"Hi Lolo and Lola, " he said to the air. "We're okay. Thanks for visiting me and Glenn. I have a new prayer book and I've been saying a prayer for the dead."

I said, "Maybe Grandpa is here too."

My dad grinned at that and said, "Hi dad." (It was so odd to hear my dad refer to someone else as 'dad.' I never knew my paternal grandfather.) "Thanks for visiting. I think about you every day even though I can't remember your face anymore. Maybe you will show yourself to me so I will remember. Hey what's that?!" That last part he said excitedly while pointing over my shoulder behind me. Typical practical joker, my dad.

That phrase "I can't remember your face" has been stuck in my mind all day. It's heartbreaking to think about how my father had so little time to get to know his own father. To forget your own father's face is just so mind-numbingly sad to me. And it's sad knowing that my dad's father never met any of his grandkids because the oldest of us, Kuya Chucky, was half a world away when he died.

Imagine how lucky I am to have this time with my own dad now. After the heart attacks, and the recent stroke. God has given me so many second chances to make up for lost time, and He's given me a schedule right now where I can take advantage of the second chances.

What have I learned about my father? Dad, despite all the vices and short-comings I thought he had, is a good man. And a versatile one. My father would have been just as comfortable -- just as 'in his element' -- on the campus of an Ivy League school talking philosophy as he was in a boardroom meeting, or running track & field.

What have I learned about myself? I think I am finally admitting out loud, even though this has been the case since I was a small child fresh off the plane from the Philippines:

I hope I can be like my dad one day.

And the number one reason I should not jog at night...

1. I'm waking up the neighbors singing "Eye of The Tiger" at the top of my lungs.

Beth and I have had this on-going argument about the correct and proper usage of the phrase "a couple." I, as a native English speaker, have always used "a couple" to mean "two." Beth insists that it is not a precise phrase and that it could mean more than two.

This all started at the M.Y.M.P concert last week when I was outside waiting for friends and she was inside saving us "a couple of seats." There were five of us outside so obviously I was concerned.

"Just two?" I asked. "We need at least three more."

She replied with, "Like I said, we're saving you a couple of seats!"

And then we started arguing and only yesterday did we stop. It turns out that Beth is right. We looked it up in the dictionary. Grr....

"A couple" does mean "two" but it can also mean "more than two, but not many" -- which is exactly (hah!) the number of seats she was saving for us at the MYMP concert.

Needless to say I'm a little bit miffed that someone whose first language is NOT English knows English better than me. It doesn't matter, though. I will continue to use the phrase "a couple" to mean exactly two.

But I'll stop arguing with Beth about the inexactness of "a couple" or else we might not exactly be a couple anymore.

Death threats.

For a football game.

I don't normally curse but... what the fuck is wrong with America?

We accuse radical Islamic groups of being evil, of being wrong to use religion as a reason to commit violence. We call them animals, we call them scum. We cringe at the supposed insanity of religious zealotry that influences people to become suicide bombers, to crash planes into world trade centers and pentagons, to sail fishing boats into warships. And yet, here we are, a people who would terrorize a guy because he mucked up a call during a football game.

A football game.

9/11 was just five years ago. How easily these foolish Americans forget.

Consequently we were speeding down Hylan boulevard when someone on the bus with a radio said quietly, "They're saying a plane just hit the World Trade Center." We were smack dab in the middle of the Verrazzano bridge, stuck in traffic, just in time to see the second plane explode into a fireball against the second tower.

My mouth went dry, and chills ran up my spine. I remember thinking, "This can't have been an accident." The bus turned around and didn't take us to Manhattan. All the passengers were dropped off at the foot of the bridge's Staten Island side. I had to walk from there to Fort Wadsworth where Kuya was working at the time. They were sending him home early as well.

We were at McDonald's getting breakfast for Beau when the news broadcasts announced that the towers collapsed. I felt like throwing up.

All throughout the morning it was hard to get in touch with people. Cellphones were down, land lines were overloaded, and I found it odd that the only form of communication available to my brothers and me were instant messages and e-mail. It was a harrowing day mainly because I didn't know where many of my friends or my dad were -- nor did they know were I was.

Later on that night I realized how lucky I was. Had I been able to catch my regular bus, timing would have put me underneath the towers just as they got hit.

