Old Poem

I've been meaning to start writing poetry again. I used to write regularly in middle and high school but ever since college I've all but completely quit. Not out of wanting to, particularly, but out of simple lack of action. In other words, I just didn't do it. Well here's my first step towards trying. Incited by some friends, I'm going to publish one of my old poems here, completely unedited (though I was tempted to do so). Hopefully this'll be a step in the direction towards writing more. Perhaps I'll occasionally cherry-pick some of the haiku I write at work and put those up because those are as contemporary me as possible. So here we go, a poem called Time.

Time, the unstoppable giant
Has gotten in my way once again.
Every short breath, a tick
Every long step, a year
His eyes, so full of age
His arms, as heavy as gravity
His chest, heaving a rhythmic heart
A heart that beats a sunrise,
And pulsates change,
And bleeds with memory.

That giant is in my way again
And I try to go against him,
Knowing that a loss is a certainty.

So I unsheathe my weapon
A blade called haste
And I pull over me a cover
A shield called patience
And I run, swinging haste to and fro
Inciting at least a reaction,
If anything at all
From the oblivious giant.

Yet without knowing
Through the field of eternity
As time walks, ever so slowly,
Creeping like a sloth
I run through and into a field of thorns
One I had only heard called regret
So with patience,
I try to help feeling the sting of regret.

Something changes
I start mending my suit
And I use the thread: idleness
And with not a moment to spare,
Arms heavy, eyes old
Wings spread and open and ready
And Time takes flight.

© Emilio Gandara 2008 (is this really necessary?)

And so with that, I'll hopefully leave a floating note waiting to be played, constantly reminding myself that I want to play it.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

I have officially reached 180 pounds of weight today! I have reached my goal and the following is gonna sound like an awards speech haha. First of all I need to thank God. It's because of all of the machinations of His will that I'm even able to get out of bed and work and then work out, at the Sherwin Williams Gym, in Cleveland, OH, until November. See what I'm getting at? I wanna thank my Dad for being an awesome example and an inspiration. Dad has discipline of pure titanium and I'm glad I've finally learned a bit of it. I wanna thank the rest of my family for encouraging me and believing in me and very much so my friends for hearing me spaz out about every pound I lost and for getting excited with me about my progress and commitment.

So what now? Well, I'm gonna keep going, of course! Haha. I can't stop now! I'm probably going to keep losing weight if I keep doing what I'm doing. However, from this point on I can set new and different goals. I've finally reached the weight I targeted, which is the weight somebody with my proportions is approximately supposed to be in. One idea I have is, if I lose a good amount more I'll start working on building a little bit of muscle weight, or perhaps that'll just happen anyway. We'll see. In any case, I'm super excited and happy.

Is it me or...?

Would you call it a vision if you're working on your own thing, thinking of nothing in particular or reading and out of seemingly nowhere you get struck with a very strong image that's even accompanied by emotions?

Gettin' close!

Hey all, once more with the weight loss thing haha. Seems like that's about the only thing happening lately. But it's not! I have two fun stories to tell from yesterday, but before I do, I'll have you know I'm only 4 pounds away from my weight loss goal of 180lbs!

Well apart from the whole weight loss deal, tuesday was a pretty cool day. For a little while I'd been playing around with the idea of getting a hair cut and I thought the best place to get it pretty cheap was in the barber shop near where I live and tuesday was the best day because it closes at 6:30 and I'm usually in the gym until then cept T and F and on F I may go to the bar with some teammates and drink till 5 or 5:30 and, while that would give me time, there's no time like the present, as they say, and I'd already pumped myself up so I decided to go ahead and do it on Tuesday after work. Well I head to the place and the one barber dude is there just chillin'. So we set up, I sit down and he asks me what I wanna do. At that point I honestly hadn't come to a set conclusion on what I wanted to do yet. I definitely wanted a change but I couldn't come up with any particular hair style I wanted so I went with the trusty ol' buzz haha. The guy had a million and one stories to tell. A very spirited speaker, he told me all sorts of things about his life. Early on I told him I'm from Puerto Rico and that was the first time that day I was told I don't look puertorrican. No big deal, I do get that a lot haha. He has friends that are puertorrican (heritage at least) and so that's how he figured but anyway he kept telling me of his zany stories and how he loves to travel and of his trip to europe and not having enough cash and buying weed and all those interesting things people do. I shared with him my passion for Japanese and for my dream of traveling to Japan and he much encouraged me to definitely just do it because he really loves traveling. I little while later his dad (probably the owner of the place) comes in and we keep talking. His dad mentions that near where I live there's often some concerts in the summer and here's where the quote of the day comes from. Now, I warn you this will be far from verbatim but essentially he said "dad, wtf, concerts? when you're 21 all you care about is the sexy hoes at the clubs on 6th". And if I was the average guy he probably would've nailed it but I've only gone out clubbing once, and I went to get down on the dance floor, not to go sight seeing, haha.

After getting my hair cut I dropped by my apartment to change and pick up some clothes that I wanted to take to the dry cleaners coz I don't trust myself washing my nice shirts. The girl at the cleaners, I could pretty much tell she was latina but I still always went about my business not even bothering to try and speak any spanish or anything. This is only the second time I actually go there after all. This time, though, she asked me if I was hispanic, since my last name is pretty unusual and the way I pronounce it in spanish sorta gives me away. So that just opened the door for a big ol Q&A about where I was from and how long I'd been in the states and whatnot and she went on to scold me for not having spoken to her in spanish before, haha. She was mad that I hadn't recognized her latina-ness and told her I too was "boricua". "Me debes una" (you owe me one) she says as I'm ready to leave, for I must definitely talk to her in spanish next time haha. She seems like a cool person and it was a good time overall just talkin' PR spanish and being amused at her disbelief.

So all in all it really was a fun day. Actually, it's been a pretty fun week and tomorrow I'm going to the Winking Lizard for a Team Lunch. (yes, it's a tavern LOL)