Rollercoaster Ride

Sometimes I can’t believe that some things happened just last year. Like say, the reception we hosted for Filipinos in mainstream media…I can’t believe that was just last March 2005.Only 1 1/2 years ago.

I guess that’s because so many big things happen in your life here daily that the 510 days between then and now have been unbelievably productive, not only for me, but for many other New Yorkers.

In New York, dreams come true on a daily basis…Here, you make the jump from dreaming the life to living the dream…making you just go on living, and convinced that  2004 is so 2004 and 2005 is so 2005.

I wonder when I will ever get to spend a lunch break to actually just have lunch. If the hour is not spent in a nice little place with my friends and contacts, it’s spent in a taxi, on the train, at Kinko’s or Kodak. There’s always a meet-up, an errand, or agenda on my plate.

A friend calls it my cameo. It’s when he’s with me, and we show up at an event for a mere twenty minute, and move on to the next activity - whether it’s dinner, a dance, or the next cameo.

He doesn’t know I’m just an advocate of ‘walking out.’

I don’t believe in staying when it just doesn’t work for you anymore. Whether it’s a movie, a book, or a relationship, you get to a point where the music becomes noise and the vision turns to illusion. When you start feeling dizzy, or nauseous or cold, I’ve learned that you only get sick when you stick it out.

Leave in the middle of a movie, stand up in the middle of a book, and stop reviving a relationship that was there but isn’t here.

Walk out. And move on.

I don’t know how people can spend their time creating spam.

We all receive so many emails, direct mails and text messages about things that don’t count. It’s hard to believe that some folks actually compose messages about viagra and a 10 million dollar jackpot. And they’re getting smart enough to put these on the subject line: "Hi (your name)!," or "How have you been?" The system’s so intelligent, that when actual messages are sent and received, they either go directly to the spam folder or are not read at all by the overprotective reader. Some direct mail insist "Urgent!," making the word relative in this time and age.

Until guilt hits these spam-makers, there is one thing we can do(apart from not pressing "Forward"): That is, not to be a spam in other people’s lives. People  you meet  must be happy to receive you, and send you. Of the many friends, and people in their lives, you have to make an impact. You have to make sense. You have to count.