coffee break

one of the many benefits of my company is a free gym membership. every end of the month, the hr will send an invite to all and asks us to register if we want to avail the gym membership. it’s on a monthly basis, the hr will send the list of all employees who registered to all branches of gold’s gym. last march, i toyed with the idea and decided to enroll for the month of april. so for april, i am a member of fitness first platinum and gold’s gym.

nearing the end of april, i haven’t visited gold’s, not once, i decided to pay them a visit and try out the gym. i tried the robinson’s galleria branch since it’s near to my office. entrance to the gym was at the back of the mall, at gloria jeans coffee shop. the reception is inside the coffee shop, there’s a stairwell going down to the gym. my first impression of the gym is that it’s crampy and gloomy. the color scheme is too dark for a gym for my taste; i want to see splashes of colors, warm colors to invigorate my senses to work out. it seems like a dungeon with workout machines, less the tar burning torches. as i proceeded to the locker room, i passed at the towel area and got my complimentary towel which is worn out. at the locker room, my feeling of gloominess did not improve, dark gray walls with a pale bluish gray lockers. i changed to my workout clothes and hit the gym area. the machines were all occupied so i decided to go to the free weights area where only 2 benches can be fit somewhat comfortably. i grabbed a 20lbs dumbbell and worked my biceps. a hunky, bald, chinito guy bent over beside me and started working his biceps as he leaned over the rows of dumbbells. his perfectly shaped ass was literally inches away from me. i cut short my biceps workout and hit the smith machine instead; though his ass was perfection and his body to die for, i am not comfortable sharing space with strangers that up close. 60, 70, 80kgs attached to the smith, i did my traps (your shoulder muscles connecting the neck and shoulders), nearing my last set, bent over backwards baldy winked at me. deadma. playing hard to get, hihihi. working my way to the bench press, i notice that the gym was gathering a lot people, i went straight to the locker room and showered. packing my gym stuff, i saw rust stains on my gloves.

one of the reason why i keep a separate gym membership is that i don’t like crowds. i am quite claustrophobic that when people gather i feel uneasy and suffocated. i need my leg room, i need space to move around. although i only have these attacks with strangers. i value my personal space that i am paying quite a premium for gym membership to a more controlled gym. platinum clubs control the number of members they have, that and they cost more, a lot more. even at the spa, i have a regular therapist that does my treatments. am not comfortable that people i don’t know is giving me a deep tissue massage and scrubbing me with crushed coffee beans. call me snooty, but i can’t stand crowds; i can’t stand the feeling that someone i don’t know is close by.

the hr sent the registration for the may gold’s gym membership. i enrolled again. why? because i want to get over this. i think it’s an unhealthy thing to have and the universe is telling me to change it. did i mention baldy gave his number at the locker.

listening to:
Airdrawndagger – Sasha: Requiem

happy earth day! did you know that you can listen to the humpback whale’s song at this site! they stream the live songs of these gentle giants for you to appreciate. did you know that the humpback whale has the most complex language pattern in the planet? if ever intelligent beings from other planets comes to contact with earth, it is believe that they are most likely to talk to the humpbacks.

don’t forget to watch an inconvenient truth at hbo tonight, april 22 at 9.00pm.
* image from onlinehome.us.

listening to:
Smokiest Hits – Smokey Mountain: Paraiso

mom’s leaving for good. when i say for good, i mean she’s migrating to the u.s. for good-for good. everything is set, almost all her bags are packed, some had been shipped to the florida keys, where she will be staying, and she’s set to fly this sunday. i think i’ll miss my mom. though i’m used to living alone, i’ll miss her nagging and constant reminder if i have my keys with me, if i have turned off the tv in my room, to bring my used clothes downstairs. traveling had made me accustomed to be by myself, but knowing that there’s mom at home, in manila, waiting and possible nagging me for forgetting or losing something makes me feel assured, at home.

i don’t know why mom decided to live in the u.s., my siblings are against it. me, i’m all for my mom’s happiness. if she thinks she’ll be better there, then she should be there. i’m not being indifferent and distant, i just don’t want to stop my mom from doing the things she wants to. she’s 60, she should be able to decide what makes her happy. we are all grown up, we can make our decisions for ourselves, and my mom needs to make her own. her living in florida do post challenges. ocean, continents apart, i can’t just knock on her room if i want to ask her to go with me and eat thai in morato, or go shopping at greenbelt. seeing her would be an effort of planning, scheduling and some serious saving up. i can now imagine the pile of used clothes in my room as i always “forget” to bring it down.

