Literature Bender

It's been a busy weekend of packing and moving things. I sold the couch and dad's old low bookcase to Nickee, and helped her move everything over there. She'll be holding onto my bigscreen TV while I'm gone. The apartment looks bigger, and more airy with the main room unbroken by the couch. It's kind of peaceful. I still have to pack up the kitchen, which will be a ton of boxes in and of themselves. Most of my stuff is ready to go into storage, although I am still debating whether i can find a friend who can store my printers and electronics or if I'll need to find a storage place which is air-conditioned.

I was dissapointed I wasn't able to get a flight that went through london. Chase will be there for his internship, as well will be two of my friends from Beijing. The price difference would have been $500, and it would have meant that I would have to cut more time off from my family.

It's hotter here than it feels. I think my internal temp is just higher than normal. It's 75 in the apartment and I'm just wearing shorts and still sweating. I've donated half of all my books to the VNSA booksale, but I'm still left with a full bookcase worth I can't part with. Lately I've been reading short fiction by William Gibson. The stories he writes are hardcare cyberpunk. It's like a drug- one starts with softer fiction, maybe a little Jules Verne, move on to Ender's Game, get a little more intense, until the need has been instilled, your brain actually rewired with all that fiction to catch the full impact of the story, every description absorbed and expanded into the complete picture. When I get into a book, I stop seeing words and sentances. I see what's actually happening. It's beyond a translation of a picture, because each word can be variously interpreted and constructed and construed based on all varying levels of context. Reading is like a experiancing someone else's dream.

I'm a pretty old addict too, so my speed is pretty high. If I find a book I can really sink my teeth into, and if its addictive enough, I can read the whole thing straight through in a single sitting in literary benders. I read The Alchemist in five hours. All the Harry Potter books I finished in under a day apeice. Gibson's stories are better to read more slowly. The language is so dense and so rich I have to slow down to savor it. Same for Bourges.

Which has more words, English or Spanish?