2/21/2026 ‒
Sugar-free (now you're sugar-free)

Now that Tim Hortons has pretty much disappeared in the Philippines, my preferred easy-to-get iced coffee is now Dunkin's. Easier to get, actually, since there are two branches within walking distance of my flat.

This morning, I got iced coffee on my way to the La Salle campus. (Yes, I am writing this from my old university, albeit in a building I have only been to one other time as a student.) I saw that Dunkin' now offers a "lite" option with sugar-free sweetener. It's weird on paper to have to add 35 bucks for that option, since you are getting rid of sugar for something else - I mean, I know why, that's why I did say it's "on paper".

Anyway, I decided to try that "lite" option, but I ended up saying I wanted my iced coffee with "zero sugar". I should've known something was up when I wasn't charged extra for it.

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2/12/2026 ‒
Back to hiding

Sometimes I think about how, if someone attempts to kill me, I would not fight and instead allow myself to die.

I mean, take the opportunity, right? Why fight to stay in a world where you always seem to come up short despite your very best efforts? Why stay where people only ask more of you and never give you any relief? Why stay where people only want you because of what you can do, and not because of who you are?

I have not thought this fully, I must confess. There are many ways to kill someone. I could be shot. I could be stabbed. I could be hit with some object. I could be poisoned. I haven't thought about how painful and slow the dying process would be, and whether I would want to fight to stay alive in the midst of it all.

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1/31/2026 ‒
The wrong person always dies

I woke up to the news of Catherine O'Hara passing away.

I checked my clock. It's four in the morning. I know I was planning to wake up early, but not this early. I went back to sleep.

I was too young to appreciate her performance on the first two Home Alone movies, and did not really have access to the rest of her other renowned work. Of course, I was able to watch her in Schitt's Creek; it was one of the shows the cheating ex-girlfriend got bored with - after one episode, in this case - and I ended up finishing alone. That, and a better understanding of the comedy ecosystem, let me to appreciate her place in the world. I certainly got some chills when she appeared at the unveiling of Macaulay Culkin's star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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1/30/2026 ‒
Show up

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has this video where he makes a one-pot braised chicken dish, with potatoes and cabbage and onions and bacon.

I have attempted to recreate this several times. I say "attempted" because I can never really do it, because his recipe requires an oven, and I don't have one. But it's not as if I can't cook it all on the stove top. I'll just have to let go of the concept of chicken thighs that are crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, something I cannot do on the stove since I'll have to cover the pot to make sure the whole dish braises properly, and that means condensation would form on the lid and most certainly drip down on the skin. If it's not that, then it's the steam.

But, again, that hasn't quite stopped me from doing the dish. It's not, by all means, a quick one to make - there's a lot of chopping to do - but I've done it enough to not need to watch the video again to remember how to do it, and it's now become part of my arsenal. Sure, I am not certain if it's what it's really supposed to taste like, but at least I have a dish that feels both fancy and homey, and more importantly, is not Filipino. (Nothing against Filipino food, of course, but that can't be the only homey thing I can do.)

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1/28/2026 ‒
The lady with the pin

I don't go to the Podium often. Only when Bonkey has to see the vet, which happens every three months, or when I have to get him out of the house and I don't feel like going far.

That said, I do know that, on the fifth floor - it's the fifth floor, right? - there's this library of sorts where you can read books in relative quiet. I know this because it, somewhat ironically, is in front of a Fully Booked branch. Why buy books when you can just read them for free? I think we may have stumbled into part of the reason why we don't have good public libraries in the country. But I digress.

I remember reading that the staff of that mini-library are people with autism, or at least some of them. Haven't really gone deeper into it, since it's just a press release, but you don't really have to read it deeply to understand what's going on. The hope, I think, is to further integrate people in the spectrum with the larger community, especially since there's still this stigma about how people with autism are disruptive and antisocial and whatever unsavory adjective people have in mind from their experience.

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