California. Hot place, hot people. Not a bad location where I could have my "indefinite" vacation. (By "indefinite", I mean- I don't know when I'm going back home!) Why am I here? My mom got sick... well, sort of. You know how mothers would do anything to satisfy the feeling of missing their children. I wasn't really that surprised when I saw her in the big Los Angeles airport waving her healthy hands, jumping as if she won the lottery, showing her healthy smile. Yup. She's not sick. She just misses her only daughter. Awww.... to think I left my job, my paperwork, my supposed career as a cartoonist... hay naku.

A week has passed and, as usual, my fifth visit to the land of milk and honey was commenced with a series of mallhopping and frantic shopping. I didn't actually brought along a considerable amount of wardrobe because I knew my mom would finance that particular need. She just loves dressing me up since my childhood days. I love it when she loves dressing me up. We're actually fashion buddies. Good thing she still knows how to stay fit amidst cold weather during winter, where the urge to gluttony is really enormous, or so Filipinos say...

I miss work. I miss my brothers and sissies there. I miss the kakulitan. I miss those sticky stare from the hungry guys on second floor. I miss boss Sarah, and the sleepless nights we spend for work and The Sims. I miss my email friends. I miss Lyndon Gregorio's comicstrips. I miss a lot of things... although I do DON'T miss a lot of things, too: Ping Lacson, traffic jam in Makati, the Philippine entertainment industry, politics, graft and corruption, the endless whining of the poor, government scum,... ah. This is life...

I think I will be home for the 2004 elections. I should be. Only after four years do I have this chance to tell the world that the candidates I choose are those who should lead the country. My vote counts even as it is part of the minority- the intelligent minority. Who am I going to vote for president in 2004? I still have to study the candidates. That's the wisest thing to do if you're a Filipino who wants a better life in his God-forsaken country. Now that Schwarzenegger won here in California, I heard actors and actresses were cheering for his victory. Screw them! Why the need to celebrate? Because they see this as new opportunities for most of them who are unqualified for their desired positions? Hah! If they want another Edsa Revolution, they got it. If Erap is never a lesson enough to make them realize the mistake of the whole nation, then let them run, and let's see if the dictum "History repeats itself" is true. (Let me make this clear: I am not against artists who run for political positions. However, I abhor those who run for the positions not for qualification, but for popularity only. They are not Filipinos. They are scumbags of the Universe!)

Who am I going to vote for president in 2004 again? The lesser evil, I guess. Anyway, there's no clean name left in high-profile Philippine politics nowadays. Thanks to brave people like Ping Lacson, who seems to see every corrupt deed, to feel every occurence of graft, to hear every bit of anomaly and to know every case of rotteness in the government... except his own, of course. (I saw his political ad "Huwag Matakot, Stop Kurakot." The nerve. These people like Lacson have no pieces of conscience and honesty left in them. Pity the country which they run.) I remember that entry in the Bible: "Cast the first stone..." something something.

As for now, I love being with my mom. She cooks the best langonisa. Better than the good-tasting Pampanga langonisa at home. (Her secret ingredient: sugar.) That is reason enough to stay here with her for today. More to come later.