Nice vices

I couldn't resist anymore, the perfect little white box with gold and black letters daring me to indulge, just for a moment. The worst of the illness was over, how bad could it be? I lit a cancer stick and was euphorically blissful for a split second before I remembered how stupid and irresponsible it was, and still stole a quick puff before stubbing it out on my window ledge. These little moments of vice we steal for ourselves.

It's been almost a week since I've been to work, entirely too much time alone with thoughts of the sinuous canals of Venice, art galleries and dark sidewalks of Paris, wild horses on the steppes of Mongolia, and the rice fields of Khonoma flooding every corner of the mind. It's hard to sleep with so many waking fantasies and when I do manage, I dream of grotesquely wild things that can only be described as surreal. Passing the time listening to Trentemoller, Bitter:Sweet, David Morales and Natalie Walker, flipping through Wonderwoman's copy of Maximum City for inspiration and reverting to my nemesis, Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It was a book I read too young, never really enjoyed it or understood it, and only now can I see what strange ideas I unconsciuosly took on board. Was he always so...male in his thought process? Never noticed it before. But perhaps it's why I never took to this particular novel. The last thing of his I read was Laughable Loves, on the train from Wroclaw to Berlin. 3 years ago. A collection of short stories, a form I was converted to upon introduction to one Julio Cortazar. Yes, I like this format.

I'm already thinking about what books I would take away with me. Let's say 5. What are your 5 of the moment? Mine's looking like this:

Banana Yoshimoto - Lizard
Julio Cortazar - Cuentos Completos
Haruki Murakami - Wind-up Bird Chronicles
Nedjma - L'Amande
Helen Oyeyemi - The Icarus Girl