Before the nap Wednesday was moderately eventful. I got the laundry washed, and made a late lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches, then headed out to the Goodwill store. New books had been added to the shelves. In fact I found nine of the ten books of Roger Zelazny's Amber series, something I've been on the lookout for ever since I began haunting that place. I was actually looking for the one-volume edition which I only found out existed a couple of months ago, but these were the ordinary mass market paperbacks. I spotted one volume on the shelf, then another, then a third, and then looked carefully to discover that all but the tenth volume in the series were there. I debated letting them stay and just waiting to see if the single-volume edition would show up eventually, but decided to go ahead an buy the ones available. Even with the senior discount it was an extravagance, but these books are one of my favorite fantasy series ever, so sixteen bucks well spent.
I had gotten a late start, and by the time I finished at the Goodwill store night had fallen. I still needed dishwashing liquid, so instead of rushing home I continued on the CVS. It was odd to be out walking around in a quasi-city after dark after so many years. Long ago in Los Angeles, there were a few years when nocturnal flânerie was my main preoccupation, and I would go out night after night, wandering the waning suburban streets for hours, returning home to sleep only in the hour before dawn. About half the content of my lately incinerated paper journals were written on those nights. I wish I could remember more of what was in them.
Of course the vacuous purlieus of North Valley Plaza are not much like Los Angeles, or even its suburbs where I spent most of my time, but there were lights and traffic and even a few shadowy figures of fellow pedestrians, if people going to and from their cars in parking lots can be called that. It came close to being exciting for a few minutes, though in the end was only a brief and sad reminder that the past is gone. I got back to the chilly apartment and found the 21st century still here on the Internet, waiting to devour me.
So tomorrow. It's tomorrow already, and I will have to eat something and then I will read for a while and then maybe be able to sleep some more. I still intermittently feel like I'm coming down with a cold, though it hasn't really developed yet. I have a package of Lipton noodle soup, which is what I always got to eat when I got sick when I was a kid. If I can't actually get sick maybe I can at least feel sicker by eating some of that now. And that may be the weirdest thing I've said in a long time. I'm going to end this entry before I get any weirder.