a tough day

today i woke up thinking, "damn, this again."

i rolled over a few times wrestling the id. for a moment there it seemed like i was going to stay in bed.  finally, i got the upper hand and sprung out of bed straight into the arctic cold of my room. i quickly dashed towards my work clothes, phone, wallet and keys. i then headed towards the restroom, after that i blacked out because the next thing i remember is driving my car on the freeway, heater on blast, while listening to Minus the Bear's "Omni" album (which is GREAT by the way.)

getting out of bed is probably the toughest part of my day, but not today.
because today i did something i've never done before. i feel horrible yet relieved that i finally had this conversation but it had to happen. probably sooner would have been best. but it's done.
it's funny how one event triggers others and sets cosmic reactions in the different people from your past.

i have a funny feeling about 2012. not the guatemalan end-of-the-world kind, but the kind where i see many things changing and evolving.  

 

2011: it came from scratch

when this year began, i told myself that 2011 would be different.

looking back now, 2011 truly did come from scratch. 2010 was a year where i'd put myself in situations were i'd swore i'd never be...pretty much a double take of 2006. but alas, in the midst of making yet another ass out of myself, the shards of glass picked themselves up and i was able to see myself again.

these last several weeks i've been living and working up in burlingame, ca helping Virgin America answer angry phone calls. every morning, at 6:30am, after taking a shower, and scarfing down some frech toast, i take my brisky 15 minute walk along the bayside trail overlooking the san francisco and oakland bay. i usually take this walk alone but every now and again, several raccoons follow along.

this is probably my most favorite part of the day; it's still dark, nobody is awake and it's just myself, the racoons and my tangent thoughts. as i walk, a series of montages fill my head. so many places along with faces that have impacted me. i can't help but know that i am abundantly blessed!

i have no clue where 2012 will take me, or if i'm even going to get a chance to finish 2011. but if the Lord allows me another year, i'm sure it'll be interesting.

and on the 13th day, i rested.

typing from the comfort of my bed isn't the best way to blog, but i'm doing it anyway. since being back from my european trip, all i've done is work. the first five days consisted of juggling my job at lax, then driving north to hollywood to work with filter at the culture collide music festival. it was exhausting, but rewarding at the same time.

today...actually at this moment is the first time since being back that i've had time to sit and not worry about anything. no phone calls, urgent emails, nothing.
europe was fun. i had a whole week to myself in the baltic world and it did me good; i needed it. the arrival of my friends also did me good, paris and the rest of europe would not have been the same without them.

being that today is my only day off, i'll probably loiter in my bed for a bit more and then clean my room since i cant see the floor. i'll do the same with my car since i've practically lived in it these past 2 weeks.

some of that elk soup

elk soup

it is interesting. but more importantly, it is delicious! didn't get much elk though, but the broth had a strong flavor and the few chunks of meat tasted smoky. the whole place smelled smokey actually, like being around a campfire. the theme also added to the cozyness, it was like being inside a cabin. i strongly recommend eating elk soup, especially when staying in estonia.

chillin in tallinn

i just woke up from a 6 hour nap; felt great. the past 2 days have spent sleeping in planes, airports, trams, and one bus. i navigated through tallinn for a bit trying to find my hostel. i bought tickets for the tram but decided to follow the lines by foot. i took a small break, drank some water, and watched as the people passed me by.

people here in tallinn dress nice, the style is a tasteful gothic. people seem nice. i approached a few and they didnt hesitate to help. i kept walking and saw a map on a bus stop which confirmed that i was going the right way. a couple of blocks later i found my hostel, more importantly, a bed!

now i'm up, it's around 7:30pm, and i am hungry. i'm looking forward to eating something estonian.

omaha: a small world after all

the last time i saw dean, it must have been deep in the a.m. while we were ending the night with some kebabs. he and this kid dean kept doing handstands out in the middle of budapest and kept taking turns carrying each other across the empty streets. i had met dean while i was staying at the 'suite' hostel in budapest, which is one of the best hostels i've ever stayed in. i had just recently gotten off a train from brasov, romania-also known as transylvania- and all i wanted to do is take a warm shower and find a bed. but something about the mix of people in that hostel had me finding my bed later than what i expected. i met two megan's, a caroline, and one kim.

