife, he lost money and he was living off of donations from Jewish organizations. By the end of his life, he was penniless. Arguably, he was surrounded by friends and family and perhaps the love of all those he had saved. Many would say that this was better than having all that money and pursued by the Allied Forces for being a "profiteer of slave labor". But I wonder, for a man of such ambition and fine finesse as Oskar, was he happy? Did he ever regret that he went and spent his money to buy every single one of his workers instead of going back to his hometown with more money than he can spend his entire lifetime? Are there still Oskar Schindlers left in this world?

Liam Neeson was perfect as Schindler. He certainly had the aura that would convince a Nazi officer to release all those Jews to his care for a certain fee. Ralph Fiennes was even better as Amon Goth. I didn't even recognize him. He was... portly. The Ralph Fiennes I know was from American Patient and, of course, Voldemort, stately and elegant. In this movie, he was a madman who kills on a frenzy, kills for no apparent reason and kills Jews working on the fields for target-shooting practice from his balcony. Then Schindler told him that real power is when you know should kill somebody but you choose to make him live instead. Oh, the struggle he had to go through to gain that kind of power, it was hilarious. I could almost see his face in contortion as he was stopping himself from killing his stable boy.

I am reminded of another film I saw more than a year ago entitled A Beautiful Life starring Roberto Benigni. It was a comedy about the Holocaust, which was ironic. But I ended up laughing and cringing at the same time. I thought it was a great movie. I still do. But compared to Schindler's List, it was a feel-good movie. That's how heavy Schindler is. It is the best movie I ever saw, one of my favorites, but understandably a movie that I would only like to see again after a considerable lapse of time. It has been a week since I saw it and I have yet to recover.

I still hate you, Steven, but thank you for slapping me in the face and making me realize my mediocrity. I owe you big time.

If I Were A Deadly Sin...

... I'd be Lust. Enough said.

More of Marta Dahlig-Orłowsk's digital art here.

The Unlikely Ineptitude Of The Goddess

If I were Superman, my Kryptonite would be social gatherings. I heard a statement from America's Next Top Model being said of one of the contestants and I am going to use that statement to describe my ineptitude: I have the social grace of an infant. Yes, I watched that show. Call me shallow then sue me.

Being surrounded by a bunch of strangers or casual acquaintances in an environment that requires me to mingle with them incapacitates me. I'm just not good with making friends or starting a conversation. I would rather sit in one corner and pretend to text all the people in my phone book as if my life depended on it. I don't know when this started. I was Most Sociable in Kindergarten. I swear, I'm not making that up. I don't know what happened between then and now that turned me into a hermit. I guess I was surrounded with close friends all the time that I didn't feel the need to make new ones. The thought of being involved in some mundane conversation with people I don't really know is not appealing to me. What's worse is I have to pretend that I give a rat's ass about these people's problems or their current preoccupation in life. Big deal. We all have them, get over it.

Maybe that's why I don't have a lot of friends. I am too... Sheldon Cooper, for lack of a better term. Maybe I should try harder. But on the other hand, I don't really have to.

Leonard: ...We need to widen our circle.
Sheldon: I have a very wide circle. I have 212 friends on MySpace.
Leonard: Yes, and you have never met one of them.
Sheldon: That's the beauty of it.

But here is another trusty quote from my old friend, Jean-Paul Sartre: "Hell is other people." 


How empathic.

Random Memory # 3: Prom Nights Straight Out of Stephen King's Brain

If a memory-erasing device had been invented, I would employ such contraption to wipe out my recollection of the prom night in my junior and senior years. As this was not the case, let me recount to you the horror.

It all started with the pairing. In our school, the teachers get to decide who you should go with. If you're a junior girl, you will be paired with a senior guy and vice versa. I had no cause to complain in the partner department as I had been paired with okay guys. By okay, I mean that it could have been worse. I don't mean any offense by that. I'm pretty sure that those unfortunate guys would have gladly gone with somebody else rather than me. But like I said, they were okay. The problem lies with everything else. The clothes, the shoes, the hair, the make up, and the event itself. I had the feeling that in some distant past, these events were meant to serve as punishment. Then I read Vanity Fair and all I can say was: Boy, I am sooo glad I wasn't born in England during that era. The social functions would have been the death of me.

