Vanilla Pleasures

Part One: Remember, Remember the fifth of November Part Two: For My Eyes Only  Part Three: Giving Back  Steaks and Stakes So this was supposed to be the weekend where Juna, Acee, Chinky and I planned the “shala” dinner of steaks and wine. Unfortunately, Chinky had UTI and I wasn’t feeling up for anything that night so I had to cancel our attendance. But Juna and Acee had the dinner anyway and tagged me to the pictures. While two of my friends were having dinner, I was texting some people I met online out of boredom. Well, I was also thinking a good lay would help my immune system. So when one of them confirmed the invitation to my place, I took the chance of meeting him up. No. This is not one of those fairy tale stories of meeting someone who was so perfect for me and fall in love and ride to the sunset. I have learned to compartmentalize the people I meet, sometimes heavily depending on how we meet. I don’t date people I consider friends. Past relationships ha...

Part One Part Two Giving Back For weeks I have been involved in the planning for an outreach headed by Akei and PinoyG4M to visit and provide assistance for the Home for the Golden Gays . I was distracted at work calculating and simulating possible scenarios for the said event. Talk about over thinking. It’s the first charity event I’ve been part of in years and I wasn’t used to setting things aside especially when I feel there are a lot of things to be done and we haven’t met some of the goals we set. Our initial target was P15K for the food and goodie bags we were handing out. And thankfully because of the kindhearted sponsors we exceeded our estimates towards the end of the week. The event was scheduled on a Sunday, November 20, to accommodate the Home’s schedule availability. Jade, Bern, Juna, Acee and I met Saturday morning to finalize the workload and division of labor. We’ve decided to give out some groceries, sacks of rice, medicines, and all the basics since ...

At dahil hindi ko mapigil ang tuwa ko , I'll post this here too: After some friendly banter (or so I thought): Officemate: Hey, bakit ako nalang lagi mong pinagti-tripan ? (Why do you always pick on me?) Me: Do you think I'm doing that? Dear, you're not the center of the universe... *whispers* I am.

Part One here . For My Eyes Only The cute and loveable niece was celebrating her 7 th birthday. So I decided to file leaves for the 11 th and 14 th so that I could spend more time with her. Ironically my glasses broke Wednesday and I was forced to wear my contacts. It didn’t really matter much until my team mates noticed that my eyes were getting red. Since I wasn’t feeling any irritation I simply assumed it was out of the lack of sleep and some forces beyond this realm. By Thursday I was already hiding from my boss. My eyes were bloodshot and swelling. I even had to plea to make me stay at least until my shift ends. It’ll be a few hours anyway. My boss is pregnant and I completely understand her concern not only for herself but to everyone else on the team being infected by the dreaded sore eyes. It would spell complete disaster for a team of five. She agreed to my bargain and I was very cautious touching anything and had a bottle of disinfectant alcohol all the time. Li...

It’s been quite some time since you’ve heard from by rambles. Pagbigyan n’yo na ko. Birthmonth ko naman eh. But since this is a page in the universe all about me, here is a summary of what just happened: Remember, Remember the fifth of November A few friends from the PinoyG4M community decided to have a private soirée of a few selected personalities. It’s the Finer Things Club (FTC), as named by one of our hosts, from the TV series The Office. So there we were: Bananafish , trimegistus , Naivete , T’yang , GeekyGuide and garapata (who were also our hosts). Since this IS FTC, we brought a few bottles of wine. Our hosts were kind enough to bring out some cheeses and French bread. The night began with nothing less than… ADVENTURE TIME ! And we instantly loved the Lumpy Space Princess… like for real. Next stop garapata brought out his board games. Since Bananafish and trismegistus were board virgins, we started with one of our favorites: Dixit . One thing I’m realizing now is that...

Our team was on a 90’s blast from the past frenzy a few weeks back. We were playing songs we remembered growing up with like Neocolors, Alamid, Orient Pearl, Side A, Put3SKA, Wiseguys, Rockstar, Passage, Men Oppose, After Image, Vanna Vanna (formerly FOJ), Prettier than Pink, Introvoys and Bodjie’s Law of Gravity. Some solo artists were also in our playlist; the likes of Lloyd Umali, Ima Castro, Carol Banawa, Dingdong Avanzado, Ella Mae Saison, Joey Albert, Wency Cornejo, Cookie Chua and Rannie Raymundo. We’d just realize we were swaying our heads or tapping our feet to the beat. And the nostalgia trip wasn’t enough for me. I downloaded a few more stuff over the net and haven’t stopped playing them yet. This was the music that we danced to, laughed, cried, hummed and grew up with. For some reason the music of today has less than distant effect. When I listen to the radio, I’d have to ask someone or wait till the DJ announces the title of the song and artist. The pop music of this...