well, long story short, dean fell for one of the megans and two years later, dean and megan are living together in omaha! it was funny seeing dean without his mullet and black eye. he picked me up from my hotel and we headed to this place called 'old chicago'. after a few wrong turns driving into the opposite side of the street, we were there. we had some beers and this interesting thai pizza. megan's brother, andy, who works there hooked it up big time. later, andy took us to this place called 'jays' it was cool spot with pool and billiards. typical midwest bar i guess, where all of the creighton college students hung.

i felt so old, dean felt the same way but it was all good, we caught up and had a great time. dean didn't bust any handstands that night, but we're hanging out again tonight. i'm pretty sure it'll come back.

crisis of the day: blue or grey?

just another relapse.

the day before my birthday was supposed to mark the last day of being an intern for this music magazine called filter.  during the last minutes of my long day running errands and shipping boxes, i was offered a contract position assisting with promotional tours that the magazine sponsored across the united states. the up-coming tour would be 2 weeks long and would have me driving from los angeles to nashville, nashville to omaha, and finally omaha to salt lake city.
and ever since then, in order to offset the 2 weeks that i'll be away, i've picked up about 80 extra hours at my job with virgin america.
i am exhausted.

july has been a blur. it's consisted of 16-hour back to back shifts, sleeping inside the back of a honda coupe, 5 hours of sleep, coffee, and strange eating habits. why am i doing this? i still don't have a definitive answer but i think it mostly stems from my fear of boredom.
and boredom is exactly what i am trying to avoid.

boredom truly is the devil and i definitely do not need idle hands. because when i do get idly, i begin to relapse; the memories which i've buried start to become alive. buried deep enough where my eyes can't see though shallow enough where my ears are still keen. this morning i definitely keened into a memory from the last seven years and it wasn't fun. it also wasn't pretty, but like the sting of a fat mosquito, it felt great scratching it.

well, i got an iPad

during the course of these next few sentences and those from the batch before, something phenomenal has entered my life. no, it's not a girl, and no it's not a dude. romance cloaked in the form of a sheek metallic 9.50 x 7.31 inch bundle has broken the walls of my cold heart. yes, the iPad and i are now official. for a moment there 2011 was looking bleak. but not so, i mean i did get the chance to travel quite extensively so i can't really complain...still, something was missing.
it was during one of these travels, while trying to find comfort inside a boeing 747, that my life changed. a young man seated an isle seat in front of me reached into his backpack and pulled out his iPad.
at first, the shiny looking thing didn't interest me much, so i dozed off. when i woke, the dude had himself another shiny looking thing on his tray table. it wasn't until a few minutes that i realized he was holding the exact same iPad.
plopped open was the iPad laying panoramically on this keyboard that acted as the mount; i could not contain myself. so much so that my arm jerked outwardly towards the dude with the pad. he quickly turned and out spewed my questions about the device. a few weeks went by.
i thought i could shake it off, but i couldn't. at work, on the streets, in my dreams, it was there; taunting me.
well, i finally got one. and it's great. we traveled for the first time last week to boston and we had a great time. i also had a good time with my friends, andy and joe. hopefully i'll be writing a bit more with this thing; i go on these dryspells and i do not like it.

i also just realized my complete disregard for cuba from the last post...umm i'm sorry. i will say this; cuba is a place for those who are looking to be surprised. and surprise is truly around each corner. from the kids playing in the middle of the streets, to the immigration officers interogating your origins, to that floating bottle of rum being offered to you by a smiling cuban on the beach, the island of cuba is for those who have no inhibitions about politics, race, and religion. all of that goes out the window when you land

outside of comfort, a place unlike

it was tossed around for a while and left sitting on top of a small flame. the idea of traveling to a country that's apparently been locked in a time when the world was almost at the brink of complete annihilation had me a bit nervous. a few months passed and the flame never did quite die, it actually grew. it kept growing and growing until my apprehension evaporated and what remained was my complete resolve to explore this land first-hand.