I really hated the prom. What's funny was that I went to two of them. What? Attendance was compulsory. I hated my clothes, my shoes and my stylist had successfully made me look not myself but some has-been movie star from the 60's. If we were just made to sit around until the whole ordeal was over, it would have been more bearable. But, nooo. We had to parade ourselves around the ballroom and I had to see everyone raise an eyebrow to outer space upon seeing me. No, I wasn't being paranoid. And to make my humiliation complete, we had to do dance numbers whereupon my ill-fitting brassiere was threatening to stop doing it's job of covering my pathetic breasts and go on strike. The only thing I was thankful for was I still had the clairvoyance to avoid any photo ops, therefore, no OMG-is-that-me pictures of myself which my friends can use to blackmail me with. If you happened to be in those prom nights with me and have an incriminating picture in your possession, please contact me so that we can agree on some terms.

The book reminicent of my prom. Carrie by Stephen King (also had a movie version)

I See Dead People

No, I do not mean that literally. God forbid if I start doing so. You probably need to take that as a sign of an impending apocalypse. I am digressing here since this is not the main topic of this blog entry. But for the sake of satisfying the curiosity of my faithful readers (a grand total of 2 persons), let me explain.

I do not believe that dead people walk among us. There is no metaphysical, paranormal or parapsychological explanation for this, just a logical one. Even if dead people have the option to remain on earth to haunt the living, as good as that sounds, I don't think that they are inclined to chose that option. The world is over-populated enough as it is. There is just not enough room for them anymore. And because, unlike the dead, the living do not have the option to go elsewhere other than this planet (Mars is not yet open for occupancy), it is more likely that dead people take the high road and choose the more suitable place for themselves. Or if they don't get to chose, as the case may be, I still think that any place other than with the living is the more acceptable option.

Let me elaborate. Not a lot of people go to heaven. It is probably this really huge and beautiful place where your closest neighbor lives in another zip code, or perhaps in another time zone. Who doesn't want to go there? As for hell, there might be a long line leading into that place but Dante said that there are 9 circles, one for each sin, and I highly doubt that any of them are full. Why else would Lucifer be wanting more people to go to hell? I'm sure it's not because he doesn't have a choice. If there is anything that Lucifer has in abundance, it would be choices. So if you go to hell, you will be put in one of those circles to suffer for your sins. If that doesn't seem like a good way to spend the rest of your eternal life, that's because it isn't. But think of it this way, you will be among the dead who share your, uhm, passion. And with the number of occupants in each circle there and more coming, you'll have enough stories to share for the rest of your damnation. Hey, it'll be like one endless Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

If I die right now and go straight to hell, I probably wouldn't find this funny so I should just stop right now. But that's my explanation for not believing that there are dead people with us. Of course, you have to understand that I am not going to say that out loud even if you pay me. There is always that far off chance that I am wrong and that they are indeed here and can hear every single word we say. I don't want to challenge them into making a believer out of me. That would be a tragedy. Or a comedy, depending on which side you are on. In the even more unlikely chance that they also read blogs, there are only two things I can say.

Number 1: I am possessed and not myself, therefore I do not remember writing this.
Number 2 (in case the ghosts don't believe number 1): Oh, crap.

Since my digression has already taken up the amount of time I tolerate for writing nonsense, let me offer this short explanation for my original idea for this entry. I see dead people figuratively. People who are alive but are living a dying life. People who are just going through the motions of living but, deep inside, are really dead. They do not know how it feels like to be truly alive. I realize that this sounds so "The Greatest Miracle in the World" by Og Mandino. But it is true. And since I am no ragpicker, I cannot do anything for these people. I can only hope that I am not one of them.