December 2013 Diaries (1 of 2)

February 1-7 Edition

Jonathan Aquino's Journal

December 1, 2013

I've been very physically active since I started gymming again last week.

Funny, I also noticed lately that I tend to sleep more. I think it's my body's way of telling me that I needed rest.

Balance and harmony: that's the goal.

One of my other personal projects is perfecting my metabolism through food combining. I found a copy of the now out-of-print classic Food Combining For Health by Doris Grant and Jean Joice, based on the breakthrough discoveries of Dr. William Hay in the early twentieth century.

It's serendipity that I found it, or it found me, last week at the perfect time - just when I'm going back to the fundamentals and deconstructing everything in my life to build a better one.

I went to Elizabeth Mall in downtown Cebu yesterday and bought a vape. I think of it as my transition device, like a baby weaning away from breast milk to infant formulas. It makes me think of how some people who are dealing with alcohol issues would have a bottle of brandy hidden somewhere.

The idea is: it's not about the temptation, it's how you overcome it especially when you know it's there. It's called Control.

December 3, 2013

The few vehicles down the street flowed smoothly. There was a bit of a cold breeze as the advent of Christmas looms. I was sitting on the fifth floor balcony of the building where I'm currently working, vaping. It was near midnight.

The stars were a bit more alive. My original plan is to stay here for a year. So I'll be here until at least September 2014. Only then will I make a decision to leave or stay. If I stay, then I might gun for a higher position. But then, I can't even imagine myself having to enforce rules. That would be totally out of character.

So chances are, I'll go on my way. I may go to a different country or just in a different part of this one. Can't stay here forever. I can if I want to, but I don't. But I want to have my self-imposed year first. I'm still enjoying my work; my morale is still high. My good performance is a matter of public record. I try to find meaning in my work.

"I'm an artist," I told my buddy Jeric last night, as we walked to a convenience store past the dark and deserted mall grounds in the early morning hours. "I know I don't belong in the corporate world." All I want is to write. Reality bites: I have to earn a living because my passion can't give me what I need. Not yet, anyway. What a long strange trip it has been, to quote the Grateful Dead, and every mile is worth the while.

Truckin'
Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead
Live at the Shoreline Amphitheatre

"Sometimes the lights all shinin on me,

other times I can barely see;

lately it occurs to me 

what a long, strange trip it's been..."

December 4, 2013

So many good things are happening. I got home around seven in the morning after an intensive workout on the gym after my graveyard shift. I really enjoy my present job, and I'm getting better, showing the numbers for it. I had wheat bread for breakfast, slept around eight after meditating then woke up around one.

After my corned tuna lunch, I finished Brothers by William Goldman, which brought a lot of good memories.

I first read it when I was a kid in the early ninetees while I was in Morong, a small idyllic town nestled in the mountains of Rizal Province about 70 kilometers east of Manila.

So it's like a nice blast from the past that I found a copy the other day, and I devoured it during my work breaks and before going to bed, cancelling out the other books I'm reading.

I remember the characters so well. I can relate to Scylla, the preternaturally gifted assasin with greased lightning reflexes, on a deeper level now. I thrive on solitude just like him.

He spent years alone in an uncharted Caribbean island polishing his deadly skills. Everybody thought he was dead. In a way, he was. At the same, he's living in the fullest because he's the best at what he does, even if he's surrounded by people who think they're better than everybody else.

He is the nearest thing to perfection. But his exile in paradise was cut short. He was summoned by Division, the secret intelligence agency he used to work for. There would be a massive terrorist strike simultaneously in major cities around the globe. Only he can stop it because no one knows he's still alive.

With the fate of the civilized in his hands, he can't even see the one person in the world that matters to him: his kid brother, Babe, without putting the young man's life in danger.

William Goldman's "Brothers"

Scylla: Huggybear

Perkins: Bill Murray

Beverage: Terence Stamp 

Uncle Arky: Donald Sutherland

Milo Standish: Ian McKellen

The Blond: Chris Hemsworth

Cheetah: Daniel Craig

Hondo: Jeremy Renner

Fountain: Oliver Platt

Babe: David Mendenhall

Melissa: Katherine Heigl

Connie: Scarlett Johanssen

Arnie: Taylor Lautner

Scout: Alex Pettyfer

Audrey: Amanda Siegfried

Givens: Ted Levine

Fern: Meryl Streep

Baylor: Samuel L. Jackson

Martha Anne: Janeane Garofalo

The Stick: Snoop Dog

                "I said I wanted you to save the world," Perkins, the only other man in the world he can trust, tells him. "I never said it was worth saving."