Nevergirl’s

I Skyped with my sisters from 7pm to midnight this week. Strangely enough, our conversation left me feeling sadder and lonelier. It doesn’t help any that I’m as sick as can be, and feeling glum, glum, glum. It’s when I’m sick that I get the most homesick.

I miss my sisters. I miss talking to them. I miss taking them to the mall, for a little shopping trip or two or just to get our nails done.

Back when getting a pampering was fun (because I didn't have to do it alone)

Living so far away from family feels a lot like juggling frogs (or for that matter, having to choose from a hundred quick weight loss pills). It’s tough, tough, tough. When I lived in Davao for two years, I cried myself to sleep every night, for almost a year. I don’t do that now, but that doesn’t mean I miss my sisters any less. Some days, I spend mornings rifing through old photos and wishing growing up didn’t have to mean living apart. The man and the girls make fun of me whenever they catch me. Naturally, I feel daft as a brush afterwards. I know my sisters and I can’t live with each other forever; that’s just not how it’s done. Sometimes, though, I wish we can.

I need to stop being so darned frail and sickly. I go through enough medicines to supply a small barrio. In my 28 years, I cannot remember a year that I didn’t spend sick.  I remember spending one New Year’s Eve and three Christmases in a hospital. My aunt tells me I almost died as a baby. This is why I light candles and dance before the Sto. Nino every year. My mother, daughter of a small town and believer of powers unseen and unheard, made a desperate vow to keep her firstborn alive, despite a weak lung and a weak heart: a dance for a life.

I kept the promise for 18 years. Mama made sure of it for the first 9; and after she died, Lola kept me at it for 9 years more. By the time I was 19, however, I realized God doesn’t really want me dancing before him like that because he can see what my mama and lola refuse to: I cannot dance to save my life. In fact, I alienate His faithful one day a year in Opon by dancing. They either go home convinced of the perversity of the religion or scarred for life because really, Achinette dancing is a scary, scary sight. Pray you never see it in this lifetime.

Fast forward to 2010. Things are as they have always been. I am a walking cocktail of medications. I am allergic to anything and everything one can be allergic to. My nose bleeds if I get too much heat or sun. At one point, my nose swelled so bad from allergies I had to spray steroids up my nose for two weeks! The culprit? Pollen. I’m also allergic to dust, cats, dogs, perfume, cigarette smoke, vehicle emission, seafood, heat, latex, eggs, dried fish, and many other things betwixt and between. Did I mention I’m allergic to Safeguard? Apparently, my immune system grew pretensions while I wasn’t looking. I hope it doesn’t grow allergies to Dove at some point. I’m cheap; I grew up using Safeguard. I cannot imagine using any soap that’s pricier than Dove.

I’m grousing about my immune system in the hospital. Yep, I’m in one right now, and I hate it more than I hate reading up on rv insurance. I loathe  hospitals. They’re just like airports, only sadder. People are always coming and going, but for sadder reasons. When I was 10, I spent three to four weeks in a hospital, give or take. I came down with a horrific case of German measles, developed broncho-pneumonia as a secondary infection, was diagnosed with severe malnutrition not long after, and almost went blind. It was the longest four weeks of my life. I spent most of it in darkness. My aunts Hazel and Babie took turns reading books out loud to me. I remember one story best of all: Maddie’s Song. Even at 10 years old, I knew Maddie’s is a sorrier life than my own—and it was that which kept me from feeling sorry for myself.

I’m dangerously close to feeling sorry for myself right now.

Ah Maddie, I need reminding just how bad you had it.

I rooted for Betty Coopers for years, gundemmit.

That girl has awesome oozing out of every pore. She’s one of the smartest girls in school. She fixes cars, mostly Archie’s. She cooks. She makes her own clothing. She runs a doll hospital in her garage. She loves children and the elderly. She keeps a small garden in her backyard. She plays the guitar—and the tambourine to boot! She has a cat named Caramel. She takes karate lessons and at one point, she even developed ESP after an encyclopedia fell on her head by accident. At one point, she spent most of her weekend DIY’ing One Year Anniversary Gifts for all the members of a little-known recycling club she put up in their neighborhood. Did I mention she once became a racecar driver for Veronica’s dad’s company?

