One of the downsides of living alone is that, when you get sick, you do have to fend for yourself.
Nothing serious, thankfully. I imagine if I had, say, COVID-19 now, the logistics would've been extra difficult. When I knew I was going to catch that bug - it was during that three-month period; she had it first, and it was a matter of time - it was I who went out to do the groceries and sort the laundry as soon as we confirmed it. I was masked, of course. I'm not that reckless. But I knew that if we were going to be stuck here at home for a week, we might as well have no piles of laundry and no unnecessary reliance on food delivery.
But there is the catch. I had to do the cooking. Now, I have to do the cooking. Sure, this is a different bug. That flu bug, or whatever that is, that's been going around the past few weeks, I assume. All I've had is a cold, which almost always transitions into a dry cough. I'm in that stage as I write this, and I'm certain it means I'm on the mend.
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While I slept last night, my cat chewed through my Apple earphones.
You can't imagine how much this distresses me.
I mean, I was set up to do something different this morning. I wouldn't eat breakfast at home; instead I would go to the Starbucks next door, maybe stay there for an hour just getting lost in my thoughts elsewhere. My earphones would come in handy. I would stream a radio station - I hadn't decided - and have my mind travel elsewhere while I stared out the window.
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Yeah, well, first of all, I've been busy. I had a guest over. Just a few days, but I had to reactivate the muscles that have laid dormant since I started living alone, which took some getting used to.
Also, I've been writing elsewhere. I don't know. That seems more fulfilling? Although it does risk boxing me into certain genres. I mean, I've done what passes as cultural criticism before, but it's also a muscle that needs to be reactivated again.
Also, as always, I have been writing a lot of things in my head for this blog. At some point - inspired by my recent trips to Singapore and Hong Kong - I found myself with several concepts in my head, and of course those are still concepts. I thought I had a spurt of inspiration. Well, true, but I then had a spurt of procrastination. You know the drill.
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"Hindi talaga kayo nagsi-sticker ever since, ano?" the barista asked me.
"Hindi," I answered, although I know it isn't true. I did do the whole Starbucks sticker thing, twice, at least twice. I did it with the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at least twice. And then I realized I didn't really get to use those planners as much, so I stopped... only to get a Moleskine planner once, and a Mark's planner (the ones co-branded with Monocle, of course) twice.
And then I shifted to Muji planners, and even then I didn't get around to using them... but to be fair, it was 2020, and there was nothing to write in your planners. If I'm being honest, the only time I really picked up the habit was this year. All my meetings with industry titans, all my appointments with doctors and therapists, all my editorial deadlines, and all - well, not all, but a lot of my rawest thoughts, for when I found myself needing to write but not having anything else to write on. Sometimes, you see it - take my essay last week from Hong Kong - but most of the time, you don't, as if that matters.
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