…If it’s the last thing I do!

Cyanide & Happiness is a webcomic responsible for stripping my brain of functioning neurons everytime I read a few pages. Yet, it is imporant to mention, it is usually the reason for my maniacal BOHAHAHAHAs when I’m in front of the computer, oftentimes alone, resulting in strange looks from people nearby.

This time though, it triggered a memory of an interesting dream I had.

"Here lies John K. He didn't know what to write on his gravestone."

Reminiscent of the time I had an allergic reaction to painkillers and the following denial-slash-gradual-acceptance that the next time I have a splitting headache, I’d just have to deal with the pain without the help of awesome (legal) drugs, I had a dream in which I had a splitting headache.

***Your vision’s getting blurry and the world appears in waves of colors as we move on to a dream sequence.***

So where was I? Yeah. Ridiculous, unbearable headache.

I took some medicine for it. I waited a little, but the throbbing in my head just wouldn’t go away. That pill was apparently the last I had of its kind so I grabbed another tablet of another chemical makeup.

I popped it into my mouth, and just as I took a gulp of water and swallowed, a friend (or someone I knew, whatever, it was a dream, okay) screamed at me and said, angrily “You can’t combine those 2 pills! You’ll die!”

And the friend left, because I guess that’s what friends do in dreams — warn you of your impending death and leave you to die.

I was stunned to say the least.

With that warning, I soon began to feel a little woozy. I was lightheaded but it was one of those things I knew for sure — I was going to die in a few minutes. I didn’t mind that I was alone in a small room. It was a cozy room and all, but a tiny voice in my dying brain was bothering me. I knew something was missing. I wasn’t ready to die! Not yet.

Because…

Because…!

Because I didn’t know what I’d want my epitaph to say!

With my world swaying and my vision darkening, I fought to recall something Neil Gaiman had written that, in my dream’s memory, I know I had pointed out to friends saying “This is what I want to be on my tombstone.” My thought process was compromised, I knew. I could no longer take it off the top of my head, so I stumbled over to the bookshelf and pulled down all my Gaiman books, rifled through pages, struggled to find those lines that would be perfect on my final resting place’s headstone.

Everything was blurring. Everything was fading. And there I was on all fours, with my hands on my books, thinking, I have to know how those words go! I can’t die without a decent epitaph!

Then, anti-climactically, I woke up.

***Dream sequence over. The world is real again.***

It’s funny how unexpected dreams can be, don’t you think? I’m not really afraid of death, but I’m definitely far from welcoming it. I don’t obsessively think about the moment it’ll happen, but even stranger, I wasn’t thinking about it at all when I fell into that night’s episode of Death in a Dream.

I never did remember what that quote/potential epitaph was. But, wide awake and in reality, I still know it’s Gaiman’s words. Maybe it’s a sign I should memorize quotes more — if not in preparation of the Grim Reaper’s greeting, then maybe just to sound cool.

I should go find it.

Blog Action Day: Mother Nature’s Revenge

Where were you a few weeks ago? When the rains started pouring Friday night, kept going ’til well into Saturday, at first enjoying the steady rhythm of raindrops lulling us to sleep and then, eventually realizing something was wrong because panicked reports on Facebook, Twitter and TV, shared accounts through text and phone calls were streaming in, quickly growing in number and urgency?

No idea what I’m talking about? Well:

A few weeks ago, Typhoon Ondoy (international name: Ketsana) happened to Metro Manila and nearby areas. It took some time to recognize the fact that it was worse than it looked from where we were. Our place is apparently immune to floods, being so high up. And there were none of the usual ominous winds, like Milenyo, another huge storm back in 2006. But what it lacked in winds, it made up for in amount of rainfall — massive amounts of rainfall. Water was falling from the sky, and for a while there, it didn’t seem like it was going to run out. There were floods in places that were never flooded before, as a result, and floods well beyond the height of a tall person occurred where only ankle high floods were almost part of the norm.

Less than a week after (Was it? Somebody correct me. I’ve lost all sense of time since Ondoy), Pepeng (international name: Parma), a storm with much stronger winds and what looked to be about as much rainfall as the last storm, decided to pay our northern neighboring regions a visit. It wasn’t even satisfied with passing through just once. It went back TWO more times! I, like most other people, I’m sure, didn’t even know it was possible for typhoons to make u-turns like that.

Because of the tag-team typhoons, people lost belongings, cars, pets, entire houses, and in some cases, their own lives. People were stranded on rooftops for days on end, because that was the only part of their houses not submerged in floodwater. Later, there were landslides, burying houses, or people alive. People needed food. People needed rescuing. People needed people to help them get back up again — literally, figuratively, financially, emotionally.

