At the moment

Netnet Camomot .

IT’S on Sundays when I could start and finish reading a book in one day, like what happened last Sunday with Laura Moriarty’s “The Center of Everything.”

You know how it is. Or perhaps only the bookworm knows, you know, the one who needs to get a life. Haha!

Anyway, while reading, there’s the constant checking of the number of pages left before the next chapter. Near the end of “Everything,” I thought its last pages were the last chapter, only to find out they’re the Reader’s Guide and an excerpt from Moriarty’s “The Rest of Her Life.” So, when I turned to page 336 and saw the Reader’s Guide there, it was like, Whaaaaat?! The End na? That is it, pancit? Darn. I wanted more!

A book can bring the reader to a rollercoaster ride that requires at least a day to recover from. “The Center of Everything” is a simple story about students and their families whose lives eventually progress to complicated until the reader couldn’t wait to find out what’s next. When it reached an abrupt end on page 335, I hugged the book and, uh, became emotional. Emotions that needed hugs from my most favorite hogs, er, piggies. And these are the pink piggies that would never have African swine fever.

In our own stories, we also want to find out what’s next. What will happen to us tomorrow and the next day and the day after. We become impatient and we forget that what we truly have is only this moment, which must be the reason why some Facebook users post at-the-moment photos, eager to capture and preserve the present. There’s even a saying on this: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift––that is why it is called the present.”

Most people love Sundays since a Sunday is already a sufficient excuse to do absolutely nothing. One can wear pajamas the whole day while playing video games and binge-watching a Netflix series. Or he can stare at the ceiling and wait for the resident tuko to say, Tu-ko.

If only every day is a Sunday, then we can wear pajamas for the rest of the week, month, year. But who wants that? We have to meet people, socialize, work, shop, buy groceries. I did stay home for a few months while the knee was recuperating way back during the third quarter of 2016, only leaving my second-floor bedroom for visits to the orthopedic surgeon and the monthly platelet-rich plasma therapy. I  used a wheelchair while inside my bedroom, and crutches when I had to go out of the house.

Thanks to that hibernation for making me realize that a senior-moment existence is better savored in a bedroom on the first floor unless I could afford an elevator and the maintenance and electricity it requires. Ka-ching!

Those were the months when some people might have misunderstood my absences at meetings, but that was also the time when I decided not to explain myself to anyone. I mean, did I have to show to them the video of my arthroscopy? Heh heh.

I now wear sneakers most of the time because of the knee. No, it’s not a fashion statement; it’s a necessity.

And I have to lose weight because of the knee. But that’s another story.

The government, on the other hand, has to explain its choices to the madlang pehpohl since it’s the madlang pehpohl’s tax payments that the government spends in making Pinas level up from a developing country to a superpower.

Thus, the Senate hearings on the Good Conduct Time Allowance where the most mind-boggling revelation last Thursday was the inclusion of the name of a particular prisoner in the list of freed convicts that the Bureau of Corrections (Bucor) submitted to the Senate.

The prisoner’s name: Janet Lim-Napoles. Her crime: rape. Release date: Nov. 18, 2018.

Even Napoles must have said, Paki-explain, labyu.

And last Thursday was not even April Fool’s. Tsk tsk. This should win the grand prize for the worst typos ever, with the award amounting to P10 billion, which represents the amount of the pork barrel scam where Napoles was the alleged mastermind.

As quoted in a Philippine Daily Inquirer piece, Bucor documents chief Corrections S/Sgt. Ramoncito Roque did explain: “We were asked to come up with the list quickly because there was going to be a press conference in Palawan. That’s why it was done in haste.”

Que horror!

That should make the Pinoy wonder if the drug list was also done the same way.

The list that the Pinoy is most familiar with, though, is the to-do list, which he can ignore on Sundays as he does whatever he wants with anyone willing to do whatever with him. Hmmm.