I am not afraid to admit it -- I have done drugs. And all three times I did, I had it shot straight into my veins. After an episode of excited wakefulness, it made me crash into the twilight zone for a few hours.
Labor epidurals are so yummy. Having someone stick a needle into your spine is always a welcome experience. And don't get me started on the Novaine they used to knock me out of the blinding pain ... excellent stuff!
Someone I know who is into all things natural and organic raised her pointing finger at me, to stress how anesthetics can dilute the joys of childbirth. In a heart-to-heart talk only not-so-good acquaintances who have not seen each other in twenty years can have, she told me off for not wanting to feel the pain that came with the three kids I brought into this world.
As she had delivered her perfect child drug-free, all other mothers are clearly doing it wrong by wanting to dull the pain of their birthcanal cracking open.
I would so love to see her do that with a breached baby via C-section.
It would also bring me pleasure to stuff her aromatherapy lamp with something organic.
The Burning Question: So, have you done marijuana?
Not that I know. (That line has been tested in several courts, I hear, and can successfully get you out of incriminating yourself. You should try it.)
In my second year in high school though, I did submit dried marijuana (my older brother scored me some) for my project entitled "Dangerous Drugs." To this day, it puzzles me why my Health teacher freaked out over that and flunked me.
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7.28.2004
MEANWHILE, AT THE TOWER OF BABEL . . .
Carlo has enlisted Diego in his evil Kids-Who-Want-to-Learn-A-Foreign-Language cult. It was all cute at first, but now that Mel and I realize we need to take extra courses just to catch up to what the boys insist we teach them, it's all terribly annoying.
Imagine, it's midnight. The boys were pouring over the translations on Lego boxes, while my husband and I were unsuccessfully trying to get some sleep. They kept nudging us for translations, some of which they already knew. Wala lang, pang-asar lang ...
My husband has been humbled into admitting there are now two people in the world who can (if they so choose) be more annoying than he. And I know now why the guys building the Tower of Babel killed each other.
The Burning Question: So, what is a sure way to annoy YOU?
Picking food from my plate. It doesn't matter if you ask or not. (Yes, Mel, I'm talking to you.)
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7.25.2004
THE DANGERS OF IMPLANTS
A few years ago, after attending the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, I was fascinated with what the R&D nerds thought the far future of mobile communications would be. Upon my return to the Third World, I decided to share what I learned with my extended family during one of our weekend get-togethers. I thought I could up my smart girl rep several notches by spewing industry jargon and regalling them with what I picked up in France.
Another brilliant idea gone bad. I did not know then that one should not say "chip implants" when you are in a room with people who have actually read the bible cover to cover. For fun. As opposed to being required to do so to pass high school Theology.
The Baptist half of the room looked down on the Catholic half (one family, two faiths, long story) for not knowing what the bible said about implants in Revelations. The Catholic half kinda rubbed it in that since the non-Catholics did not know about the promises the Virgin Mary gave at Medjegorie, they were likely to burn in hell together with the pagans who organized the telecommunications conference I just attended.
The family reunion morphed into a Jerry Springer episode, all because I fed the beast the kamote that resulted in catastrophic combination of religious constipation and verbal flatulence. I was willing to run out and get myself a chip implant on my arm and a bar code tatoo on my forehead, if there was any chance that would shut them all up.
THAT, to me, is why elective implants are very dangerous. Bring it up in a conversation and the family starts fighting like rabid hyenas.
The Burning Question: So, why do YOU think implants are a bad idea?
In Nokia's vision (see their billboard on the northbound stretch of C5), mobile phones could be implanted on one's palm in the future. What if you accidentally speed-dial your boss' number while you were giving yourself a serious scratching? "Oops, sorry, sir. You see, I have a yeast infection and ..."
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7.21.2004
CHOCOLATE CUSS
In the strict Catholic household where I was brought up, saying cuss words was like volunteering to be slid into a sako, be hung upside down on the santol tree in the front yard and be hit with a patpat crawling with red ants. Well, that never happened, but the emotional scarring from that kind of punishment would be equivalent to the looong sermons our parents would give us. The more my parents and teachers stressed that I would go to hell for cursing, it became even more "cool". I think that was why I couldn't wait to be old enough to curse and not get in trouble for it.
