I can't stop buying used CDs. Tonight at the local Hastings I picked up Kate Bush's The Sensual World and Japanese lounge-pop duo Pizzicato Five's latest disc The Sound of Music. Is there a 12-step program for me?

Tomorrow is a "young adults cookout" at the home of one of our parishioners. While I'm down there in Lubbock I need to make a booze run; I ain't got nothing except half a fifth (a tenth?) of Bushmills. Reading about Lisieux in a travel guide to France made me interested in the region's famous apple brandy, Calvados, which I've never tried. I wonder if I can get a reasonably priced bottle here.

Why am I reading tourist literature? By the year's end I'll have accumulated two weeks of vacation and I'm already trying to decide how I want to spend it. As time slips out of my fingers more and more quickly I want some memorable experiences I can hold on to. I guess most people accomplish this through erecting the usual milestones of love, marriage, procreation, and child rearing. For me, it's travel that gives weight to the past. The lazy flow of routine evaporates without residue, but I still remember vividly a sweaty hike up a Taiwanese mountain to visit a syncretist Chinese temple, or lost wanderings through the cobbled, convoluted streets of old Quebec City, or the maddening drone of millions of cicadas on a hot summer evening in the Smoky Mountains. I haven't been to Europe and, given my ancestry and my interest in the language, France seems like a good choice. It would be interesting to follow the path of Joan of Arc's career from Domremy-la-Pucelle through Chinon, Orleans, and Reims to the spot of her martyrdom in Rouen. I might even be enough of a closet Catholic to visit Lourdes and Lisieux.

Somewhat along those lines, I haven't heard anything good about Ronald Maxwell's film "Gods and Generals," which is disappointing because I know he has a Joan of Arc biopic in the works and I think the Maid of Lorraine needs competent cinematic representation. Besson's The Messenger was post-modern trash (though it had some great battle scenes), the silent version is deadly dull, and (from what I've read) the one starring Ingrid Bergman isn't anything special. I actually thought the CBS miniseries was pretty good, though it was limited by budget constraints and by some hokey scriptwriting. Leelee Sobieski was a perfect casting decision, I thought. Even my admiration for Ms. Sobieski won't make me see "Here on Earth," though.