this means that i will be living alone, alone-alone. though i have my yaya, she has her own place (2 houses down the road) and refuses to move in with me. i will be all by myself, going home to an empty apartment, cold, desolate, unappreciative…

to my mom who is brave that she’ll be living alone in a foreign country without knowing anyone, may you find that you seek. and i’ll definitely visit you before the year ends.

listening to:
Daft Club – Daft Punk : Digital Love (Boris Dlugosh Remix)

how about you?

i recently got wiser. who am i kidding, i got older, a couple more gray hairs, bio clock ticking. it was hush-hush, no one from the office knew about my birthday except for those i am friends with at friendster. if you know how to turn-off the birthday announcement of friendster, kindly drop me an email. the tsongers celebrated my birthday a week early; as always, we find it difficult to be in the same place/city/country/continent, at the same time. bert is in japan until i don’t know when, martha will be flying to japan as well on the week of my birthday and most of the other tsongers are in a baby boom mode. half full/half empty depending on the perspective on your side, we marched to makati to celebrate my getting grumpier. dahon was gracious enough to have our potluck in her pad. brian was the event master and assigned everyone what food to bring. i brought prawns, one in spicy thai coconut milk soup and a spicy halabos style. kat prepared appetizer (hotdogs and spicy mushroom), eden brought a platter of makis and sushi, martha bought a bucket of good ol’ kfc, bri and helena cooked pancit bihon, art and pearly brought lumpiang shanghai, bin and rish bought yellow cab pizzas and the hostess whipped up a dessert zoe called duh! yummy (dayami) cake.

it was fun being with friends, catching up. hysterical laughter and dissing people without feeling offended. it wouldn’t be a tsongers get together without the insults and love of tsismis. we love to play games, even went to batanggas once just to play bridge. eden brought with her jenga, similar to uno stacko without the colors and numbers. dahon being competitive as hell, is now the world record holder of having the longest time before moving a single block of jenga. after 2, or was it 3?, rounds of jenga, we played taboo a game of unspeakable fun. people laughing and trying their best to guess while the person describing the word not to use the taboo words.

aging this way is fun. all of my guests were in pairs with the exception of dahon and kat. the 3 singles of the group… sigh

p.s. i’m so happy that very few knows my exact birth date, except close friends of course. i don’t know, i’m comfortable announcing my age, but not my birth date. i just don’t want people greeting my happy birhtday even singing it.

weird, as in weird. is it me or the fashion sense of the gay community, zoning in to the people of malate becoming as trying hard as them bagging a hot guy.

richard sent a message saturday evening, dinner at serendra with his current beau jake. i was in training at viktor in trinoma, helping out people in dire need of styling and guidance in dressing up. i replied asking where to next since i won’t get off until 10.00pm. i went home shortly after and killed time watching memoirs of a geisha at hbo. i so love the dance piece of ziyi zhang, so full of emotions noh? 11.30pm, i called richard to find out they were still at bonifacio high street, at fully booked. i set a 12.00 midnight rendezvous at our hangout, cafe adriatico, called arman who’s in malabon. 12.30, i was in my lonesome at starbucks waiting from them freaking people. richard decided not to show up and arman was late as always. without jake and richard, arman and i went to sonata to kill time over booze, i need time to spend with my friend armand will all the drama in his life. catching up with our lives and occasional boy watching, my attention was caught by a group of not so hip youngsters. typical fashion, skinny jeans, printed top, but the real crime here is the scarf. the overflowing abundance of scarves everywhere. when i was in cincinnati and it was, say 39 farenheit/4 celsius i still go out with just a light jacket.

i don’t get it. since when scarves of the south became a fashion trend in a city whose average temperature is 77 farenheit/25 celsius? i am a big fan of fashion and accessories but it isn’t always fashion just for the sake of being fashionable. it’s about making it work and owning it. if you’re going for the one of a kind look, be sure you can pull it off and not stick in a crowd like a sore thumb full of scabs after the fashion police mauled you for your getup. not to mention that they have with them digital cameras that they took turns taking pictures in the bustling alley as if they are in a park on a sunny day. to each his own they say, but this one, it’s really their own and they should keep it that way.

-oOo- i am in viktor at trinoma every saturday afternoon until closing. i am a stylist and helps out customers in picking out their custom jeans. please drop by anytime for your 1 of a kind jeans, and if you need my help, i’m there on saturdays.

listening to:
As I Am – Kristin Chenoweth: Taylor, the Latte Boy