Corner of Bourbon & Division

I had all sorts of good intentions about errands yesterday, and then my entire body said "Hey, you know all that running around and socializing and wrangling kids and generally doing a lot of stuff that you did last week? I'M DONE."

I finished my post yesterday, and after 45 minutes of telling myself I would get up "any second now" and staring blankly into space instead, I gave it up as a bad job. I still have the luxury of doing that on my days off, so I'm taking advantage of it. I stayed home, read two books, played a video game, and even took a bubble bath. It was the most clichéd self-care day ever. I don't usually do self-care that way. Self-care to me usually involves cleaning the house I've been neglecting, paying that one bill I've ignored, making sure I cook nutritious food for myself, etc. It doesn't usually involve bubble baths. :P

Anyway, I finished Junior Nzita's book, and, uh, it was bad. I am not sorry to have read it, as the contents are important, but dear Lord was it badly written, and poorly edited, to boot. Rife with spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, to the point that it actually made the book difficult to read. I think I said yesterday that the one mercy is that the writing was so bad that it actually shielded me from the worst of the horrors recounted in the book, because they were never described, only talked about in passing every time (including a story about how one of his army mates was split in half by automatic gunfire). *checks entry* Actually, I apparently didn't say that. I must be conflating it with my Goodreads review.

I will confess, I was pretty torn about the book in general. It's this man's story, and he is entitled to tell it any way he wants. That being said, the tone of the book was a mixture of childish and preachy, and I was dismayed to discover that Junior has the same tendency to self-aggrandize and paint himself as a kind of godly saint as he did when I spoke to him yesterday. He may have been a child soldier, he says, but every second page in the book there is a reminder of how much he prayed, how much God saved him, and how he never, EVER, had a moment of doubt, or succumbed to the vices of the flesh (alcohol, drugs, or women), and despised the other soldiers for not having faith or escaping from their terrible reality any way they could find. I just... I find it hard to believe that he never had a single moment of doubt. It also troubles me how he never once mentions in the book any feelings of regret or sorrow at killing other people (except in the dedication, in which he asks for the forgiveness of those he wronged). In person, he kept insisting on telling me how many important people he'd met, and how vital he was to the cause he was championing, and how he was personally responsible for saving the lives of thousands of children, etc., etc.

Now, some of this is likely cultural. I grew up in a family and a culture where it's just not done to "brag" about your accomplishments in that way. This is probably not the case in his culture (I hope!). Nonetheless, I found it extremely off-putting, both in person and in the book itself.

I also had a moment of personal revulsion at what is probably a throwaway sentence to him, discussing the horrors that were visited upon the children when they were first kidnapped and forced to become soldiers. ( Trigger warning: rape )
Okay, enough about that. I think I've covered all the basics, and it was important for me to read the book, even if I didn't find it enjoyable per se. This sort of book is not meant to be entertainment (although it helps when they are well-written!).

Today is a Do All The Things™ day. I want to get some new pants, because I am tired of having ones that are at least two sizes too big for me. That's the problem with taking up exercise and losing weight: you need a wardrobe overhaul. I mean, some people would love to have my problems, but it's still an expensive proposition, as I'm still considered "plus-sized," and thus have to pay a fat tax on all my clothing.

I also broke one of my favourite Christmas plates yesterday, and I really want to try to fix it, so I'm going to look for some epoxy and give it my best shot. No idea if it will work, but unless I do it myself, I don't know of a place where I could get it done. So it's either try my hand at home repair or say goodbye to the plate, which I'm not willing to do yet.

After that, I have therapy at 5:30. I'm not sure I want to continue, as I don't feel I'm making much progress. I know that I get as much out of therapy as I put in, but self-awareness has never been my problem. What I need is the opposite, in a way. A method of letting go of my tendency to over-analyze everything I do and say, as well as everything other people do and say when they're interacting with me.

I had other stuff I wanted to do today, but I forgot to write them down, so I guess they're not getting done until I remember what they were. Memories issues are GREAT, y'all. So much fun. I will make an effort to remember before the day is out, but sometimes trying to remember things doesn't actually result in the memories coming back.

:::ETA::: Ooh! I just remembered one: pet store. Excellent. I can do that one first, since it's the closest.

I've been racking my brain for things to say about Brideshead Revisited, and I'm sort of coming up blank. I hadn't given the book much thought until last year, when there was a book-themed party for luvenditti. Guests were encouraged to dress up as a character from a book, and if they stumped the birthday girl, they got a little prize. miseri came in dressed as Sebastian Flyte, and I may have gotten a little excited and screeched "Aloysius!" Because of the bear, you understand.

I read Brideshead Revisited about twenty-five years ago, as a young teenager, right after the BBC mini-series had aired on public television. I had very much enjoyed the miniseries (if memory serves, it might have been on Masterpiece Theatre), and I remember loving the book. My mother loved both as well, and much like me, her takeaway from all of that was "Aloysius!"

At the time, though, most of the book's themes went right over my head. I enjoyed the story but ignored the exploration of what it meant to be born catholic or to convert to catholicism. I missed all the implications of a possible relationship between Sebastian and Charles, which someone else asked me about years later.

In short, this has been a terribly disappointing entry, because I have little to nothing to say, except maybe "Aloysius!" Which, you know, is not exactly the most insightful commentary I've ever come up with. ;)

So, miseri, I feel I must apologise for the paltry content here. Maybe next time I'll have more success with my posts.