Blue

By Netnet Camomot

THERE’S this thin line between the blues and happiness. One moment you don’t want to face the day, and the next, there you are singing, “The hills are alive with the sound of music.”

Songs are like columns. They could both be figments of one’s imagination which for Ms. Behavin’ can go from A to Z without a moment’s notice. For now, you’re reading about songs, the next, the topic here has morphed into Pinas’ New Generation Currency (NGC) coins.

Now, why talk about coins? Because change is the only constant in this oh so cruel world.

These are the coins whose appearance was described by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) as “metallic silver” (rappler.com, 3/26/18).

Change a.k.a. sukli is what the Pinoy has to deal with as Pinas’ metallic-silver coins and their shiny, shimmering splendor are making it difficult to distinguish one coin from the other especially for the P10, P5 and P1 denominations. So confusing! Good for the cashier, though, that is, if the coins he gives are less than the exact change due to a shopper who merely puts all coins into his wallet without trying to find out if they’re 5 pesos or 5 cents. But if the cashier is giving more than the exact change, aguy, good luck na lang sa cash count.

To lessen the confusion, BSP has released a new version of the NGC P5 coin and it looks a bit different than the metallic-silver kind.

And as if the coins in our wallet are not heavy enough, there’s now the new P20 coin. What’s next, a P50 coin? Uh.

Coins are usually kept in piggy banks and are deposited into the bank account at the end of the year, which may result to an annual savings of more than P5,000.

There’s now a piece of minimalist advice to buy only the necessities this year and that will also add more savings to the P5,000.

Try calculating the “pesoses” you’ve spent on watching movies in a cinema, plus the popcorn, soda, bottled water, lunch, snacks, dinner, and coffee while roaming around the mall. That’s more savings if you stop watching movies for one year. Who cares about what happens in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” Hehe.

But if movies are your second source of entertainment, next to Netflix, then, let’s paraphrase “Sudden Impact’s” Harry Callahan: Go ahead, make your day.

At the 2020 Golden Globes, its host Ricky Gervais said, “No one cares about movies anymore. No one goes to the cinema, no one really watches network TV. Everyone is watching Netflix. This show should just be me coming out, going, ‘Well done Netflix. You win everything. Good night.’ But no, we got to drag it out for three hours.”

Well, I’ve stopped watching Netflix and cable TV. I do still watch movies but don’t have the patience yet to squeeze through Cagayan de Oro’s traffic. Books are my main source of entertainment for now after realizing that I wasted precious “pesoses” on movies that were blah. I should have stayed home then. But “it’s too late, baby now, it’s too late” to look back and calculate the wasted hours and money. Better move forward and focus on 2020 with 20/20 vision.

This is the year that Manila Yorme Isko Moreno may call as “etneb etneb.” A new decade not only for Manila but for the rest of the world. But we may have to go back to the ‘80s when Faith Popcorn coined the word cocooning for, well, what some people prefer to do now—working in their home office, watching Netflix, shopping online, food delivery instead of eating out. Hopefully, with the determination to live fully in the present instead of reviving a past that’s no longer worth reviving.

Like food and other products, some situations do have expiration dates and continuing them can be dangerous to one’s peace of mind. When one of the parties in a particular situation says, Enough already, it’s best to respect his wish and allow everyone involved to move on, too. There’s no use living in the past especially if that past hurt some people.

There’s a lot of great moments that the present can offer. Watching the Golden Globes, however, brought me back to the past when I was still familiar with television shows and actors. Last Monday, I was clueless, not knowing the names of some winners.

But Hollywood award shows do still have one familiar face: Brad Pitt. The man of a certain age. Recognized by the woman of a certain age.

Jennifer Aniston was also a familiar face at the Globes show. I never—and still don’t—liked her for Pitt but he was at her holiday party last December, fueling reconciliation rumors. Hmmm. I think Gwyneth Paltrow should be the one with Pitt forevermore.

For Pitt, though, that last paragraph must have deteriorated from happiness to the blues without a moment’s notice. Haha!

Classic blue, by the way, is Pantone’s color of the year. But that doesn’t mean your life should be blue, too.

This reminds me of this Tito, Vic & Joey song: “Blue, blue, my girl is blue / Blue is her shorts and polo shirt, too / Flesh, flesh, my girl is flesh / Somebody took away her blue dress / Burlesque.”

That’s the trio’s version of Andre Popp’s “Love is Blue” which became more popular when Paul Mauriat revived it as an instrumental.