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I know he doesn’t mean to, but Ale can make me feel like such an asshole sometimes. Maybe it’s the insane cultural differences, but there are times when talking to him makes me feel like I don’t deserve to consider myself Marxist. Or “human being” for that matter.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that I have maids. Well, not me - my family does. I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my lifetime and he never batted so much as an eyelash when I told him about those. But when I mentioned that we have maids in the house, he was so shocked that had to interrupt our conversation to tell his parents about it.

“So what do you do at home if you don’t do any chores?” he asked me.

“Ummm…I work. I go online. I play guitar,” I mumbled.

I know that in Europe and the rest of the Western world, nobody has maids in their house unless they’re really really rich. Over here, it’s normal for most middle class families have at least one maid in the household. Still, I never realized how much I have in common with a spoiled brat until he started explaining to me how weird it would be for him to have someone clean up his room, cook his meals, and do the household chores for him.

Ate Diding and Ale

What made it worse for me was when he kept asking me all these questions about the helpers who live in our house two days ago. Stuff like how old they are, if they have any kids. All I could answer was an, “Umm…I never really got around to asking them.”

“So you don’t talk to them? Even if you live in the same house?”

“Not really. I like to keep to myself. Besides, just because you live with someone doesn’t mean you have to talk to that person.”

“Honey, I know that, but I don’t know…if we had maids in our house I’d probably talk to them a lot.”

Yeah, that made me feel like a class A asshole all right.

The funny part is that I can’t justify why I need any maids around because I’m the type of person who can live with clothes all over my bed and survive on canned food and restaurant leftovers. Okay, maybe it’s nice to have someone make your meals for you when you’re a real dunce in the kitchen (or when you’re just plain too lazy to ever get around to learning how to cook). But…is it really that hard for us to do our own cleaning and cooking? I know that people here need jobs and stuff, but a job where you have to do stuff people can very well do on their own is starting to sound more and more wrong to me. Also, I’m having so much difficulty trying to find a reason why I find it so hard to strike up a normal conversation with our maids. I’m chalking it up to the fact that I’m not really a sociable person unless the mood strikes me, but I’m afraid that the real reason for this might be that I still cling to a few more classist attitudes than I thought.

I <3 a man who can cook.
Because I can’t tell a frying pan from a wok.

Right now Ale is making dinner for us downstairs (spaghetti ala-something something), where “us” is my parents, my sister, and the maids. When we were talking about cooking dinner last night, he asked me if the maids could join us at the dinner table. I couldn’t have been more shocked. My family and the maids, all eating at one table. How totally awkward and inappropriate is that? But worse than the awkwardness was this tidal wave of shame that hit me the moment I thought that.

So I guess if I were him I would totally dump me right now, but mebbe he’s waiting til he gets back to Italy to do that. :\ And I really don’t have much of an appetite right now but it’d be a shame to let that food go to waste. Dinner tiem.

Today’s realization: doctors are the best salespeople for the pharmaceutical industry. They capitalize on people’s fears of sickness and they do it well, because with ten years of med school (with diplomas on the wall for proof) and a white coat, anyone will believe what they say about your health. Or lack of it.

My health is just about as important to me as religion - which is to say, not very important. Oh sure, I think it’s important to think about the existence of God every now and then but I’m not going to go out of my way to do research about why he doesn’t exist. Nor am I going to go out of my way to earn brownie points so I can sing hymns and play the harp beside the cherubim and seraphim when I’m dead, just in case I’m wrong and God is actually up there, being great and all. Normally I don’t go out of my way to make sure all my parts are in working order either. But get me paranoid enough and you’ll find me waiting outside the doctor’s office within the week and cranky, because doctors are ALWAYS late.

Two weeks ago, Anne and I went to the gyno because that’s what you do with your friends when you’re a woman in your twenties. The following day, our YM conversation looked something like this:

(1:31:03 PM) Anne Gomez: Did you get your meds?
(1:31:05 PM) Anne Gomez: Fucking vaginal suppository
(1:31:08 PM) Anne Gomez: Fricken weird
(1:31:15 PM) darthlaurian: hahaha i did
(1:31:23 PM) darthlaurian: i used one na last night
(1:31:35 PM) Anne Gomez: Now I’m discharging yellow shit and she told me not to use pantiliners
(1:31:40 PM) Anne Gomez: Eugh
(1:31:40 PM) darthlaurian: ohhh o_o
(1:31:56 PM) darthlaurian: bah i hope these wont be a bitch to wash
(1:32:01 PM) Anne Gomez: It’s from the meds, sabi nga nya wag daw akong mashock
(1:32:11 PM) darthlaurian: yeah
(1:32:18 PM) Anne Gomez: How grown-up are we? Talking about vaginal meds and shit
(1:32:32 PM) darthlaurian: we gotsta take care of our sex organs, ya know!
(1:32:41 PM) darthlaurian: they’re like, the most important part of our bodies
(1:33:03 PM) Anne Gomez: Ya ya!