It was sad. It was crazy. It was frustrating!

I took to calling Mother Nature a bitch, and these typhoons her way of playing cruel games on our archipelago.

The weeks after the first storm hit, everybody rushed to help at the volunteer and relief centers set up by various organizations. Everybody gave away whatever it was that they could, including their time, strength, their own money, too. And I am so proud of my friends, old & new, for letting this be — no, making this — the center of their lives for the time being. For the first time in my life, I’d actually witnessed selflessness where I never thought I’d see it. Bayanihan was the word of the season.

It was brilliant, really. Volunteers seemed unwavering and donations seemed limitless, but what this was was just a temporary cure — first aid to a cancer that’s been spreading since time immemorial with little to no treatment. The amount of garbage, piled up from years and years of waste, was blocking irrigation systems, sewage lines and drainage. That was half the reason. The other half was, surprisingly apt for Blog Action Day, climate change. Rainfall was literally recordbreaking. This change would have also been caused by other forms of environmental negligence — like really bad accumulated air pollution.

After all this, 2012 sounds too close to reality for comfort.

Now, another storm is coming. And this time, I guess because Mother Nature decided she’s hurt Luzon enough, it’s bound for way down south (i.e. the rest of the country), in the Visayas and Mindanao regions. I’m hoping everyone’s just a little paranoid by the last storms and it won’t actually turn out to be as bad as everyone thinks it will be.

And most importantly — excuse the preachiness — I really hope that we know not to take Mother Earth for granted, now that Nature’s showed us what seemed to be the worst of her wrath.

What Drugs Do To Me

A few years ago, some friends and I headed to Tagaytay. I had a headache that wouldn’t go away, so along the way, I took a tablet of painkillers — Mefenamic Acid to counter the pain.

An hour or so later, we were walking around the usual sites — Palaces and Parks and Gardens — when I felt the flesh under my right eye swelling. It was uncomfortable, and kind of distracting because I could see the damn thing blocking my view. Meh, I thought. Mosquitoes love me too much, I told them. (True story. They’re drawn to me. But that’s another blog entry.) We kept walking. And despite my new Perpetual Wink look, we took pictures. Later on, my left eye starts swelling, too! This time, I thought, They bit me again? In the exact mirror area of the last bite? That’s just weird. And so, I took a break from all the camwhoring and moved on to mirror-staring. At myself. At my two swollen eyes.

They were not mosquito bites.

I went home, dejected and confused. I thought it could have been the medicine, but there was no way of really determining the cause. Only when I took the same kind of pills a few months later and the same thing with my eyes happened again was I finally sure:

I was never allergic to anything before, and now in my 20s, I suddenly find that I’ve developed an allergy to mefenamic acid.

I stayed away from the drug knowingly since then.

Fast-forward to today –

I had a gig to host in a few hours’ time. I had a horrible, horrible toothache: I felt like a fat, clumsy little demon elf was dancing on and around my wisdom tooth in platform boots to rival the Spice Girls’. It was a skip away from unbearable, so I decided to gulp down a pill. Yes, I stayed away from That To Which I Am Allergic, and took, instead, what the doctors have said to be a decent alternative — Ibuprofen Paracetamol. Yay. Pain-free? Getting there.

Or so I thought. DUN DUN DUNNN.

I dressed up, fixed up, made myself up… I was pretty much ready to go and just waiting for time, but… BUT. I felt weird. Hrm.

I took a glance at the mirror and, peering closely, I saw a small part of my right eye looked like it was bitten by an insect. Having forgotten the little Tagaytay anecdote I shared with you just now, I thought, again, that it was just that — a harmless little insect bite. But minutes — just minutes! — later, I noticed it had spread. It got to a point where I could barely see with my right eye. It was that bad and that gross.

I had to ditch the gig. I had to find a replacement for me. All with my one eye half-closed and me internally panicking — because this had been the worst allergic reaction I’d ever had to anything — thinking OMG AM I GONNA DIE. (I didn’t.)

Now, as a mature 20-something year-old, accepting of the fact that I am not perfect and it is normal to have allergies, I have to come to terms with the absurdity of it all first. I took painkillers to take away the pain in my mouth. The pain was gone eventually, but by that time, my right eye was, too. I’m allergic to the only 2 generic kinds of medicinal painkillers I know, so this leaves me with what? Sheer bravery and forced pain thresholds?

What won’t kill me only makes me stronger and all that crap. I can’t wait to have kids.