Instead of: doing the laundry, getting the guest/playroom back in order, making beds, clearing off the dining room table, taking down Christmas decorations, watering plants, wrapping and freezing bread and rolls that didn't get eaten over New Year's, emptying the dishwasher and vacuuming, I'm sitting at the kitchen table tapping away while Wallie draws "rainbow horses" and "walking eggplants" next to me. She talks a lot.
I'm pretty diligent about getting to the children's library so my kids always have fresh (and seaonally appropriate--shut up--I know I am a nerd) reading material, but not so good about doing it for myself. One thing that annoys me about our local kids' library is that it is just that. There are no books for adults there, go figure, and I re-read all the Judy Blume books last year. Also, you know how I hate to touch the staph bombs library books.
Anyway, just before Christmas I amassed a pile of books through friends and my own, um, means. Having blown through Microtrends (couldn't put it down), On Borrowed Wings (highly recommend, thank you Chandra!), The Almost Moon (couldn't relate), Atonement (stick with it, it gets better), An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England (love black humor), and most of the Best American Short Stories of 2007 in a little over a month, it occurred to me that perhaps, this year, I need to get over the germ thing and start going to the library. Plus, as I plod my way through Eat, Pray, Love (at story 35 or 40 I started warming up to her indulgent personality, but it still ain't living up to the hype, IMO), it occurred to me that this is the perfect example of a book I didn't need to buy. I don't need it cluttering up my bedside table and I don't need the guilt I will inevitably feel when I make myself give it away--why all the agita when I know I don't really need to keep it? (If you are someone I pass the book along to and I hesitate, please remind me that as closet hippie as I am, I can't relate to people who quote the Bhagavad Gita off the top of their heads.)
So me and my CleanWell will be visiting the library more often this year, or begging books off of friends like a junkie. Or, perhaps it's the right time to get a Kindle.
Nah, I like turning pages. Even if they are filthy.
