Bottled ※ Brain

Since my brother Sean got serious in his coffee hobby, I haven't been to the coffee shops as often as I used to. I could get the same, even better, kind of coffee at no cost at home. Sean knows coffee growers from Kulaman, Sultan Kudarat and helps these farmers by reselling the beans. (If you're interested, drop me a message; I'll relay it to Sean.) He likes the process of grinding the beans, measuring them by the gram, and experimenting with various methods of coffee-making.  If I have lunch in malls, I drop by the café chains to stave off sleepiness. I visited Coffee Bean at SM Gensan recently. I got a swirl card so I could access the wifi. The password was Ephesians 2:8. "This is one of my favorite verses," I told the lady behind the counter.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— The Hiligaynon word for the day is grásya , which means grace or blessing. Postscript: I dropped by Coffee

I try not to see patients on weekends, but this Saturday, it was inevitable. I had scheduled an urgent chemotherapy, which went well. On the third floor, I gave discharge instructions to a patient—a friend's father—just before he left for home. I drove to Gensan to see a few more patients. I had hoped I'd finish just before lunch time so I could make it back home and perhaps join my brothers in watching a Netflix World War 2 documentary. But it was 11:30, I was hungry, and I had an intense craving for a decent burger. I dined at Army Navy in Veranza. Sleepy after the meal, I went to Booksale, this paradise of pre-loved books, the only one of its kind in Region 12, to my knowledge.  The lady at the counter was oblivious to my presence. The silence was a relief; it was almost like entering a library at lunchtime. Outside the store, the crowd was massive. The mall's parking area was packed. People lined up in restaurants. Fathers and mothers car

Mike, miles away, reminds me I haven't posted anything new here. I said I've been preoccupied. It's not that I haven't written anything, but most of what I write these days land in my journals, which end up inside the baul Nanay had commissioned to be built for me. The trunk, which doubles as a coffee table in the living room, is made of old mahogany. Nobody suspects that it houses my journals, laptops, and paperwork. People in the house complain that my things land everywhere. I have a general idea of the  geographical location of where, say, I left my bottle of ink, or my copy of a Michael Chabon novel. It becomes problematic if people attempt to clean them up for me. My geolocation then fails. The solution: create a single space where I can dump my things, out of everybody's sight. The baul is the perfect solution. What else have I been up to?  Yesterday, I saw my students in the flesh for the first time. We met for their in-person long exam for biochemistry. The