Soundtrack in my head: any appropriate droning Radiohead song, preferably from the OK Computer album

Radiohead has been sweetly providing the soundtrack in my head the entire weekend. After the exhiliration of partaking of the buy-1-vintage-twin-take-1-vintage-twin promo at Fully Booked Promenade (for Php 502), to add to the earlier purchase at the book stalls at UP AS 101 - that would be Manifestoes to Surrealism by Andre Breton (for Php 280, not a pretty penny of a book) and the only book-with-a-purpose purchase (for an Areas and Methods of Comparative Literature class I have to complete, yet again) - The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez Reverte (Php 299)....

...the dread of the credit card statement at the end of the month begins.

The whirl of carting off five fat books at one time from a bookstore was further generated by Pooching showing me the two Book Sale stores in the Greenhills area. Pero hindi ko na kaya, hindi na kaya ng powers at brains ko, so I asked her where the fast food joints are. Walking along the Shoppesville periphery, I let out a glee when I saw that there was a Tropical Hut outlet. Nagulat ata si Pooching na I actually patronize the store. We promptly said our goodbyes, she to review Rafa for his exams the next day, and I to slump to a seat, order fried chicken, and contemplate on the pile of books in front of me and debate the order of sequence in which I am to do the following: a) be proud of my purchases which, come to think of it, are really a steal; b) be overwhelmed by my purchases, which then begs the question of 'When will I have the time to read them all?'; c) shit, that credit card statement, and; d) I have to share my joy with someone else.

Enter a quick message to Ilia, which led to an improv meeting at Krispy Kreme nearby. As we both realized it, it was all serendipitous - me thinking of texting her, who is a San Juan resident.

So there we were, early evening, enjoying our New York cheesecake doughnuts and free original glazed ones. I willingly gave my copy of Alice in Wonderland (one half of the Vintage Fantasy twin along with Haruki Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicles - the only reason I bought the twin, which would make this my possible first expedition to Murakami world). I already had one (a Penguin Red edition, to be exact) and upon agreement, Ilia treated me to coffee and a doughnut as payment.

Oh, yes. My other loot is the Vintage Love twin:
* Middlemarch by George Eliot
* Possession by A.S. Byatt

Friday morning, I started with The Painter of Battles. It is about a war photographer who gave up his successful career to go into seclusion as a painter of what is undoubtedly a composite of all depictions of battles, both as paintings and as photographs via a 360-degree mural. Then, one of his former subjects, a Croat soldier, shows up and declares he would kill the photographer-turned-painter.

End of description.

Got promptly restless and next picked up Possession. This was Friday night. I have not stopped since. Now I understand why Jing Hidalgo is breathless everytime she speaks of A.S. Byatt during class. I also now understand why Beng made this book her companion while sitting through her boring seminars last year.

I have been filled with joy since then.

Joy is now interlaced with wistfulness, what with the news I received last night - durga is now divorced. As is usual of me, I sought refuge to inappropriate sense of humor while she related the gory details of her court proceedings. As is usual of me, the reality of it all hit me around lunch time while Maud Bailey and Roland Michell were carefully persuading the Norfolk Baileys to allow them to read Christabel LaMotte's letters to Randolph Henry Ash.

Cried and cried and cried.

Now, as I'm taking a break from Maud and Roland, strained eyes, this slight weight in my chest and the Radiohead soundtrack playing all weekend. This is a lite version of how my days really go, if the intrepid reader wished to know. Sometimes I think it's an ordeal to be me. The ride is unexpected, but don't expect that any waiver you sign to insure you from anything untoward would be of any help.

Now I return to seek refuge in the world of Maud, Roland, Christabel and Randolph, and earnestness, fierce independence and vulnerability. I do the novel a great injustice by letting out these mere adjectives.