“Nine by Nine” was quite unexpected, I must admit. I, as usual, cannot decide if I liked it or didn’t. I didn’t seem to get where the story was going, and if it eventually did reach somewhere, well I think I missed the stop. It left me irritated, as I couldn’t figure out what any of the characters were like in the end.

I also read Eric Segal’s “The Class”, and it made me want to go to Harvard. Again, didn’t like the ending too much. I am too much of a romantic I guess!

Off to watch Harry Potter tonight, but I feel strangely disloyal to the Hogwarts clan. Blame it on Twilight. And oh, I am apparently addicted to glossy magazines. Bad for my budget. Very bad.

I get restless the second things get mundane and routine. It was easier to deal with when I was younger, but not so now. I have commitments to keep, other people who are affected by my decisions, and I am intensely aware of this now more than ever.

Today was one of those days when I kind of.. sunk. Into myself, I guess, I’m not sure, but it definitely felt bleak. So I went and had some non-veg lasagna at Sweet Chariot, and headed to Time Out.

Books make me happy. It’s not something I can explain. Their newness, their crispy pages, their sheer number. I like running my fingers over their spines, smiling at the ones I’ve read, looking longingly at the ones I wan’t but can’t have, and looking grimly at the ones that I am determined to buy some day. I must look like a total dork in a bookshop, but I can’t help it.  I picked up a fresh, warm looking copy of Jane Eyre that I need to read for college anyway.

Then I headed over to the stationary section. The handmade paper notebooks.. sigh. I just want to grab them all and fill them with everything I can. They also happen to be ridiculously expensive, so I didn’t pick anything up, but I will succumb soon enough, I know I will. I also did a quick round of the Post-it and notebook section.

And after this I felt much, much better.

Ok coming back to the pink rocksters – well they were too pretty to resist. I’d originally planned to buy them in functional colours i.e black and silver but the second I laid my eyes on those pink ones hanging in that little galli-shop off Commercial Street (which is where you get them, for those interested) I knew I had to have them ! Now I just have to find something to wear them with – ah, the difficulties of life !

I also bought my first pair of All-Star Converse shoes in navy blue. I kept meaning to buy them over the last two years, and I never got around to doing so! Except they give me a horrible shoe bite, so I’ll have to find some way of getting past that.

If you’re tearing your hair out after reading about my shoe shopping.. When Geetanjali Chitnis goes shopping ( especially on Brigade Road) there is always a trip to a bookstore involved! And this time, to three bookstores. Crossword was my first destination – I wanted to pick up a journal in handmade paper (top secret purposes) and I wanted to pick up a copy of Emma and Persuasion. But then I ran through most of my ‘finances’ buying pretty stationary, so I had to settle on choosing between one of the books. And I wanted Persuasion more than I wanted Emma. But as my luck would have it, Crossword had Persuasion only in a combination with Northanger Abbey, which I already own. So that led to trips to The Bookworm (which also didn’t have Persuasion) and finally, Blossom’s (which did). So yay, now I have Persuasion, the last of Jane Austen’s completed works to be published !

The beauty of second hand books is the inscriptions you sometimes find on the inside of the book jacket There was one on the inside of the copy of Persuasion, from a daughter to her mother. The inscription is dated ‘Xmas 1987′ – three years before I was born! I don’t know, I just love knowing that books have their own stories – apart from the one that is printed inside them.

Oh and I forgot to mention – somewhere in between the shopping was a stop at (where else ?) KFC!