it’s always good going home-home to LA. i always look for­ward to see­ing fam­i­ly, an espe­cial­ly eat­ing my grand­ma’s cook­ing mmm mmm good! but some­times prepar­ing to go home-home is an adven­ture itself. you think that for a week­end trip you could just pack light and go for an thir­ty minute dri­ve… but no, you think of stuff that you need to do when you get back from your week­end trip, like the laun­dry that needs to be done; the wash that your car total­ly needs (because it’s been almost two months since you last washed—which was dur­ing the ONE-SIDED super­bowl); the bills you have to get in order so you can bal­ance your account; and the projects that you are vol­un­teer­ing on to help peo­ple out. geez, so much stuff to pre­pare for…but you snap back to the real­i­ty of HOME-COOKED MEALS.

that’s the key—FOOD…FREE FOOD to be exact. you don’t have to wor­ry about mak­ing the dish. all you have to do is put your laun­dry in the wash­er; go chill by the tv (flip through the WAR channels—either that, or go watch some TFC…because you don’t have reg­u­lar cable at home…it’s either local tv or TFC); change to your paja­mas; and kick back till the food is done. ahhh the life at home-home.

you might ask why i refer to it as “home-home”, if you haven’t had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to go to uci and experience/be involve in dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions in cam­pus for four years (or so)…i (and some) call it this to not con­fuse it with our sec­ond fam­i­ly. to name a few (for myself) in no par­tic­u­lar order: kaba, pcn, puso, the cross, sigep, 916, myfam­i­ly, etc.

any­ways, so i planned out what i need­ed to get done before my trip to LA. list­ing most of the stuff above, i pro­l­ly did one of those =) …i man­aged to get the laun­dry done. i thought to myself, since i’ve been doing a lousy job iron­ing my long-sleeve shirts, and not get­ting it to the so-fresh-and-clean look (as they were once on the racks at the stores)… i should just bring it home and ask my aunt to show me how to do it.

the trip took pro­l­ly 45 min­utes, for some rea­son. i guess it was the fact i was day-dream­ing about stuff in my life i wish i have, and did­n’t have. some of the things i wished for (at the moment in this par­tic­u­lar place in my life):

• mon­ey
• a mil­lion dol­lars
• a girl­friend

…and some of the things i wished i did­n’t have:

• cred­it cards
• school loans

now let me break-it down for ya… i wish i had mon­ey to pay for the bal­ance i owe on all of my cred­it cards—yup, that’s plural…i lost count of how many plas­tics i have due to freak­ing the free bags/shirts/etc. you get when you sign up for one haha. don’t you just wished that fight club was real; and the build­ing knocked down was one of your cred­it card com­pa­nies? (sar­cas­ti­cal­ly speak­ing of course, if this is being read by the govt.)

i wish i had “a mil­lion dol­lars” (even for a day) so i can call myself a “mil­lion­aire”. if i did, i would also take that mil­lion, put it in a bag, invite my friends over, and pass it around in a cir­cle for as long as we can…so that by the end of the day (and we had to give it back to the bank or some­one) we can all call our­selves “mil­lion­aires.” this would prob­a­bly be my civ­il duty for the year. it’ll make us feel like…hmmm, let’s see, whose a good exam­ple… oh yah, like mc ham­mer. we’d be like, “can’t touch this”; then after the day is over…like nor­mal joe’s =).

i wish i had a girl­friend. some­one who can ride w/ me, and share my aspi­ra­tions in life, as well as my phi­los­o­phy and sar­casm. but come to think of it, try­ing to get a girl­friend is being finan­cial­ly inden­tured. what i mean is, i like to pay for every­thing when i’m with some­one. i just want them to relax and enjoy. i guess i can say that i’ma old fash­ioned, kind of guy—i think that my grand­pa and grand­ma’s sto­ries of them court­ing has embed­ded itself in my per­son­al­i­ty, and the way i act. over­all, hav­ing a rela­tion­ship is a tough choice which involves a lot of respon­si­bil­i­ty, time, and com­mit­ment. but hey, you nev­er know, love is weird. it just does­n’t show knock­ing on your door, and say­ing, “i’m the one for you.” i think that it’s one of life’s mys­ter­ies that we just have to find out, through good and bad times.

…but enough of this dear abby crap, and on with the rest of the expla­na­tion of my list above. even though i wished i did­n’t have cred­it cards and school loans, i can’t say i regret hav­ing them; because that would be plain hypocrisy. if i did­n’t have the cred­it cards, i would have been able to pay for dues (for clubs and sigep), tux rentals (for for­mals), down pay­ments (for my cars), and anoth­er great example—tony’s bach­e­lor night!!! HAHA THE SUPERBOWL?! if i did­n’t have school loans, i would­n’t be in in uci. i would­n’t have been able to meet the peo­ple i call today good friends, men­tors, and broth­ers. i would­n’t have been able to express myself as i am now with­out think­ing about what not to say. i would­n’t have been able to start this site…because if i haven’t gone to uci, i would­n’t have met my roomies who i lived with at 916 veneto…were 916xl.com has been start­ed from; and from which it grew to expand to my extend­ed fam­i­ly of friends.

mean­while, i had intend­ed to write about my week­end, but sur­prise… it went on a dif­fer­ent tan­gent. the tan­gent, i hope, was insight­ful to what i’m think­ing and feel­ing at the moment. the only thing i wish i did­n’t have total­ly, was the bug bite i got from this mon­ster. the f0ker was small…and VERY ter­ri­ble. i was watch­ing tv on a fut­ton, when all of a sudden…CRUUUNCH—i straight got up like all the nba all-star game fans who wit­nessed jor­dan’s last fade-away shot to get the lead against the west (only to be over­shad­owed by a stu­pid mis­take from jer­maine o’neil…watabiotch!). if you know the name of that bug, let me know… i swear, i was trip­pin’ of that small bas­tard… i thought it was a black wid­ow (since i saw a cou­ple in our back­yard).

but any­ways, my week­end was good. it was great see­ing fam­i­ly and rel­a­tives again—since i haven’t been home-home for the past five to six weeks or so. i wished i could have gone to lil’s bday out­ing at sharks club. i heard it was bitchin’ from ai’s blog entry about it. good times though, good times.

from my mind to yours, “5447 what’s my num­ber? what is my num­ber now…?”