Category Archives: General

This was the week we finally moved into a proper spring weather pattern, with the sun appearing and warming things up a bit. It was also the week we celebrated our 10th and 11th anniversaries in Boston, and then a few days later opened the pool for the season. And with an unexpected burst of energy, courtesy of all that Vitamin D, I re-painted the attic to continue my little update of that long-neglected space. It’s almost there. On with the recap…

The Maidenhair fern began its seasonal show. 

Vaxxed & masked.

The valley of perfume.

Lilacs come lately. 

A delicate fucking flower.

Cherry blossom poetry.

Instafloral glory.

An upcoming stay at the Mandarin Oriental Boston.

Our Boston wedding anniversary recap: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.

Dazzlers of the Day included Lea Salonga and Eddie Robinson.

Consider this a shameless (or partly shameful) plug for following my Instagram account, as that seems to be where all the fun is these days. (You are more than welcome to follow me on Twitter or FaceBook as well, but those get too bogged in nonsense of late.) Instagram provides a simple visual check-in throughout the day, and that’s about all my brain can take right now. 

Instagram is often where I’ll post the first glimpse of whatever I’m doing or working on, such as these colorful images from a recent trip to Boston. That won’t be documented on this blog until the weekend, but Instagram followers will get a sneak peek.

As far as 1000 words go, I think that’s cutting things a bit short, but I’m someone who enjoys a picture as much as I enjoy a long-winded passage. At any rate, I would be thrilled if you’d deign to follow me there.

“Heroes must see to their own fame. No one else will.” ~ Gore Vidal

“In the cherry blossom’s shade
there’s no such thing
as a stranger.”

~ Kobayashi Issa

Someone finally made a lotion for me. 

Even with our completed vaccinations, we are holding tight and true to mask-wearing when in public and tight quarters. That’s what good, compassionate, concerned and caring citizens of society do. And those who have a problem with that should look deeper into themselves and their reasons. PS – Get vaccinated. 

May has been filled with more rain than I’d like, and cooler temperatures than most of us would prefer, but there are still moments of beauty, like on the semi-sunny day this lilac started popping. It’s a hybrid, a posthumous gift from Andy’s Mum that has grown enough to fill out three separate patches in our yard. This was a small-bloom year, as lilacs will sometimes deliver, but that makes this one all the more valued. On with the Monday morning recap…

Lunch-time walk in downtown Albany. 

Art deco dreams.

Cherry blossoms begin again. 

Our 11th Anniversary.

Lilacs on parade.

Another Queen returns. 

Lilac wine.

The return of the Madonna Timeline: ‘Love Profusion.’ 

Ostrich ferns unfurling. 

And even more cherry blossoms in the sky.

Dazzlers of the Day included Cole Walliser, Jose Antonio Vargas, Kamala Harris, and Ted Lieu.

Searching for a summer theme song is always a fun endeavor, and I think I’ve got an oldie that will work wonders when the sunny season kicks in. More problematic and onerous is the idea of blogging all summer long when I’d rather be reading or lounging by the pool. To keep that inspirational font flowing, I’m toying with a slight revamp of this ancient website, by most accounts on its last legs as its WordPress format is hopelessly outdated. I no longer have the desire to keep it going forever – or at least whatever constitutes forever these days – yet I’m not quite ready to give it up. 

I could always take the summer off as I’ve done a couple of times, or maybe just reduce the posting schedule. More exciting is the idea of a transition period to toy with other themes and ideas, perhaps with a goal of starting an entirely new site with new stories and new journeys and new guests. Summer makes for such enterprises. 

For the foreseeable future, the art deco background of the roaring twenties may make for suitable website decor. We’re in the twenties again after all…

It’s been over a year since I last hugged my parents. I remember the first visit with Mom last March, when it all began. Neither of us knew how long it would be, though I’m almost certain we didn’t think it would be for over a year. I stood in their driveway on a cold March day, picking up a package of toilet paper she had managed to procure when the rest of Albany had been depleted. It was strange to keep a six foot distance then, but I did it for her safety on that day, and every day since. When the two-week post-second-vaccine period had passed, I stopped by for a Sunday visit and hugged both her and Dad. It was a very fine moment. 