Knowing these about Betty and given what Veronica is like, Archie Andrews is an eedjit of the first order for choosing the latter over the former. It’s not exactly state secret Archie has the IQ of a plant, but this takes the cake! How can anyone choose Veronica over Betty?

But you know what hurts even more? I yelped, “Archie can’t marry Veronica!” and Wett turned to me and asked, “Archie who?”

How can anyone be born sometime in the 80s and not know Archie Andrews or Veronica Lodge?

Oh, that’s right. If you’re Wett, you do not know Veronica Lodge because the only Veronica you know is Veronica Mars.

I read about this proposal from MyMariaTV’s feed, and I read up what I could about it. For some reason, all this growing up and getting married business in comic books doesn’t sit well with me.

Everyone grows up, even the kids from Riverdale. This makes me very sad. Some things in life should never have to grow up and grow old—this happy little piece of my childhood included.

Have you ever seen anything this beautiful? I haven’t, and it’s taking all of my willpower not to go raid the piggybank and get one shipped to where I am. After all, this is one of those few occasions when I’ve a reason to be happy the USD to peso conversion took a beating. The way things stand right now, this hot little number actually comes out cheaper thanks to the fact that my dollar is only worth P42.19 upon last conversion!

This baby, it’s sexy—it’s sexy as hell but it runs on a three-year-old processor and its ram leaves me shortchanged. This new Macbook Air has

• 2 GBs of ram
• Core 2 Duo for a processor

That’s fine and dandy if you’re only using it for spreadsheets, and word documents, and social networks, but I’m not. My two-year-old laptop originally came with only 1 GBs of ram, but I upgraded the day I bought it, bringing it up to 4 GBs. It runs on a Core 2 Duo, too–not too shabby, really, for something that’s almost two years old which is why it breaks my heart that this new beaut from Apple doesn’t come with better hardware.

The new Macbook Air is gorgeous, gorgeous but its components came right out of 2008! In fact, my Zhivago (which was purchased December 2008) has better hardware!

In one of the reviews, someone said buying this baby will be a lot like “buying a 2011 Ferrari that comes with the engine of a Kia Sonata.”

Another said, “It’s like humping a hot good looking chic and when you get to know her, she’s an air head with no personality, and all she does is want your money.”

As far as ultra-portables go, the MacBook Air is the sexiest. And, sex sells so I don’t doubt for a minute Apple will be laughing its way to the bank. Please BUY THIS BABY if you won’t be using graphic-heavy software, anyway. If you only use your laptop for spreadsheets and word documents and browsing non-flash websites, or looking up such things as the most popular electronic cigarette for men, go ahead and buy this saucy little thing. I can’t stress this enough: it’s BEAUTIFUL!

If you’re after better computing power, however, you’d be better off with the Sony Vaio Z. At least, that’s what the man tells me. He’s a specs nut, and he says the Sony Vaio Z has

• an all-metal body about an inch thin
• processor options of up to Intel Core i7
• ram options of up to 8GB
• a standard 1GB integrated video card

What does the Third World Nerd say about the $999 Macbook Air, Frances? I’m interested to know (because I’m planning to replace my trusty 2-year-old Zhivago pretty soon). Mine says it’s beautiful but its specs are nothing to write home about.

Ooooh, but really, this Mac is gorgeous. I can’t stop looking at it. I need to stop drooling, though, because this pretty grab-and-go Mac won’t be very useful to users like me who run a gazillion apps upon start-up. It’s exquisite, yes, but apart from its looks, there isn’t much there. In fact, my two-year-old Zhivago outperforms its hardware bar none!

So yes, you’ve got yourself a deal Mrs. Young. Let’s wait for mid-2011, for the 13-inchers with i7 processors from Apple.