Today I went back to the gyno with my mom because she was concerned that I might get cervical cancer like, sometime in my life. Apparently, boys don’t just bring babies - they could bring cervical cancer without their knowing it too. The gyno then informed us that the cervical cancer vaccine will cost six thousand pesos a pop. I’m getting mine on Wednesday, and then one in two months, then the last one in six months. That’s eighteen thousand bucks to protect myself from the possibility of cervical cancer.

Naturally I freaked out at the price. My mom mom will be subsidizing the vaccination costs, but come on - I could be using that money for my travel funds! But noooo, my hard-earned sweatshop blogging money will be used to protect myself from a mere possibility instead. When I pointed out to my mom how ridiculous this all sounds to me, she shot back by saying that my uncle who got leukemia went bankrupt because of the treatment. The saddest part of the story is that he died anyway. “Prevention is better than the cure” sounds like a cheap advertising slogan to me, but I guess my mom has a point in there somewhere.

Today’s visit to the doctor got me around to thinking - are all the pills prescribed to us by doctors really necessary? I mean, I had to take anti-depressants for months but I stopped when I found out that I could deal with the serotonin imbalance without the happy pills (which didn’t even do shit to make me happy to begin with). The anti-depressants were supposed to prevent me from doing something crazy, like killing myself or raining bullets on people. But I’m still alive and I’ve never taken out my bad moods on anyone, not even when I was at my worst. You know what did make me snap out of the depression though? Quitting my shitty office job and going back to school. Whenever I start feeling nihilistic I give Ale a call, or one of my friends, and a few hours later the world doesn’t seem like such a half-bad place to live in. Pills aren’t the answer to the meaning of life. The don’t even do that much of a good job supplementing it.

So now I’m going to be x amount of pesos poorer because of the damn cervical cancer vaccine which is, now that I come to think of it, really quite clever of the medical/pharmaceutical industry.

Medical/Pharmaceutical Industry

So maybe we’re not gonna get rich off your family because you won’t be getting teh kansa anymore. But at least we’re making money while we’re preventing it! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Lauren

…I HATE YOU ALL.

Technically I’m not 22 yet since I was born at around 6 pm, but that didn’t stop the birfday luff from piling up. I spent the last hours of my 21st year pigging out at Mr. Kabab with Anne, Bim, Fritz, and Ade, then everyone except Ade stayed with me til past midnight. Spent the morning alternating between sleeping and spending time with Ale, and right now I’m alternating between watching him sleep and admiring all the lovely presents I got because I don’t feel like doing anything productive.

Everyone at The Man Blog sent me birthday greetings a day early, but Ade and Baddie win at the most awesome birthday presents ever.

Don Adriano de Maraña y Defibrillator Nom Nom Nom

So yeah, advance happy birthday! For your birthday, I give you:

Señor Unibrow the Turd

Happy birthday, LOLen! I know Ade already gave you an Alodia doll, but I’m giving you another so you can make them kiss each other.

La Puta Madre Hohobag

SQUEEEEEEE! Oh. My. God. How did you know that I was Alodia’s NUMBER ONE FAN? Did it have something to do with this thread I started, which you guys had to lock because the lolz got lamer and lamer? The thread about the ONLY existing Alodia figurine in the world? The one that sold for the absolutely reasonable price of Php 12,000? And you guys got me TWO of them! So sweet! I don’t even want to think about how you guys are probably going to die from the lack of food or beer or both within the month because now you don’t have money left for anything else. But that just shows how much you love me and my frivolous endeavors, rite? You guys are the bestest. Mwahugz.

Ahh, fun tiems at The Man Blog forums.

I was supposed to get a trip to Hong Kong from my parents but my travel buddy couldn’t make it, so I guess I’m not opening presents from them today. But that’s all right when I’m getting free rent, electricity, food, and tuition from them for the next two years. Not to mention a birthday dinner tonight and a party on Saturday!

Yep, I’m feeling teh luff. <3