Kitty Litter

When I was still teaching, one of my favorite icebreaker activities for new classes at the start of each semester was to ask them to write a one-page essay on "What I Would Do With A Million Pesos." Often, the results were hilarious, especially when some kid thinks that P 1M is enough for a house (in Ayala-Alabang) and a car (a Mercedes Benz). That s/he doesn't know that P 1M won't even buy you space for a potted plant in Ayala Alabang, and the best Mercedes Benz s/he can get for her/his money is a clunker three decades old, shows that they’re innocent enough to assume that P 1 million is a lot of money.

The thing is, sometimes I wish I were still that young and naïve.

What brought this on? I was having lunch with a good friend, Eric, some time ago when we got around to joking about what we'd do if we ever hit the Philippine lottery jackpot. Certainly we weren't referring to my best friend Goldie Gold’s kind lottery luck—she bet P 50 and won P 10. We meant winning one of the mega million prizes that come up every now and then. He asked me what I'd do with 50 million pesos, and I threatened to buy the nice Nissan RV behind us, just for starters.

Pause.

Then I said, hey, I've been saying things like that for ten years now, and no go.

Eric then observed that saying "When I win the lottery..." has become the modern equivalent of "Never." I only know of two people who have ever won the jackpot, and even then, these are stories about them that I've been told by friends. FOAF (Friend Of A Friend) data, really, and hence, unreliable.

Does anyone actually win? It’s hard to do the research when the results are confidential, and for good reason. Plus I highly doubt anyone would be silly enough, in this era of kidnapping, to advertise a sudden windfall to all and sundry. So assuming that someone actually wins is a matter of faith.

But hope (all right, desperation) sometimes propels me and my boyfriend to try our luck. We're pretty timid bettors; we bet on a single set of numbers each time, and since we're lazy, we make sure the ticket is valid for several draws. We've never gotten lucky, not even winning ten bucks for our trouble, but we keep trying anyway as we tell ourselves that it's for charity (excuses, excuses).

The fantasy is fascinating; “What would I do with that much money?” The standard clichés apply: “wild shopping spree” is the first to pop into my mind. When the lottery pot gets really large, I sometimes joke to friends that I’ll buy them this item and that service for them if I win. Funny part is, I know people who actually plan out what to do if they ever won.

The odds against anyone, least of all me, actually winning the lottery are astronomical. No matter who wins, it will always be a fairy tale, precisely because several different kinds of luck have to be aligned for one person to win. Promises made based on the possibility of a win are bad promises; how can you keep them if you don’t even know whether the prerequisite for the promise (winning a big prize) will even exist?

And so I like to tell people who pester me for favors, whether monetary or otherwise, that I’ll think of it when I win the lottery. It does, after all, sound a lot better than “Over my dead body” or “Absafrigginlutinly not.”

Labels: mundane things

Kitty Litter is alive again, thanks to the closing of the July issue of Sense & Style. The new, experienced, professional editor-in-chief is in the house, and I think he was highly amused to see the relief on my face when he came in to meet with us.

Please do pick up a copy of the July issue of Sense & Style. We've got Cecile Licad on the cover, and thanks to the blog network, I have the following great writers in there: April Yap of "Stressed in the City" fame; do pick up a copy!), Yvette Tan, Luis Katigbak, Indira Endaya, Golda San Joaquin (best friend-tight hugs!), Zoe Gabe, Valerie Young, Jullie Yap Daza, Tata Francisco, Geolette Esguerra, J. Anthony Lopez, Malaya Laraya, and the famous Lori Baltazar (whew!)

At this point I have to bow to Spongemarb, without whom this issue would not have been possible. If it had not been for her, I would've been found hanging from the flagpole in front of the office last week. Despite having no reward in sight, she held my hand, organized shoots, found models, fed me, gave great advice, and was indispensable. Spongemarb, you have always had first dibs on my copyediting services; now you own me! (Big, big hug. May kagat pa!) I also want to thank my boss, code named E3, for his patience and support, and for his hilarious jokes at key points.

I'm proud of this issue because we had only twelve days to do virtually everything. But if it's the price to pay to get rid of my ex-co-editor, for whom everything was a big ego-tripping joke, then so be it. I have discovered one thing about myself: I am truly a slogger. I may cry though a hard time or a trial, but by God I will muddle through it somehow.

And of course Wynn, who kept me sane and talked me through the whole business.

To everyone, thank you so much. And please (again) do pick up a copy and let me know what you think. Though this is my one and only issue, and we didn't have enough time to pull off all our great ideas, nonetheless it is my baby.

I think I will pass out for a day or two then get back to the writing I love :)

Labels: rants

Not that the posts and e-mail and text messages (the most memorable of which went "Hayop ka, isang bwan ka na di nagpopost at bakit?") and personal requests didn't matter, but I haven't written for a long time by choice.

It's because when I sit down to write these days, it's hack work, and don't I know it. My vocabulary has been reduced to "wonderful ___" "delightful ___" and other BS phrases. So that's one point against me.

Two, I had nothing to write about. Chuck that; I didn't have anything I wanted to write about. What could I say about my now ex-co-editor which didn't include a dirty word and venom? (Wynn dear you're to blame for my cussing habit. Naman eh.) What could I post that didn't involve whining? What could I say that wasn't self-absorbed, annoying, or just plain not worth reading?

Most resposible bloggers (and by that I mean the non-"Dear Diary, today I saw Carlo, he's so cute" variety) often reach this point. The disciplined ones work around it. I, buried under work and stress (so severe that I was throwing up last Tuesday) and pressure, used work as an excuse not to write. And I admit it.

Yes, it's an excuse. Writing is like an itch that never goes away, and it didn't at least not for me. I found myself composing opening lines, thinking of topics, deciding approaches while driving to work, in the middle of copyediting, and so on.

But at the end of it is the fact that I haven't written. And it feels empty; I'm afraid to even look at my own blog because I feel a sense of shame. It's a phantom pain; I've promised nothing, I've hurt no one. To write, and write well, is to express yourself in ways few people truly understand. And once you know what you are capable of, it's a shame to stop.

Liken me to the sprinter who's been told that she needs to walk to the finish line. Or to the painter who's gone temporarily color-blind due to medication. The condition isn't permanent, but it's like a part of you, of who you are, has been taken away.

Perhaps the worst part is knowing that you alone can cure the condition...mainly because you brought it about, somehow, to begin with.

My solution? To write. Write badly, or write well, it's still writing, and it helps me hold on to my sanity.

To borrow from a popular tag line, "so what have you written today?"

Labels: mundane things, rambling