careful planning and much research came afterwards. i read up on what was clearly black and white:
can you travel to cuba? yes.
can you spend money in cuba? nope.
understood.

countless forums and websites are on the web offering tips on ways to get to cuba. all pretty much say the same; whatever you do, DO NOT GET YOUR PASSPORT STAMPED.
everything else is cake
well, i bought the airline tickets 3 weeks prior the trip. i along with two of my closest friends were now locked inside the barrel of what was to be an amazing week. 

feeling a little funky

why do i feel like i'm idling through?
i can't quite explain it. it comes when you least expect it. my room is clean and i've returned from one of the most amazing places i've ever been to in my life; and yet i'm stuck in a funk

this funk sucks and i would like to beat it with a sledgehammer, but i'm afraid the sledgehammer will do nothing. this funk surrounds my thoughts like a impenetrable safe to which i'm beginning to believe holds nothing. maybe, in order to unlock this metal funk, a journey to the start would prove to be the key. ok, i guess i'll start from the beginning
 

t-infiniti

for once in my life i actually packed 24 hours before a trip. usually i save this very vital part of the journey for the last 20-30 minutes before my departure to the airport.
i have no real excuse for this procrastination, it truly is stupidity; but, this time it's different. i am allowing myself no room for retarded behavior and have even organized my carry-on and backpack to the point where i actually know where everything is.

this week long trek will stretch my imagination along with my physical limits. i am flying on three different airplanes towards three remote places of this hemisphere all in one complete day. paradise awaits on the other side, i hope.
whatever it is, i anxiously wait.  

susan's 25th hour

the drive this morning was bitter sweet to say the least. walking past the front porch, sitting out in front was susan all drenched in dew; melancholy quickly settled.

for a brisk moment, during of which i completely forgot about the cold and it's tiny blades slicing through my thin slacks, i saw her. the same way i've had for the past 5 years. everything about her was pretty much the same: her slender low profile, her mysterious dark tint, her glistening cherry coat.

although, walking a little closer, i could not ignore the paint that was beginning to chip away from her body, or the countless dents and scratches, and knowing that the mystery no longer existed behind her dark tint. her time had come.

the years weren't kind to her. she was stolen, pillaged, and disrespected countless times, but she was mine. she was there during times when nobody else was. she heard me laugh,  she heard me curse. and she'd seen me cry (once). if there exists a car heaven, susan would definitely be up there being continually filled with premium gasoline, the kind that i was never able to give her.       

susan turned 230,000 miles today. i was planning celebrate by buying a six-pack of o'douls and plopping open a lawn chair off the side of the freeway... it was too cold.

i wish i could frame her on the side of the wall, but i can't. so i leave her with this, my words of affection.

what a trip: act1

i am writing from a state where everything that i am going to attempt to recall will be from the last week and half. this alone is a difficult task; on normal days i can hardly remember the day before, but now i will try and do it from the latter stages of a gnarls 2-day stomach flu that has depleted me from keeping any liquids, one that has given me menstrual-like pains accompanied by one of the worse migraines.

cancun was a time well spent. i had been there before so most of its lure had been lost. still, i don't think anyone can ever get tired of the white sandy beaches and its crystal blue water. the first night i went off with some of the crew members from my flight and, well, it didn't end well. but i did wake up with an awesome bracelet.

that morning came with clear skies and a gentle breeze. i gathered myself and got the rest of the guys to wake up and head to the beach. they were walking zombies, but we finally made it. we must have laid out for at least 2 hours. the sun was fierce, it scorched my back and had me looking like beef jerky. the water cooled me off for a bit but drained me from the little energy i had; i had to eat something. i headed back to the resort and saw my friend brianne and carolina. they were getting ready to head out to playa del carmen, i had been there a couple of years before and would not pass up the opportunity to go again.

