I LIKE...


The walk-to-gym-30-mins.-resistance-training-walk-back-home-3x-a-week routine I started 3 weeks ago. At the very least, it makes me feel that I'm not going to die tomorrow of a heart attack.

These passages...

The first is from Nick Hornby's 'A Long Way Down'. I like it, not because it answers one of my biggest questions about life, but because it's street smart and unpretentious and downright silly.

How do people, like, not curse? How is it possible? There are all these gaps in speech where you just have to put a "fuck." I'll tell you who the most admirable people in the world are: newscasters. If that was me, I'd be like, "And the motherfuckers flew the fucking plane right into the Twin Towers." How could you not, if you're a human being? Maybe they're not so admirable. Maybe they're robot zombies.

And the second is from Alan Alda's 'Never Have Your Dog Stuffed'. Nothing special, it's just so spot on to where I am right now.

I understand it a little better now, and I see now that stuffing your dog is more than what happens when you take a dead body and turn it into a souvenir. It's also what happens when you hold on to any living moment longer than it wants you to.

Memory can be a kind of mental taxidermy, trying to hold on to the present after it's become the past...

There is no one reason why I would like a line, or a verse, or a passage. Whatever picks at my interest, whatever catches my consciousness is as random as the weather in Manila and could be anything from the really profound to the downright irreverent. I just know when I like it and hey, don't take it from me. I can learn to like most things. I'm easy.

So anyway, lately I've also been drawn to the following albums:

Aretha Queen of Soul: The Very Best of Aretha Franklin
Heart to Heart: by B.B. King and Diane Schuur
The Very Best of Badfinger Vol. 1
All Their Greatest Hits 1991-2001: Barenaked Ladies

Actually, I like taking a song from each album and coming up with a whole new CD all my own, playing only the songs I love to hear over and over again. It's like my very own eternal top hits radio station. I like playing them specially when I'm driving to work.

I like recording old movies on the tevo and when I come home from work, I like falling asleep with them on. And at dinner, whenever we can have it together, Papa and I like to watch Seinfeld reruns. And the queer thing is that we only watch it at dinner... at any other time, we'd watch something else even if we could easily watch a Seinfeld.

I like thinking that someday I'm going to get me an FJ Cruiser, maybe when I get properly rotten. But who knows how I will feel in 2010 when I hand over my last payment for my car. Maybe I'd like the weight of some extra cash in my pocket better.

I like getting in touch with friends again. I had to make myself 'employable' so I had to take my BLS and my EKG and my ACLS certificates and this meant that I couldn't have time for anything else on the side. But I consoled myself by thinking that once I get a job, things will settle down and I can work at getting my old life back. I know that I couldn't get all of it back but at that point, I would have settled for a parody of it.

But then I got the job and unwittingly, I realized the buck doesn't stop there. Now I had to take my NRP, and my S.T.A.B.L.E. and my VLBW certificates and who knows what else! I mean, it terrifies me to think how many combinations they can come up with... there are, after all, 26 letters in the alphabet! When will it be time to get my life back?

And then I just decided that the time is NOW. It doesn't really take a lot when you think about it. First you will methodically de-cram your life with stuff you don't really need to involve yourself with... your neighbor's allergies, your Mom's maid who took off in the middle of the night especially when your Mom is in Manila and you are in southern California, your calendar in July... all of these fall under the same label: NOT RIGHT NOW. And then you will learn to be a little less hardnosed about some things. A spill on the floor is all it is, it's not going to be the end of the world. Learn to live with a little dust. It's been a resident at any one place far longer than you've ever been. When you think of an activity and it takes off with a 'have to...', prepare NOT TO have fun. Otherwise, rethink even doing it at all.

Pastor Rick at Saddleback Church is known for his witty one-liners. This is something he said at Church one day.

The most foolish people are those who spend money they don't have on things they don't need to impress people they don't even like.

And in the same token, I say...

The loneliest people are those who spend time they hardly have doing things that don't need to be done to impress people who couldn't really care less.

Finally, I like having this space where I can talk about things I like.