From the green couch

Rako regarding me with sleepy disinterest. This is how I would nap if I was a dog.

I'm having tea now and contemplating an unfinished paper. It needs to be written so that my academic life can get back on track. Advisers have turned a watchful eye on me. This is from Under the Tuscan Sun, which has regained its place in the sunny regions of my heart:

Patti: Actually, if you knew Frances better, you'd know that these brownies are a sign of avoidance.
Frances: Thanks.
Male friend: How's the novel going?
Frances: Not so well. But the procrastination, of course, is coming along fabulously. And soon it will breed abject self-loathing...and then, I'll just become a writing machine.
Patti: It's her process.

Shepherd's pie is my brownies. I'm just rounding the curb to abject self-loathing, so I expect that soon, I will be a writing machine.

Been watching old episodes of My Boys. A fourth season is reported to come out this year. Woohoo!

Last week, Jake came down with a fever. On one of the nights he was sick, I couldn't sleep. It was 2AM and the silence was getting oppressive. I was beginning to feel restless. Then, next to me, Jake rasps: "Braaaaiiins..." I look over and he's asleep. After a few seconds, in the same gravelly voice: "Moorssse cooode..." In the dark, my first thought was: My brother is turning into a zombie-spy! (He has since recovered from the potential zombie transformation, which was actually just a garden-variety throat infection.) Antibiotics remind me of Good Omens. In the book, the Apocalypse horseman Pestilence went out of business because of the discovery of penicillin.

A few Sundays ago, Lem and I went out and the moon was orange.

When I think of finally seeing Ma, I feel like I'm about to become myself again.

It's warm in Baguio, and most tourists have gone with the end of Panagbenga. The city is ours again.

Later.