it was a two bus trip that took almost 2 hours but we finally made it. i still had not eaten anything, i didn't feel good. but the beauty of the beach settled my stomach for a bit. playa del carmen isnt just about the beach, it's about what surrounds the beach. you won't find your typical chunky charlie out here, what you will find is a youthful and carefree atmosphere; unfamiliar tongues and strange faces.

well, i finally ate. something that was...interesting. the only way i can describe it is chiken that tasted like liver. yea, that sounds about right.


the night ended well, brianne and carolina and i left for the bus station mesmerized. we slept for most of the bus trip but then walking to the next bus, we were given a second wind from the night's breeze. we finally made it to the resort, i was beat. i slept in brianne's room which was huge! this was nice, but what it had in size, it strongly lacked in its thin walls. the whole night, the person in the next room was snoring uncontrollably. i slapped the wall a couple of times and the thing producing the snores stopped long enough for me to sleep.

the next day, brianne and i decided that we were going to skip a day in cancun and fly over to montevideo, uruguay. it wasn't going to be easy, or so we thought. we hopped on a cab to cancun airport and from there we waited to get a seat. the agents kind of made it dramatic, like the flights were full but when we were given our seats we saw that there were a couple of seats open.


the true test would come 5 hours later. we were told that all flights leaving to montevideo and buenos aires were full. and what made things worse was the fact that copa airlines weight restricts most of its flights to those cities. in part because its such a long flight but also because they fly boeing 737's, which aren't the biggest airplane out there.

we've heard horror stories about the copa agents in panama city. but all of them were out there willing to help us out and give us advice about what to do and which flight to take. ultimately we were told by a pair of friendly smiles to stick with the montevideo flight because although being weight restricted, that it wasn't completely full. still, our nerves were shot. crunch time came and it was time for me to make an attempt at talking to the controlling agent. i approached her serious demeanor with strong caution knowing that any slight grin or sign of self-worth worth by my part could throw my chances. with the humblest tone and expression i said, "hola" she was busy but i noticed from her facial expression that she wasn't annoyed. i quickly told her that me and my friend were looking to get a seat. she looked at our tickets and for the next 5 minutes she typed away like if she was writing a last minute term paper. she wrote something on our tickets and i automatically thought that she was rolling us to another flight but when she handed them to me, i saw that she had given us an aisle and a window.


i couldn't contain myself, i told her "¡muchas gracias!" and she let out a slight smile. i didn't tell brianne that we had been given seats. i just sat next to her and told her that it didn't look so good. 30 minutes before departure they changed the gate for the flight; it was at that point that i handed her the boarding pass with her seat assignment. she was mad and excited at the same time. i thought it was funny. ultimately our row had the middle seat open which was the cherry on this very fat and very chocolately sundae we were riding on. we stayed in the airplane for about an hour having been delayed for an unknown reason. but once it took off we were finally at ease that we were really flying to montevideo.

america, i've had enough

i am approaching the 15th hour of my grueling 16-hour shift right now. i started at 5am today rushing to get to the airport and sprinting across the employee parking lot hoping to catch the 4:45am shuttle; i barely made it.

clocked in today thinking i was going to work only 12 hours, but this was not the case. a couple of weeks ago i picked up a shift and forgot to put it in my calendar. a swift kick to the balls, that is the only way that i can describe it.  i am still paying for it now. i had so many things that i had purposefully not planned for today. my friend phillip asked me to take care of his cat for the weekend...i've fed it only once. i hope it's ok

all of these events have led me to one conclusion, and that is that i must leave america. originally i was planning to leave on tuesday, but i know now that that it is not a possibility anymore.
so, in about a half an hour, i will clock out. i then will walk towards the copa ticket counter and pick up my tickets to buenos aires, argentina. and it will be glorious

i can't wait, really. although, i do miss the family. been working too much , i love my kin.   

bitch work

yea, so this was todays fruit. a bunch of mailers. 
but I did it with pride, knowing that somewhere out in some lonely little department store, a kid might happen to hear a glimpse of awesome beats.

it's been a long day, so what a better way to end it than at the hudson.

january is still here!

