Indulgence

I've been feeling kind of down lately, between the problems in the department, my to-do lists, and my issue with unstructured time, so yesterday, after I dragged my lazy butt to the gym and forced my heart rate up into the healthy cardio zone for 30 minutes and tried to focus on This American Life on my ipod instead of Regis and That-woman-who-replaced-Kathy-Lee talking about some new, Guantanamo-style interrogation mind-control technique called the High-Heel-A-Thon, I decided to take some control and cheer myself up (although I didn't try that pound cake recipe). I went to Half Price Books down the street, which is a little piece of heaven as far as I'm concerned. Not quite seventh heaven, but maybe second heaven. Or third. I had a gift card, which made it even better, because as you might have noticed, I'm trying very hard to save money for the fall, when my pay will be reduced by half, and for the house I would someday like to buy, and for the Lasik surgery I would someday like to have, and for the food I would someday like to eat, etc.
Books are very possibly better than anything in the entire world, especially when they're cheap (I could just go to the library and check them out, like some good people I know, but I like to own them). A balm for the soul and all that. Here is what I bought:
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
The Desert Rose, by Larry McMurtry
Oxygen, by Andrew Miller
The Optimists, by Andrew Miller
Bury Me Standing, by Isabel Fonseca