Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

I feel accused.

I feel attacked.

I feel seen.

Mindfulness and meditation amid all the mayhem.

Try it. You’ll like it. 

Even though I’m almost 50 years old (it’s coming in August, people, start saving) the older I get, the less I seem to know. Doubts and uncertainty creep into every decision of a day, and I find myself questioning things that never warranted questioning before. There are moments where I wonder how I got to where I am, and whether I’m adulting in any way acceptable or even passable for what an adult acts like these days. It’s not so much an existential question, and nothing near a crisis; in most cases it’s a welcome acknowledgment of limitations and not knowing, a humility that allows for mistakes and mis-steps, and a lack of entitlement that eliminates disappointment. 

There’s also the notion of approaching life with the desire to learn instead of waltzing through the day with the swagger of thinking you know it all. I’ve never felt like I’ve known it all – though I’ve been guilty of waltzing through the day with unjustified swagger. Just when I think I have an idea of something, more information or a different perspective makes me realize that I know hardly anything. This is a good check on hubris, and when you go through life looking to improve and get better rather than assuming you’re already good, life becomes much more interesting and enjoyable. There is always more to learn, always more to discover. 

You may think you’ve seen a cloud already, but you’ve never seen this cloud, you will not have seen the clouds of tomorrow, and they will not be the clouds of today or yesterday. 

Happy Birthday to my dear friend Skip, seen here in pics from twenty years ago. In fact, these photos were taken on the very first day I officially met Skip in 2005, which means that this year marks 20 years of friendship, just as we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of our first BroSox Adventure. (I told you 2025 was going to be epic.) 

Skip’s lovely/long-suffering wife Sherri is one of my best friends, who also happens to be my boss, and she appears here making Skip look better than in the hilarious featured pic (which I had to include because it’s too funny and it’s what we do). Again, we were twenty years younger, and friends that you’ve had for twenty years are dear indeed.

I don’t recall much from my first interaction with Skip, other than I thought he had decent enough style to rock such a jaunty cap, and I trusted Sherri’s impeccable judgment of character to consider him a good guy. Twenty year later, he’s still proving how good a person can be, and remains someone who keeps me on my game – morally and intellectually. 

Finally, since I posted what they were wearing twenty years ago at one of our theme parties (the Venetian Vanity Ball, to be exact) it’s only fair to post the ridiculousness adorning my body for that fateful evening. Here you go – Happy Birthday Skip! Looking forward to #BroSox10!

At the time I am writing this it’s almost 7 PM and there is still ample light in the sky. The sun itself was out in full glory a few scant minutes ago, and the temperatures stretched into the 50’s. Finally, it feels like spring might actually come back after all. Not that I ever doubted it, but it was getting trying. While winter may be far from over, this glimmer of hope will see us through it. 

I pruned a few branches from the Coral Bark Maple trees that anchor the corners of our home. I’ll try to force them – any little bit of greenery that comes at this time of the year is welcome. We have a couple of dinner parties scheduled in the next few weeks that could use some simple and elegant vase work. Little joys, flotsam and jetsam of happier days, and still so far from the sea…

The cardinals have been visiting us a lot lately. Andy noticed the pair preparing for nesting. I heard their distinct clipped chirps like the music of spring again in the air. 

My hair has officially reached Tom-Cruise-in-‘Collateral’ gray-wolf status.

Not entirely mad about it. 

Not entirely happy either. 

But definitely not mad. 

Amused more than anything else.

At life. And being alive. 

Losing an hour of time is always a bit of a mind fuck. Gaining it back in the fall is fine, but the cost of later sunlight is some crankiness from one less hour of sleep. Especially at a time of the year when there is about to be so much more to do – so let’s take this sleepy Monday morning and do our usual weekly blog recap before we get busy…

A spark of light come again. 

Andy’s first take on a Filipino classic. 

Hateful little meme.

David Beckham, still a shirtless, sexy beast.

Music for winter impending end. 

Pure evil.

This is Human Resources.

Approaching or departing Eden.

Mockarita madness at the start of #10.

Crystal snowlight shivering and glittering. 

A gratuitously shirtless Patrick Schwarzenegger post. 

Taking the crazy when it’s this pretty.

Fuchsia fabulousness of a divine diva.

Bad banging style.

Bad boy poseur.

Bad dreams.

Winding.

Spring stirrings in the peat.

A brief underwear tease.

You should see the underwear I don’t wear.

A brief list of underwear posts because it’s Sunday night and I’m lazy, but you might still be thirsty:

Taylor Zakhar Perez in underwear.

Dominic Albano in underwear.

David Beckham in underwear.

The Jonas brothers in underwear.

Jeremy Allen White in underwear.

Steve Grand in underwear.

Jacob Elordi in underwear.

Luke Evans in underwear.

Carlos Alcaraz in underwear.

Shawn Mendes in underwear.

Wind has been vicious the past few days. Messages and meanings crash against the house in the middle of the night. When I sit in the attic and write I can leave the music off and listen to the raging tantrum outside. Somewhat strangely, there is comfort in the dull cacophony, muted by the roof and walls and windows. The howling and whistling still seeps in, but the thunderous whirling roar is blunted to soothing form. Background noise, like the rhythmic call of the ocean, so dangerously pulling the unaware to sleep. 

The end of winter doesn’t want to arrive, like some reluctant child clinging to the womb. I watch the pine boughs in wild sway as the sun struggles to set the land ablaze, and listen to the avalanche of air – invisible, omnipotent beast. 

And then I hear something playful at work, some presence that lets me know things will be ok, that everything will be all right in the end. Maybe it’s hope. Maybe it’s faith. Maybe it’s someone I miss from the other side. 

Maybe a whisper of a God so powerful and angry it comes as a gale and a gust for all the things we’re currently doing wrong. Superstition works both ways; magic and fairy stories serve their purpose in attempting to explain the unexplainable. We believe what we want to believe – sometimes what we need to believe – to get through, to survive, to weather a windy night. 

The plastic bag scene in ‘American Beauty‘ was a way to capture wind on film. It’s always haunted me for that, and for other things.