Movies and books painted these words to me as the perfect tool to being emphatic. Long ago, I had a "shet" phase where my every sentence started with dung -- I was so clueless then it didn't matter I had my vowels wrong. I call someone who really pisses me off "assh*le" -- and that's every other driver on Metro Manila's streets. After a hairdresser edward-scissor-hand-ed my hair into what looked like hay mound, I mumbled "f*ck" about 5.7 million times on the drive home.
As an adult, it is still an on-going challenge to curse less. It is a conscious effort for me not to say cuss words in front of my children; even if what I write on my blog can be peppered with them ocassionally.
This whole issue now haunts me as I have two sons -- one 11 and the other 4 -- who have begun to discover the delights of the forbidden. It seems the more I tell them that "nice" boys don't say "Shit, man" when their brother won't let go the Playstation or "Go to hell" when they're fighting over television channels, the more intent they are on being nasty. I am fighting a losing battle against all sorts of media that the only way I could keep them "polite" is to fool around with their heads, as only a loving mother can.
While watching TV last Sunday:
Diego: (mimicking the movie) "Watch it, you pervert!"
Me: You say it wrong. He said, "Watch it, you ... um ... perfect!"
Diego: "Watch it, you perfect! Watch it, you perfect! Watch it, you perfect!..."
My 11-year old is a tougher nut to crack. Every time, he says something impolite like "Shut up!" or "Get outta here!", he gets tickled. No, no, no, you don't understand, there's nothing funny about MY tickle. I deliver a laughing fit so intense and so long, he's crying by the end of it.
The end CAN justify the means.
The Burning Question: So, what is the most creative insult you've ever delivered?
After seeing a strange news clip on toes and kulam, my husband and I stretched our legs on the bed and examined our extremities. In the twelve years we've been married, it was only then that I realized Mel's second toe on his left foot was longer than the big toe. I was mortified that after years of strutting around buck naked and bare footed in front of each other, I didn't know about his "toe thing".
The next day, walking through SM Megamall with Mel, I read the Adidas "Imposible Is Nothing" Poster for the first time -- the one with Muhammad Ali, near the escalators. In awe at how an ad can make me think about my approach to life (this is extraordinary, considering I've worked on ads myself and am familiar with the amount of BS that is "mixed with the batter"), I turned to the love of my life to share the moment.
"It's supposed to be ..." I laughed, knowing pursuing a profound conversation would be futile at that point. He had shifted to antipatiko mode.
Mel read the text. "Pero maganda ha. Some athletes can really squeeze in wisdom into what they do -- inspiring. Naku, dito sa Pilipinas, kapag nag-iinterview ng mga player, isa lang ang sinasabi..."
We sang in unison: "Pwedeng bumati?"
I know what goes on in my husband's heart and his head extremely well. Not knowing much about his feet doesn't sound too bad.
The Burning Question: So, if you were in a beauty contest and trying to be convincingly deep, what "guiding principle in life" tip would you share during the Q&As?
I haven't been posting much lately because real life has a way of sucking all creativity from my cranial cavity, leaving nada for my writing. And real life has caught up on me in a big way -- in a good way.
I've been very busy putting my business together. Those who have been reading me for a while know that I had always wanted to be a foodentrepreneur, just like my mom. That was the dream -- then came the capital sourcing, then came the market study, then came the search for the perfect location, then came the product study, and now comes start-up phase execution. It was at this juncture I realized that fashioning a dream is so much easier than making it happen.
My original idea of the perfect coffee place suddenly became terrifying to execute. I had to ask myself whether I wanted to put so much of my limited, hard-earned retirement money into something which, in even my most optimistic medium-term projections, would not yield half of what I made as a corporate slave each month. I had to seriously ask myself how much better my life would be if I bought an industrial-grade double deep-fryer for P35,000.
So, while the spoiled, arrogant half of me kicked the realistic, business-schooled half for compromising, most of me is happily but diligently preparing to open a new snack kiosk -- an original concept and not a franchise of someone else's! -- at the Robinson East Mall in a month or so (I got the approval yesterday!). It's becoming more clear to me, that unlike game show instant multi-millionnaires, us mere mortals have to embrace the scaled-down, lower-ceilinged version of our dreams. Even for a little while.
My compromise is hardly my dream fulfilled -- but I really think I'm getting there. :)
The Burning Question: So, what would you do if you had a million dollars? (All a million pesos can buy these days is a car, so 'dollars' na lang.)
