Skip to main content

Library Love

I love to read. I love books. So one might assume I have a longterm relationship with libraries. But the truth is, I dumped libraries after college; trading up for bookstores. B & N. Borders. Even Rainy Day Books, when I wanted to support the little guy. But books are expensive and I never walked out with less than four. The math wasn't pretty.

Then my friend mentioned checking out library books and I had an epiphany. I, too, was welcome at the library. I, too, could read books for free. Eureka! So I visited my neighborhood branch and in a few minutes, I was an official library card toting reader again.

Thing is, some things are different now. Card catalogs are obsolete. Learning the Dewey Decimal System as a kid wasn't necessary. Most computers have teenagers checking Facebook. And the whole be quiet in the library rule has disappeared.

But the library does have some advantages. Primarily, I can check out books on a whim. If it's not a good read, who cares? I can expand and limit my horizon as I see fit, free of charge.

A small embarrassment is my love of chick lit. (Hello, Jen Lancaster!) I'm almost 38. Shouldn't I have moved on to historical biographies or American Classics by now? To balance this shortcoming, when checking out books I allow myself unlimited mindless novels as long as I include one literature-type book. Then I use that book as my beard so the librarian will think that I'm an intellectual. At least until she see's the four books underneath. Whether or not I finish the highbrow stuff doesn't matter. It's the intent.

For the record, I didn't check out The Poetical Works of Keats. Even I know my limits.


Comments

  1. Bun ENovember 9, 2010 at 9:02 AM

    Luckily, I did check out the Keats:

    Give me women, wine, and snuff
    Untill I cry out "hold, enough!"
    You may do so sans objection
    Till the day of resurrection:

    Boyfriend

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

White Elephant Gone Wrong

I don't like white elephant (WE) gift exchanges. Yes, they may include laughter and good-natured teasing (I prefer bad-natured teasing), but they include the stress of finding the perfect gift. Plus, I don't believe in re-gifting trash. A box full of old magazines is not a good WE gift. No one wants it. Therefore, you are done with the exchange if you pick this gift, which is what happened to Husband. My viewpoint is not shared with most people. One of those people is my stepmom who in recent years has included WE exchanges at our family Christmas.  However, this year I was excited. If you have read my blog, you will know Husband is a saver. (We do not use the word hoarder.) We're also trying to get rid of stuff we no longer need. Husband also has friends that give him funny, ridiculous items that he saves. You can see how all this would add up to somehow already having the perfect WE gift.  So there was hope. I'd already identified it - the velvet picture of a
Post a Comment
Read more

Holiday Homestretch

Two weeks off, people. After today, it will be sixteen lovely days until I return to the world of meetings, projects and deadlines. Sixteen days. Christmas break is such a lovely perk to working in higher education. Those in the corporate world, feel free to brag about bonuses, profit sharing and the like. On your own blog, of course. There are no big plans, other the the normal holiday family visits, which suits me just fine. Initially, I thought a few days would be spent painting the living room. It's embarrassing how long there have been drywall patches showing, but whatever. We have a baby. Nothing gets done. I've accepted it. However, Husband surprised me by having a painter take care of it last week. Hallelujah! Two days of freedom regained. Now the home improvement snowball has started. New mantle for the fireplace. New vanity for the bathroom. Paint the hallway. Tile the backsplash. We'll be lucky if we get one done before spring. We're also contemplatin
Post a Comment
Read more

Get This Party Started

So what do you do when you're reclining in a hospital bed, Olympic beach volleyball on the TV and watching petocin slowly drip through an IV into your arm? You blog. As of 3:32pm, all is manageable. Ask me in an hour or two and the tune will most likely be different. Petocin scares the crap out me, but as long as it gets the baby out of me, I'm trying to not freak out. I woke up this morning and greeted the day as a normal Monday. After walking Trudy a few miles and spending 40 minutes on the elliptical, it dawned on me I felt a little crampy, for lack of a better term. And without getting too graphic, I started to wonder if my water had broken. (It was nothing like it's portrayed on television.) So I called a handful of friends and my sister to get some feedback. All signs pointed to yes, so I called my doctor's office which said just go to the hospital. I took Trudy for a second walk while waiting for Husband to get home and try not to overreact. At the hospi
2 comments
Read more