Anna Kournikova is an overrated tennis player. Your knee-jerk reaction will be this: “Like you care, G. She’s hot, so what if she can’t play tennis?” Okay, you have a point. Anna Kournikova is an attractive woman. Thing is though, she actually can play tennis. In fact she was pretty damn good. I don’t have the exact statistics in front of me, but I do recall that she got to the semi-finals of Wimbledon as a teenager, and I think she was ranked as high as #8 or #9 in the world. You can’t achieve those accomplishments without having talent. It’s true that AK lost her way, she lost the “eye of the tiger,” however you want to put it. Yet the fact remains that she had “the stuff.”

The tennis stuff, you pervert.

Professional sports today place a high premium on potential. Anna Kournikova was expected to become a force in women’s tennis; this is a big reason why her overrated-ness is so dramatic. She became a “could-a-been.” No, worse. AK is a “should-a-been.” Because of her good looks, she was offered a choice early in her career: make your mark/money by playing tennis, or by just being good-looking. The first choice takes strength of will, it takes passion and drive, and the willingness to put in the work. The second needed none of those. We know which option she picked, and truthfully had any one of us been presented with those choices we would have chosen the same.

Some would say that Kournikova squandered her potential. I submit a challenge to this statement. I propose that her potential remains untapped but not wasted. Looking good isn’t hard on the body – the pitfalls that looking good proffers, however, do take its physical toll. But just for the sake of argument let us assume that Anna has not been pulling a Kate Moss for the last few years, sniffing cocaine and popping Ecstasy while carousing with “the beautiful people” of the world. Let us suppose that she is just a little bit older, relatively uninjured and only a little bit out of shape.

If that supposition has even a modicum of veracity, this could be Anna Kournikova’s opportunity for a comeback. The Williams sisters are injured (kinda) and uninterested (more likely) and women’s tennis is not that strong. Worse still, Maria Sharapova has been stealing Anna’s thunder for far too long. If Anna makes a comeback now she could very well finally win a big tournament. And if she wins, history will characterize her life story as inspirational rather than impotent.

Wow, there are a lot of “ifs” in that paragraph.

It is possible that Anna Kournikova can at last become a champion, or at least again be highly ranked. But there are so many questions. The biggest question being: why won’t she?

A fat guy running a marathon for charity, that's what!

The charity I'm running for is called Gawad Kalinga, which means "To Give Care" in Filipino.

GK's mission is to destroy poverty.

Less for self, more for others, enough for all.

I set up this website last to make it easy for people to give donations to GK and within minutes my uncle donated $25. My friend Tony, who I just met two months ago, donated $20. And my rich, beautiful, and rich (yes I know I said it twice) donated $50 this morning.

So a fat guy running marathons for charity really is inspiring!

An obvious solution to this would be to carry a notepad around. This is not viable for me because not only is my handwriting beyond horrendous, I also often wear short sleeve shirts and a tie to work. If you add to my typical ensemble a notepad and a pen… well you get the picture.

On the rare occasions when an idea surfaces and I am sitting close to a keyboard, I seem to be unable to fully articulate the idea enough to flesh them out. My thought process resembles the jumbled, half-formed and distracted pattern of a stand-up comedian wired on caffiene.

Uh... I just lost my train of thought.

• sit here - At a presentation for Gawad Kalinga, Beth invited me to sit next to her in the front row. She smiled her smile, tilted her head just so, and gave me her famous wink as she patted the seat next to her. My reaction was instant, without hesitation, without thought: I sat down.

• first touch - My forearm was sore from mixing cookie dough. We sat on her couch and she took my arm in her soft hands and massaged me, gently scolding me for developing tennis elbow while baking cookies. I heard none of it. She was so close that our thighs were touching and the feel of her hands on my skin banished the pain completely. Her scent was of bergamot coriander and cookies.

• cross the street - During a crisp winter afternoon in Manhattan, we stood on the corner of Canal and Mott. The light was changing so she started crossing Canal street and as she did she reached back with her hand to grab mine. She said playfully, "Come on let's go." For a moment I stood still, dumbfounded at the thought of holding her hand.

• intensive care - In an Albany hospital, Beth was in Step-Down ICU. There was a limit to how many visitors a patient could have at one time. I stopped at the entrance and peered in. Her bed was at the far wall and she saw me. She smiled her smile and my knees buckled so suddenly I grabbed the door frame for support. I barely remember what we said to each other when I finally walked to her bed. Intellectually I knew I she wasn't mine, and yet I was so happy I didn't lose her. So happy in fact that later on that day I locked my keys in my car.