Without masks and distance, it’s easier for Dad to understand and engage. I think the past year has been the hardest on him for that reason. At 90 years old, the best defense is engagement and activity – COVID almost took that away from us, but we worked around it, and in some ways I was able to be more present with the circumstances. 

It was a week of returning to some form of normal on other fronts as well – a welcome return – and I embrace it hesitantly, hopefully… 

New friends silver, old friends gold.

Upside down you turn me.

Try a little tenderness.

Globules of grape.

A pesky Pink Moon.

Vaccination celebration.

The return of the Queen.

Happy hibiscus. 

My Filipino heritage – in honor of Asian American – Pacific Islander Heritage Month. 

The season of Gatsby.

Dazzlers of the Day included Regina King, Chloé Zhao, Kyle Griffin, Jen Psaki, Colman Domingo, and Annie Lennox.

“If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about…” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Every year at around this time the spirit of Gatsby calls to me. 

Maybe it’s the spring air, tilting between the wilderness of winter and the first whispers of summer. 

Maybe it’s the perfume of lilacs, lilting on the tricky breeze, and ever-threatening to disappear once that breeze turned into a wind. 

Maybe it’s the elusive tragedy of almost getting everything you think you want, and almost realizing you may not want it. 

Perhaps that’s why Gatsby has always been a hero to me: he never quite gets what he thinks he wants. There’s a nobility in that – a tragic and sorrowful nobility that transcends the roaring fabulousness of his opulent surroundings, hinting at a scrappy past he wants to remain secret, a hungry emptiness that the self-invented often take to the bank. It’s the wanting that is so moving – the desire that finds no easy satisfaction. Some say that’s the same sadness inherent in the American dream, especially for immigrants, and when the vast majority of us are descended of immigrants it’s a sadness that pervades this great American experiment. When the power of individual achievement is realized, when you create yourself from the ashes of the absence of fuel or family or the simple helping hand of another person, you craft a life of loneliness – a solitude that cannot be broken or unbound by love or marriage or the adoration of the entire world. 

“His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Skip assembled the rest of the Old-Fashioned that I had begun right before he arrived – the first cocktail made in our home in well over a year. I poured a mocktail spritzer for myself, and we convened on the back patio, a pair of vaccinated bros reunited to plan an upcoming trip to Boston over a game of chess. Our little world resumed as if we’d never left off, all fabulousness and freshness, with a few new twists.

First up was the chess game. I hadn’t played in about three decades, and I’m not sure why I waited so long. It brings back some wonderful memories – my best friend in grade school first taught me how to play the game. Billy was the smartest kid in the class, and the best one to teach me the game. I picked it up quickly and soon we were trading off wins and losses at a pretty even keel. When my Uncle Roberto came to visit a few months later, he asked if I wanted to play chess, and that’s when the real lessons began.

Pleasantly surprised at my Uncle’s prowess with the game, I was immediately beaten time after time after time, but I was learning and watching and formulating a shift in strategy. He led with his Queen. I played with my silly pawns and rooks, cowering in defensive mode while my Uncle ruthlessly ransacked the game. It was a lesson in chess, and a lesson in life. Soon, I evolved my game. The Queen would lead my board from that moment forward – and eventually that board would lead my life. Better to be bold and storm your lot in life than sit timidly back, hiding behind a row of petty pawns and the limited diagonal power of the bishops.

It all came flooding back as Skip made the first move and we began plotting out a trip to Boston, which we were both eagerly anticipating. Unleashing my Queen upon his formidable fortress, I won the first game, and then the second. It was the first time I beat Skip at anything since possibly ever. He has busted my ass at Connect Four, trivia, cards, more trivia, Rubik’s cubes, and just about any and every other game ever made. With such a history between us, I figured he would whip me at chess too, since he’s always been a thinker and puzzler, but perhaps chess is the one thing I can win. We’ll pick it up again in Boston to see if these wins were just flukes.  

