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My wallet is now a fragile thing

First off, the heat these past couple of days has been just horrible. Going outside is like asking to be baked alive.

Good thing the office has excellent air-conditioning.

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National Bookstore has always been of my favorite haunts; for the life of me, I cannot explain why I always have the urge to buy pens. Which is why almost everytime I go to NBS I automatically find myself at the ballpen counter, then at the cashier, paying for my flavor -- in this case ink -- of the moment, then realizing that I really didn't need to buy the damn thing in the first place.

Today though, I found myself possessed by a different kind of purchasing urge at NBS. I originally wanted to wait for the paperback edition of Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things before I would buy one, but hell, I told myself that I could afford it, and quickly snatched it off the shelf and paid for it before I could change my mind.

Another one for my NG collection! W00t!

So okay, to those people who know me and care enough to read this from time to time, this settles it, in bright pink (okay, laa-vendher) letters: I AM NOT GOING TO ENCHANTED KINGDOM TOMORROW. I think I'm much happier shelling out a sizable amount of cash for a book rather than spending roughly the same amount to go all the way up to Laguna to ride the Flying Fiesta (which was the only ride I really liked the last time I was there a gazillion years ago -- ay shet, naalala ko tuloy yung first "I love you" na sinabi ko saka yung belat na sinagot sa akin. So high-school. Ampf.) and the Space Shuttle.

Back to the book.

With this, I am happily stacking up a lot of great stuff to read come Holy Week. I'm currently halfway through John Banville's The Sea. It's great reading, although a bit heavy, so I'm going through it on a slower pace than I'm used to so I can absorb and appreciate it properly. On the 'next' list is Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, Tom Robbins' Still Life With Woodpecker, this most recent purchase of Fragile Things, and if that nice man at the Ink and Stone (A Different Bookstore-Podium) keeps his word, Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Hopefully, if I still have time, maybe I'll take a hit at my brother's copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell as well. Heaven knows I need all this reading, if I'm to at least achieve some semblance of writing skill.

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