Vacation Upate
Work break is off to a pretty good start.
After my last work-related appointment last Thursday (a meeting with The Ultimate Geek God to the Mac and Roadrunner Dude about the open source project we're developing and hoping to launch by mid-February 2006), I met up with MarcoA to attend the annual Lantern Parade in UP Diliman. It was good to spend some quality time with MarcoA because (1) it's on my Vacation To Do List, and more importantly, (2) we haven't done that in a while. At some point in the evening, fairlycloudy joined us, and we had a grand time having mutant balloon fights / juggling demos in the midst of the Lantern Parade. Afterwards, we met up with e1camino and dealt with the horrid Manila traffic by talking about how we would cast the B-movie and Filipino versions of the X-men movie. David Hasselhoff as Cyclops and Whitney Houston as Storm were two of our most mind-numbing ideas. Ditto Jean Garcia as Jean Grey (same initials, you see) and Cherie Gil as the White Queen (well, Cherie Gil could play any part in any movie, so long as she slaps someone in the movie -- she's best when she's slapping someone).
I got home to winding-down party hosted by Cirio at home (some despedida for someone). When the last dregs of the party had left, Cirio and I stayed up til 5am talking in a way that we haven't done in quite some time -- a life-defining conversation about dreams, frustrations, love/s and ourselves. I had been expecting a conversation like that one for a while now. We both turned (socially) important ages this year (he turned 40 about a week ago and I turned 30 last May), so the time was pretty ripe for an adult talk and status-check. Having that talk made me feel a lot grounded and more real. Made a lot of things make sense. Made me feel like my whole life wasn't so distributed and virtual. To me, there's nothing quite like reflecting about life with a sibling and friend who has known you all your life and has witnessed your evolution. The shared history and the common references means you don't have to constantly have to be explaining yourself, which allows you more room to theorise, reflect and share. And since it's with a trusted sibling, there's no need to edit yourself and to constantly be on guard for hidden agendas.
I woke up around 11 am on the first day of my vacation. Ran some errands for bigboy_blogs, and headed for the bookstore to grab some reading material for the next few days. Found Dosteovsky's The Double (which I've never read and seems interesting). Bought Mike Carey's The Furies, which tells of what happened to Lyta Hall after the end of the Sandman series, and a poetry collection called Voodoo Shop by Ruth Padel. The Furies was a little bit disappointing, definitely not at par with Carey's Lucifer series (but then again, I'm so in love with Lucifer, I highly doubt I'll find anything that would compare to it). I've scanned Voodoo Shop and so far, it's not working for me. So I went back to my old buddy, Szymborska, last night. Will try sinking my teeth into Padel again next week. And will definitely set a date with Dosteovsky.
Tonight, Cirio has some guests over for dinner. Old friends from old work places. So this afternoon was spent preparing dinner and making the flat fit for an intimate dinner with friends, while watching Troy (fuckthatBradPitthe'sdrool-worthy!) and Aliens (Sigourney Weaver is superfreakingcool).
Tomorrow is Christmas shopping day with Cirio. I need to get this task done so I can focus on other things next week.
The vacation has officially started and I'm on the right track to ticking off items in my To Do List.
After my last work-related appointment last Thursday (a meeting with The Ultimate Geek God to the Mac and Roadrunner Dude about the open source project we're developing and hoping to launch by mid-February 2006), I met up with MarcoA to attend the annual Lantern Parade in UP Diliman. It was good to spend some quality time with MarcoA because (1) it's on my Vacation To Do List, and more importantly, (2) we haven't done that in a while. At some point in the evening, fairlycloudy joined us, and we had a grand time having mutant balloon fights / juggling demos in the midst of the Lantern Parade. Afterwards, we met up with e1camino and dealt with the horrid Manila traffic by talking about how we would cast the B-movie and Filipino versions of the X-men movie. David Hasselhoff as Cyclops and Whitney Houston as Storm were two of our most mind-numbing ideas. Ditto Jean Garcia as Jean Grey (same initials, you see) and Cherie Gil as the White Queen (well, Cherie Gil could play any part in any movie, so long as she slaps someone in the movie -- she's best when she's slapping someone).
I got home to winding-down party hosted by Cirio at home (some despedida for someone). When the last dregs of the party had left, Cirio and I stayed up til 5am talking in a way that we haven't done in quite some time -- a life-defining conversation about dreams, frustrations, love/s and ourselves. I had been expecting a conversation like that one for a while now. We both turned (socially) important ages this year (he turned 40 about a week ago and I turned 30 last May), so the time was pretty ripe for an adult talk and status-check. Having that talk made me feel a lot grounded and more real. Made a lot of things make sense. Made me feel like my whole life wasn't so distributed and virtual. To me, there's nothing quite like reflecting about life with a sibling and friend who has known you all your life and has witnessed your evolution. The shared history and the common references means you don't have to constantly have to be explaining yourself, which allows you more room to theorise, reflect and share. And since it's with a trusted sibling, there's no need to edit yourself and to constantly be on guard for hidden agendas.
I woke up around 11 am on the first day of my vacation. Ran some errands for bigboy_blogs, and headed for the bookstore to grab some reading material for the next few days. Found Dosteovsky's The Double (which I've never read and seems interesting). Bought Mike Carey's The Furies, which tells of what happened to Lyta Hall after the end of the Sandman series, and a poetry collection called Voodoo Shop by Ruth Padel. The Furies was a little bit disappointing, definitely not at par with Carey's Lucifer series (but then again, I'm so in love with Lucifer, I highly doubt I'll find anything that would compare to it). I've scanned Voodoo Shop and so far, it's not working for me. So I went back to my old buddy, Szymborska, last night. Will try sinking my teeth into Padel again next week. And will definitely set a date with Dosteovsky.
Tonight, Cirio has some guests over for dinner. Old friends from old work places. So this afternoon was spent preparing dinner and making the flat fit for an intimate dinner with friends, while watching Troy (fuckthatBradPitthe'sdrool-worthy!) and Aliens (Sigourney Weaver is superfreakingcool).
Tomorrow is Christmas shopping day with Cirio. I need to get this task done so I can focus on other things next week.
The vacation has officially started and I'm on the right track to ticking off items in my To Do List.