Maybe it was the game, maybe it was being back with an old friend, and maybe it was the power of the Queen returning, but I felt happily emboldened by the end of the evening. It had passed quickly – too quickly – and catching up in person on what we missed over the last year will take some time. As spring unfurls, and we move from April into May, time feels like it’s back on our side. A momentary reprieve, and a rather happy one that I’m tentatively embracing. Hope has been missing for too long.  

This afternoon marked two weeks since my second Pfizer COVID vaccine, and the veil of worry and stress and doubt that has hovered over all our heads for over a year lifts just slightly. The emotional weight is slower to fall away – I’ve been on guard for too long to let it all down now, and I’m still intending to take precautions and retain a number of healthier habits developed over the past year. Distance from strangers, for example. Regular and thorough hand-washing. And a mask in public is the new accessory that I intend to keep for a bit, especially in the winter months. (This past year marked the first in which I didn’t come down with a flu or terrible cold at some point. That’s no coincidence.)

As for the new sense of freedom that comes with being fully vaccinated, I’m taking my time before going carefree and crazy. Just knowing that I can travel, and hug my parents, and spend weekends in Boston again is enough. I don’t need to indulge in all of it at once. The sense of hope, and possibility, is enough. 

These are new beginnings. 

The Pink Moon – in full, flagrant, fuck-it-all form – wreaked its typical havoc as it rose and fell this week. Sometimes its power and pull can’t be completely understood or divined until after the fact, when hindsight and somber analytical contemplation put things into focus at last. Life is like that – when it feels unbearably confusing, and all you can do is stumble rather confusedly forward, I shall keep going, sure of its eventual revelation, certain that whatever path I’m on will resolve itself into the right one. 

And so I channel and harvest the power of this Pink Moon, its mighty magnificence, its troublesome toil, and I pull that energy into my own journey. We are such different people than we were but one year ago, and in my own case I’m rather proud of where I’ve ended up. Even when the moon momentarily seems to muck things up, I remain unswerved.

Best of all, the moon no longer frightens me. 

I am not afraid. 

This spring has been a roller-coaster of a weather ride, continuing the utter insanity that we all wanted so badly to leave behind in 2020. The world apparently doesn’t go by our calendar or schedule, as there is still cray-cray everywhere you look. After last year’s pool debacle, I’m not counting on it being open anytime soon – it’s easier to deal with disappointment when plans aren’t made. And so we peer into the reflections afforded by the pool cover’s dark magic, when spring appears in the sky and reflects its muted glory in the dim waters. 

A change in perspective is good for shaking shit up. 

The full moon rises tomorrow and I’m completely over it. Hopefully that is the reason for all my irritation and agitation of late, because I am sick of the cold and the wind and the things that have gone wrong even at this early stage of spring. We earned something better than this, which is why I went into the cologne cabinet the other morning and spritzed some of Diana Vreeland’s ‘Vivaciously Bold’ on then put the photo up on Instagram (among other things). My senses reinvigorated immediately, so don’t let anyone ever tell you cologne isn’t worth it. On with the recap (and perhaps the only post of the day because I was locked out of my website during the time I normally would have populated some crap better than this). Happy Monday!!

Let’s begin with the murder that almost happened at Walmart, because that’s the vibe I’m feeling right now, and it’s not pretty. 

These pink-cupped Narcissus were much prettier.

When the bark is the bite.

This week my jury memories were jogged, and jogging isn’t always good.

The Korean Victorian Holiday House. 

Color design by Narcissus.

Recalled to Boston life.

Grin and pear it.

Hearts of tulips.

Dazzlers of the Day included the luminous likes of John Cena, Snoop Dogg, Mel Odom, Victoria Beckham, Lourdes Leon, and Rosé.

Apparently you have to be 18 years old to purchase spray paint now. I found this out the insulting way as I was self-checking out of Walmart with a can of bright yellow spray paint for some outdoor accent furniture, and a pack of sandpaper. As I tried to complete the transaction, the screen refused to let me finish, saying an associate was needed to help. After calling a young woman over, she punched in some code and the question came across the screen: Is the customer over 18? The woman very quickly, too quickly if you ask me, clicked ‘Yes’. 

“Are you sure?” I asked from behind my mask, laughing a little.

“I can see your hair,” she replied.

So it’s like that.