It dawned on me today that I haven’t been reading much lately. In fact and to be exact, I haven’t read a single book AT ALL since I moved in with my folks last March. Instead of beating myself up over this absolutely unforgivable disservice to my brain or coming up with a handful of excuses as to why I’ve devolved into some airhead who thinks Mitch Albom’s The Five Five People You Meet In Heaven is the apex of literature (for the record: I don’t), I decided to just grab Catherine Liu’s Oriental Girls Desire Romance (which I began reading months ago), curl up in bed, and devote the next couple of hours to reading.

Uh-oh. No coffee. More importantly, no cigarettes. It may seem silly to you— and this is the part of me I’d love to see led out behind the barn one night and shot— but I’ve been conditioned to only be able to work properly when I have a constant supply of caffeine and nicotine coursing through my, uh, veins (alcohol helps a whole lot, too, sometimes). Sure, reading non-fiction doesn’t really count as “work”, especially when there is no book review to be written afterwards; but reading requires brain activity and some level of reflection and rumination. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that I am even more stupid without my socially-accepted drugs.

Book in hand, I left my room and plopped down on the couch beside my mom. That proved to not be the brightest of ideas because as soon as I sat down and folded my legs beneath me, Pinoy Big Brother Teens came on and my mom told me to go online and vote for this dude.

My face, it went like this: -_-

Things that kept me from getting any actual reading done:

1. Kat DeLuna’s Whine Up video.

2. Pinoy Big Brother Teens and how the more I try to wrap my head around it, the more hopeless the general Filipino public seems to me.

3. Finding a place. Here’s the deal: I live ridiculously far from the city and three months of _this_ is really all I can take. The plan is for my older brother and I to get a place together near his school. I gave my mom our options: a 2-bedroom unit in Cubao, Anonas, Sikatuna Village, or Katipunan/Loyola Heights (I really really want to move back to my comfort zone).

Currently, I am going through the ads on Buy and Sell Philippines and Sulit.Com.Ph and while this isn’t exactly torture (I actually like e-hunting for apartments), I am quite the frustrated kitty. Is it truly possible to not be able to google a place/address? More importantly, do I really want to live in a street, area, or building that cannot be found on Wikimaps?

Sad kitty eats Oreo cookie now:

If by any chance you’re from North Carolina (huhlolz. But at least that’s on Wikimaps *grumble*), check out NC health insurance.