I hate milk tea, but I always said that I would try Tiger Sugar if I ever chance upon a branch without a long queue, just to gloat that I was able to get it without effort. Then the pandemic happened, which hastened the disappearance of the long lines, as well as the disappearance of my interest. Yesterday I saw that they were selling milk-tea ice cream riddled with bobbas. It didn’t look too appetizing, the ice drop looking like it was festering with metastatic, necrotic tumors.

I still wanted to eat ice cream, but I decided to have coffee in Coffee Bean. The Greenbelt branch has a huge al fresco area. It was my first time to eat al fresco after the latest ECQ. It would have been enjoyable, except that we’ve all been there before, that first dine out, that first indiscretion, that first something after a long season of quarantine, but at this point all the novelty has fizzled out, along with our greater sense of optimism and hope for our poor, miserable, ravaged country. I cracked open the book I had just bought from Fully Booked, Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, and happily discovered that he wrote even longer, more run-on sentences than me. It was very manic, and a few pages in I already knew that I was going to enjoy it. I’ve never read a Jack Kerouac book before, but I have always been curious, ever since I heard that catchy song All For You by Our Lady Peace, which has a line that goes:

“Jack Kerouac, K-K-K-Kerouac
On the road and in my head
I need relevance, intelligence
A new tattoo, a lot more sex”

I decided to savor the book later at home. I turned on Youtube for the Pharmally senate proceedings while I was munching on my overpriced cornbeef pandesal. The Dargani siblings were cited in contempt after they suddenly went offline during the questionings. My favorite line in the whole Pharmally saga was when the Dargani kuya said that the car he gave his sister was just, like, 18 million pesos. I always treat my sister to a tube of Niacinamide for her beautification regimen, and I already feel like the most generous brother of all.

My One Drive notified me of some actions that needed to be taken. One Drive has a feature that allows it to rummage through very old photos that you never knew existed, photos that were stashed in a disorganized manner in the process of saving and re-saving and transferring from one laptop to another, way before the time of clouding. It reminded me that back in 2004, I was taking a photo of myself in my boarding house in Nakpil, to be uploaded in my Friendster account. More recently, back in 2017, I was conducting a lay forum in Lipa Medix for breast cancer month. And just 2 years ago, I was eating…. ice cream!

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