ateolf | Inches

Yesterday I finished reading The Kindness of Women by J.G. Ballard. It was alright, kinda good. It was a little weird that, being the sequel to Empire of the Sun, it spends almost the first quarter mostly kinda recapping the events of that book (I understand there are some differences in details, but it's been so long since I've read the first that most of the details haven't stuck, but still). I get that it's a very important part of what shaped his life, but still feels a weird way to go about it. The whole book kind of feels like a pastiche of the themes and events of his other books, in parallel with the times in his life that are being written about, which I'm pretty sure is the point. And that could be cool, but in this book they feel more like abridged and lesser versions of the other works and a lot of it feels like it's wanting for something more. I don't know. And the blend of fact and fiction mostly works, I think, but at times (not too often, but a few times) it's a little much, especially in the Crash portion of the narrative and there are the characters that are his friends that live out a milder version of what's in that book (which, even milder, feels a bit over-the-top for an autobiographical novel, but then given that it's milder it falls short of the extremities and absurdities of the already existing novel and then in the end just kind of sticks out as not really belonging in this book and having been done better elsewhere). Anyway, not bad, but I guess I'd had my hopes up since Empire of the Sun is so good. Then later in the afternoon I made a short Kroger run to get some sodas on a day they might still be in stick (score! they were!). Then I did some furniture arranging. So, when I got that new smaller cd shelf and it fit just perfectly in the space between my big tower and the bedroom door, well, it was RIGHT at the edge of the frame of the door and could have stood a few inches more room so there's less risk of bumping into it when you enter/exit the room. That, of course, involves moving the giganormous tower. It wouldn't budge right away, but yesterday I had some time so I took to removing cds from the upper shelves until it could move easily. I removed what was on the very top and then the top of half of the shelves. I probably could have gotten it with less, but having been sitting there immobile for years, it had that thing where it was kind of fused to its spot just a little bit and needed extra force just to get it unstuck. Finally when I got the tower half-cleared I could tell it was more than light enough to move and I just needed to wiggled it a bit to get it loose. Then I was able to push it pretty easily and stack the massive amount of cds back on it. Accomplishment! I had a goofy bit of stupidity at night last night. I was a bit tired but I got confused by the time and ended up trying to go to bed an hour early (when I thought I was going to bed on time). Then I'm all ready and lying down and glance up at the clock and get confused and am like, huh? Until I realize it's an hour earlier than I thought it was. Well!