now.

like i told a friend, "it feels like i'm in a boat without a paddle and the water is getting stronger". and all i can do is be taken by the currents.

objects

i have a hard time letting go of things. of objects. especially if i've used that thing/object for quite some time. its like i formed some sort of a good working relationship with it that its just difficult letting go.

i have taken to naming objects. my bike frame is called 'chayong', the car's name is 'chong'. i'm selling my car. i'm selling chong. well, its my dad's car but i've been driving it for a good 16 years. its sporty and fuel efficient. i drove it to and from work. i drove it in the middle of the night. i brought my friends, my girlfriend in and out of town with it.

and now i'm selling it. it feels like i'm betraying the car. honest. but i've decided to sell it to help my girlfriend so letting go is easier.

maybe i should stop giving names to objects.

cancer

my girlfriend has cancer.

it came, like the monster that it is, silently and slowly at first. then she had night sweats even on cold nights. then she started losing weight and gets easily fatigued. we had her tested and i guess we caught it early enough that there was a small debate if the biopsy samples were benign or malignant. but the doctor noticed that the cancer was aggressive.

non-hodgkin's lymphoma. now the monster has a name.

that's another name to hate.

sad eyes

you have sad eyes. despite the smile that covers your lips and the apparent bounce in your gait, your eyes are sad. i dare not think of what those eyes see or the thoughts that hide behind them.

but i am a curious bastard. i want to know the story behind the sad eyes. i want to know why they became sad.

names

i changed my name in this blog. because my name hadn't felt that way for a while now.

this video reminds me so much about you. i remember watching the concert on betamax but it felt that we were there in central park as part of the crowd. it was still light when we found our patch of grass just some ways off to the right of the stage near a line of trees. we got comfortable and sat down on the blanket with out bottles of water and waited for the music to start.

i also remember us silently singing along each song we're intimately familar with.

but this was so long ago. time slowly changes a lot of things.

a memory

"aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo?"

an old proverb that my tita used to say. roughly translated, it says,"what use is the grass when the horse is already dead"

i tire

sometimes i tire of people
of prayer
of life.
once i feared waking up empty
but now it seems that its all i do.

you never really believe it until it hits you. until its there at your front steps knocking at your gate. and even after you've opened the door you still have a difficult time believing it.

i'm still in denial. ever the optimist, i am still hoping for the best of the situation.

i don't feel angry yet. angry at the situation. at people. at the world. at life.

at god.

an afternoon in adriatico

she was there
after thousands of miles
she just walks in
and she was there
after a glimpse of familiarity,
a small happy smile,
a small wave of the hand.
after a brief hello
and after a handful of small words
a fleeting handshake
that meant a thousand stars
that meant a farewell
that meant my goodbye.

– 20 january 2014
written for that january 18 afternoon in cafe adriatico

16 february 2014

skin on skin
your warmth mixing with mine
i slip under a blanket of sleep
content.

the background

i've re-taken up photography when i got myself a digital slr camera last september. the photo below (which is my background for this blog) is one of the photos i took of sampaloc lake in san pablo city during one sunrise using a prime lens.

03 january 2014

right past midnight
i look for the feel of her hand
warm and soft among the sheets
i am falling in love again

change is good

at least i think so... most of the time...

in an attempt at simplicity, i am consolidating most of my active blogs into one. this one.

why? so that i have just a single place to update and maintain. it gets a little tedious updating multiple sites and keeping track of what's in them. this move will also force me to dive deeper into sql and php programming which is what wordpress is based on.

i will still visit every once in a while to keep things tidy and neat but i will have to spend less time here. i've added a feed from my current blog to here in the sidebar to more or less keep things moving here a little.

vacation feel

the christmas vacation feel has set in. but school is not over yet. some of the people i'm working with are unwillingly sliding into that vacation mode already. the weather is cooler which doesn't really help.

the neighborhood too seems quieter. slower.

robin is swimming in vacation mode. he doesn't want to go to school. lazy. he wants his gifts from santa yesterday.

and i've been wanting to go to the mountains again (san pablo). i saw this one there the last time time i visited.

running in my head: apologize

its been running in my head since this morning. its crazy.

sunday ride

cold morning. rode from ust to mall of asia (moa) and back. plenty of cyclists in moa. as in, plenty of cyclists. i tried a bigger gear most of the way and it burns. stop near the power station to drink. i really need to practice that drinking-water-while-riding-slow thing.

the ride back was pretty good but there's a headwind so the going is a little slow. the ride gets pretty dang cold with a cold headwind. but the sinus did go away though so that's a relief.

maybe next time i'll do a couple of rounds in moa instead of the "touch and go" thing i've been doing. its a great time to ride. temperatures are in the low 20s, air is a little dry.

pasko na.

really really really funny video

its pretty rare that i get to laugh really really really hard. i think the first really-laugh-hard-with-tears-in-your-eyes event happened years and years ago with cyn -- a friend of mine (wonder how she is).

this video is one of the latest ones (i'll likely post the other one another time). pump up the volume so you'll hear better.



hope you like...

blood work

i had some blood work done a couple of weeks ago and i just got the results today.

its mostly within normal levels except for my cholesterol - 232 (max range is 200), triglycerides - 185 (max range is 150) and ldl - 161 (max range is 150). my hdl is low - 34 (min range is 40).

i really should bike regularly now. i've started already every sunday mornings for two sundays now and i'm not pushing it yet because i feel like i'm restarting. later on i'll probably do more frequent rides.

i'm not really worried because i don't really eat fatty foods that often although i should cut down on the sweety stuff.

ugh.

riding and rain

in my case, those two doesn't mix well. i have a steel bike and its been raining. there's two "tropical cyclones" — if you will, that's flanking the country. screenshot came from pagasa.


i want to ride for a bit but can't.

so what do i do? work is always a good aternative. and then play around with what i can change with kikay (my bike).

the most immediate would be changing the brakes. my current ones have been loose mostly because of use and age. the brake set is as old as the frame so i'm looking at last year's ultegra as a replacement.

the other stuff that i thought of was upgrading the drivetrain from seven to 10 speed. yeah. late in the game and all. but the plan is to still use downtube shifters but in the 10-speed incarnation and just change the rear hub and derailleurs to 10-speed. this way, i bypass the weight penalties of sti.

or i could just replace the chain.

another is plan is to convert the thing to a fixie. but that's for another post. besides, i can't find any parts here in the pinas.