I had planned this entry to be one on my sewing Sunday, one where I would be able to extol, at relative length and with adequate pride, my brand new blouse. Unfortunately, due to foreseen but unovercomeable circumstances, that piece of garment did not materialise. It did at some point resemble an effort at making a blouse, but that was about as far as it would go. If a blouse works like a skirt, I would be a lot more pleased with myself, but as sartorial principles and basic anatomical knowledge go, a blouse needs armholes. And armholes, my dears, are as tricky as balancing a pencil on the tip of your nose while having it tickled by a feather plucked from a rooster who knows why it doesn’t crow in the morning. Tricky business.

Instead of moaning over things I can’t (yet) do, let’s move on to something I do extremely well. Buying books. Is that a special skill? Nah. Is it something difficult? Well, it does get less and less easy with every try, especially when the month is approaching its third week, but on most occasions, it is a relatively simple task. I reckon I must have bought at least 30 books since the start of the year, which is probably more than what I bought for the whole of last year. What is slightly comforting is that while I must have read fewer than 10 books last year (magazines do not count. I want them to, but they have withdrawn from the competition, citing the presence of advertising and other evils, which include, but are not limited to, a monthly rehashing of content), this year I have mostly been keeping up with my purchases. Until last week, I guess.

So far, this has been a year of Murakami and David Sedaris. Very different styles, which worked out just fine because I was alternating between the both of them. I would read a Murakami novel, get all sad and depressed and weirded out, then switch to Sedaris who would, on more than one occasion, had me wishing I had spoken more kindly of people who laugh to themselves on train rides so that I would, on the convenient account of karma and whatnots, be exempted from their disdainful glances. I ran out of Sedaris before I could finish Murakami’s novels though, so there was a period of general moodiness. I also started reading ‘Watchmen’ but that, despite being an excellent read, wasn’t exactly uplifting as well.

Probably a common thing, but once I find an author I like, I tend to want to polish off everything that he or she has ever written. There was a J.D. Salinger phase (secondary school to first year of poly), even though he didn’t write a lot (Save J.D. Salinger’s Archives!). I loved ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, duh, and quite frankly, a good deal of my writing compositions then were very Holden-Caulfield wannabe. Phony, I guess. Oh well. I remembered loving ‘Franny and Zooey’ too and ‘Nine Stories’ was probably my first foray into short stories (my preference for short stories would eventually become an excuse for not reading longer works). For some reason though, I never got around to reading ‘Seymour’. I have it, but it is still wrapped in plastic with a Towers Record price tag. Odd.

(I also went through a Milan Kundera phase, though nothing of note has remained in my brain. It is very strange. I probably read half of what he has, but nothing really comes to mind now. I vaguely remember someone dancing in a mental asylum. It is scary how completely I forget some stuff.)

And then there was a Banana Yoshimoto phase. Oh! I found Lizard! It was a large paperback though. My other books are normal paperbacks. Sigh. Anyway, ‘Kitchen’ and ‘Moonlight Shadow’!, and ‘Goodbye Tsugumi’!! Her short stories! My eloquence is unparalleled.

Verbosity rules when you don’t have to verbalise words, and it makes mindless entries look impressively long (yes, this is a redundant mention of length) and thoughtful. And when you get bored, you can just end off with some random pictures:

(“Joge-e 上下絵, or ‘two-way pictures,’ are a type of woodblock print that can be viewed either rightside-up or upside-down.”)

(Joge-e images and writeup from here)