more than enough

turning 27 just might have made me a better person. if it wasn’t the sense of urgency that comes with age and the feeling we all share, at some point, that we have  to “keep up” with everyone else we know in terms of how much we make and what car we drive, maybe it was the realization that i wasn’t always the most positive or most dedicated person/friend/coworker/boss/son/brother/twitter-er yet received such great attention that it felt like i actually was. it’ll do that to you.

so thank you all for the birthday wishes, even if i haven’t talked to you in a while i appreciate you taking 10 seconds to write on my wall or text me or something. or more, in some cases.

that said, shall we?

it’s been another interesting month since the conclusion of the festival at treasure island. as is customary at the end of every dragonboat season, i reconnect with those who have nothing to do with dragonboat. the stanford homies. the guys in the richmond. the relatives. the other teams that i don’t see 3 times a week for seven months of the year.

i like to think that the extent of my network is genuine, and not just for numbers [though numbers are an undeniable part of it].

we did start practice again, though the tattered condition of my paddling shoes and gloves led to their demise. but practice will end soon enough until next february, so i decided to take up running again. maybe not marathon training, but up and down ocean beach a few times a week definitely helps to keep the blood flowing.

as for the stanford homies, we did have some hookah at morac, and it marked the absolute first occasion for me to enjoy such a thing in the city and county of san francisco. the food was good too, though we might have canceled it out by going to lucky chances in the hour that followed.

i also made it to pub trivia at places other than the bitter end, just for a change, and because one night tim was replaced with a dodger fan. both times with the homies from DieselFish, and at Quizmaster sessions, but they went well enough regardless.

even though i’m used to trying to yell over jenny and alex and victor’s voices during competitions, it was good to sit down with them, have a beer, shoot the shit, and get beyond the usual 30 second conversation we’ve all had at competitions throughout the year. we also won at o’neill’s. which was awesome, given that we had a lot of help.

i also spent a full weekend at the asian clubs, which i don’t do very often, and which i don’t think i will again for another 6 months. it was a great time, and hanging out with people that can’t drink very much [i can thank rob for forever raising my tolerance to inhumane levels] does have the advantage of being really, really easy on the wallet.

[running into an old 7th grade crush was also interesting. maybe not "let's create a reality show" kind of interesting, but interesting enough regardless.]

that weekend my cousin crischelle from texas also came to visit. the madatories during her trip were 1. filipino food from daly city 2. golden gate bridge 3. see the baby 4. see the ocean. three out of four ain’t bad, right?

then came the birthday week. it wasn’t all that mundane, a client decided to come alive again and class chugged along like usual, but i had only a few days before i’d turn 3-cubed. i thought i’d make the most of it.

thing is, my idea of “making the most of it” isn’t getting plastered and waking up in an alley somewhere, i prefer to keep it low-key, and so it went. it started with what i thought would be a normal practice at the lake, but a costumed teammate came to make things interesting. cupcakes were also made on my behalf, which were awesome.

there was also lots of coffee, lots of digging into the cthulhu books, and nice & mellow actual birthday celebration with my immediate family, even though every family event begins to revolve around my niece Claire at some point.

afterward i headed to yolanda’s annual “this party is so big the cops can’t shut it down” halloween party on Pine, and had a great time catching up with the old homies.

i didn’t dress up [it's my birthday, i had the right] i didn’t really drink [one sip of smirnoff. i think i wretched.], and me and a few friends of mine ended up at orphan andy’s and the laurel village starbucks to officially start the day of the dead. after i woke up, i spent a good three hours responding to all the birthday wall-posts, among other things.

and the week after was good enough to take just enough of the edge off of turning 27. i had a few good runs and hung out with a lot of people that i barely see, starting with emily and the nickel-dime crew at Blue Chalk in Palo Alto. somehow, the night involved an old electric car plugged into an out-of-order electrical outlet while we ate pastry out of someone’s trunk.

what also made it fun was that filipinos are still somewhat of a novelty in the circles i frequent. we take full advantage and bust out the accent jokes. because apparently we’re a rare breed outside of daly city.

the next night i went to Sip in Chinatown to celebrate Tina’s belated. They had great friends and, of course, their homies knew my homies so we were homies by default even before we met. we ended up at sun hong kong afterward and i ended up running into one of may’s disposable friends who crashed my brother’s goodbye party. he still looked lost.

so, again, with the coming and going of my 27th birthday came a re/affirmation that while things aren’t exactly going perfectly, doing what i’m doing consistently has forged some great friendships, team & family bonds and great motivation for the rest of the 73 years i have in me.

it’s humbling.