monday yesterday started off real early. i had picked up a 4:15-12:45pm shift which meant that i had to be out of my house no later than 3:30am. the jets lost so i ended the festivities early the night before. i've been trying to run again, the way i used to but it seems like every time i go home, my bed just sucks me in like a black hole.

a couple of my co-workers have been running/walking from the airport to the employee parking lot. i thought about it, assessed what was at stake, which was nothing, and decided that i too was going to start this healthy trend. although, as i was running down century blvd, and then unto aviation which dissects the main runway at lax, that i was probably huffing up jet fuel and God know what else. my lungs burned for a little, everything spun for a bit, maybe it was the toxic cocktail that american & delta cooked up right as i ran behind them. it also could have been the fact that i hadn't eaten anything except a snickers bar that morning. i've been getting into a real bad habit of eating one huge meal in the middle of the day.

as i walked towards my car, i remembered that i had to cover a concert at the troubadour. i wanted to drive straight to hollywood and kill time but i realized that i'd forgotten the tickets back home. i drove all the way back. ultimately it was good thing, i stunk.

i sat down and ate a HUGE bowl of rice that had been in the fridge; i soaked it in sriracha hot sauce. i hopped in the shower and took a 2 hour nap.

on the 710, and then unto the 5 freeway. i was expecting a parking lot but traffic was smooth. made it to hollywood in less than half an hour. it actually took longer to find parking than my whole drive. finally found a spot on santa monica blvd, which wasn't a bad thing because it was after 6pm, and free. lauren met me up a couple minutes later, which was great because if it wasn't for her, i don't know if i could have been bold enough to ask people to hold a flyer and take a picture. she just has that certain charisma i guess. anywho, we got the number of shots we wanted and walked into the venue.

the first band, "giant drag" was great. they're a mixture of hole and a little bit of the yeah yeah yeahs. i enjoyed every song they played. the acoustics could have played a big part of it though, the sound quality came out pure, didn't hear anything muffled or distorted. what made the band more entertaining to watch was the mystery of the bass drummer. lauren and i could not make out if it was a dude or chick. there was no sign of boobage, but if he was a dude, why was he wearing bangs? other questions arose but i decided to keep it a mystery.

"white lies" came on and the crowd multiplied. didn't even notice it until i felt someone trying to cop a feel. i had listened to the "white lies" cd before but it wasn't impressive. i wasn't really into their sound, which to me was a blend of morrissey and new order. i didn't mind the new order, but i've never been a morrissey fan. but seeing them live, they put on something else, their sound became more like that of "the bravery" with the tempo being more accentuated by the drums and bass. the lead singers vocal range seemed to go to more places. they put on a great show, i'd recommend them.  

the show ended at around 11pm, and i was exhausted. thankfully my friend phillip lives less than a mile away on wilton pl.
yea, january is still here.

january, where'd you do?

last time i checked, january was barely in its first week of infancy.
but. now, having been caught unaware of how quick the ghost passes, i am once again stuck with the same bitter taste of last year.  
i thought it'd be easy, and it has. in sleep, an unseen kit plops open and begins untangling the countless layers of rusted barb.
maybe i needed the scar tissue, it has a purpose.
like a cocoon, something beautiful will eventually spring out.

my last 2010 sunrise

bitter sweet on 1-1-11

i greeted 2011 the same way i did the rest of other 363 days, with deep sleep. i had a long day at work and afterward had myself some mercury poisoning from all of the spicy tuna i consumed. so i skipped out on the new years eve festivities and woke to an extremely chilly january 1st.

i saw a couple bowl games, had some laughs with the family and saw a lame movie; a pretty non-climactic day to say the least. this changed when i received a message from someone who decided that they didn't want me in their life anymore. and what can say, the hurt i feel, it feels hollow. like an empty tree trunk from a movie prop.

i'll never forget the last seven years i've spent with this person, but the heart we had for each other has eroded and washed up. with that, leaving fertile ground for 2011 and the future!

i have no regrets, none.

local natives, work your magic please :)

night.