hiatus

after an almost two-month trip to manila, i am back. and boy it is cold. i was in LA for less than 24 hours (which was spent with friends having dinner at a thai-japanese place (it's confused!) in long beach and a cup of hot java at hot java also in long beach; then crashed at j's place, then ofc, then off to burbank for a flight to jfk).

the cold wintry breeze of new york greeted us at 5 am when we arrived. it was dark and it was still dark around 6ish. i missed the apartment, the subway, central park. hahaha. yeah, i missed nyu and the memories, too.

so i am almost nback from an almost hiatus. mom's better, she's in therapy. yes, she's still on prozac. anyone here who can hook me up with cheaper prozac? it's almost 150 pesos in manila (with the dollar @ 40, it's like almost $4 a pop. kinda expensive if you ask me). oh well.

i have been trying to readjust to my normal lifestyle here and it has been quite an effort. last saturday, we had an appointment in rego park at 1. it's a colleague's client and it's a chinese-japanese restaurant. yeah. so we got back around 4ish. i decided to sleep it out since i was too sleepy. i woke up 8 hours later. yes, shortly around midnight.

i forced myself not to sleep any further because it would definitely give me a headache. i tried to stay awake for about 3 hours, when i realized that if i didn't sleep, i'd end up sleeping the whole day sunday. which is not possible because i had appointments for sunday. damn jetlag.

so dunday, we were off to st. sebastian church in queens for the sto. nino feast. wow. ang daming tao! it's like they brought the sinulog to new york. earlier, we had lunch at thai chef, a french-thai resto. yeah, what's up with that? the food was great through, had green curry chicken which was very spicy and april had the sea bass, which was gloriously good. damn. it tasted like melting butter. it was that good.

so today, i am off to a meeting. i'm braving the 20 degree weather. forecasts of snow and rain today but so far, wala pa naman. i bought my second-ever scarf. which brings my scarves to around 3. allen and ana gave me a topshop scarf last christmas. salamat!

before, i found people wearing scarves around their neck maarte. hahaha. i'm from california (and before that manila) so you'd have to excuse me. i thought that scarves were nothing but accessories. i didn't realize they have their purpose. so now, i no longer find scarf-wearing people maarte. sorry about that.

i have to make a mental checklist of things i need to have before i leave the apartment. scarf, check. ear muffs, check. thick jacket, check. gloves, check. it's hard. sometimes i misplace my gloves, or one of them. or worse, my scarf. sigh. mental note: don't forget the necessities. it gets cold, really cold outside.