trying to be intelligent

I’ve been eating out a lot these days, and I believe that my family’s making up for our lack of vacation this way. We’re practically bound to this city because of my grandparents, who are old and need to be taken care of all day long, and only on those rare occasions when relatives volunteer to fly over and take care of the house can we go anywhere. The last time that happened was last May (I’m not counting my trip to Calcutta in January, since not all my family went). This summer my maternal grandfather isn’t doing very well, so my grandparents from Calcutta can’t come over and take care of the house like they usually do. It doesn’t look as though we’ll be going on vacation ever again, since all our other relatives are—permit me to say this—selfish, lazy and indifferent. I’m digressing over here. So this week alone we went out for dinner three times. In fact, it’s almost scary. But not entirely unwelcome. What’s remarkable is that the weighing machine hasn’t noted a significant change in my weight. To improve results further, I’m going to go back to being anorexic. I find that cutting down on my diet gives me peace of mind, even it means begin physically weak all day.

Today I went to the bookstore to buy myself a couple of books, since I’m finishing the ones I have at home at the speed of light, or at least sound. I bought The Razor’s Edge or something like that by Somerset Maugham, and The Portrait of a Lady or something like that by Henry James. The latter because I came across on this random blog recently that reading Henry James and ‘imitating his style’ was advocated. That gave me a favorable impression of him, since not all writers are exalted like that every day, and also because I love experimenting with new authors; especially ones with good reputations. (I’m not referring, obviously, to the likes of Stephanie Meyer, because her works are inane, as I’ve gathered from some very critical reviews of it from some very reliable sources. Not that I would have read it anyway: it’s for the female population, I’m guessing.) Tonight I think I’ll begin with The Razor’s Edge, since it has a more appealing font and is shorter.