Now I Have Enough Books

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I'm coming up on 1500 books. A lot of them, I haven't read. Yet. I fully intend to. Honest. I look around my apartment and try to figure out where I can squeeze a few more volumes. I don't have any space to put more bookcases. What could I get rid of? Nothing! I've cut so much out already. I can't really afford to move to a larger apartment. I spend all my money on books. I like being surrounded by them. It's soothing, safe. Libraries have always been a place of refuge for me, a placed where I excelled and it didn't matter that I was otherwise bullied or abused and incredibly shy and withdrawn. Books are an escape route.

I pointed out an article in a decorating magazine to a friend that explained how the books were hidden in the featured home to avoid the dreaded library look. He said, "What's wrong with it looking like you live in a library?"

I seem to have a book addiction. I'm trying to save money, have an uncluttered home, but I can't seem to avoid aquiring more books. Today I bought one of Thomas Merton's journals at Value Village. I started reading it so I wouldn't have the guilt of just adding it to the unread masses on the shelves. It's kind of funny actually. He whines about being forced to write books. Oh that must be so terrible. I do like his work, the little phrases here and there that make me go, "Yes! That's it exactly!"

My book pusher friend dropped off a few volumes. I sent some back with her, including one I insisted she read, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri.

I have to figure out how to get rid of some books. That's always been hard for me. I'm afraid I'll never be able to find a copy again if I want to read it. Some books seem to vanish without a trace because there are so many of them out there. Oh well. I'm okay now, I should just relax in the moment, enjoy being surrounded by these riches, not worry about what the future may hold.

To recap, I am about a third of the way through Swann's Way. I love it, but it is very rich and so must be savored in small doses. I've started The Sign of Jonah by Thomas Merton, which is easy to dip into because it is short journal entries. I also have a book out of the library, Masterworks of Modern Art from MOMA. Also easy to dip into, to study a piece and read the accompanying text. It is beautifully well written. I find that art books frequently use too much jargon and say boring, irrelevant things about the the art, but the text here is beautiful, clear, full of joy.

Feeling a teeny bit depressed. I'd like something soft and comforting to wrap my mind around. Good night to rent a movie, if I could be bothered. I've been thinking of reaching for an Alexander McCall Smith novel I know is sitting on the shelf because it won't involve a lot of brain power, and will be pleasant, happy, relaxing. Maybe a soak in the tub while reading? Welcome to my full, rich life.

Not a Tuna Day

I've gotten in the habit (rut?) of making tuna sandwiches every day for lunch. I'm sure I'll get tired of them soon, but for now, I can't be bothered thinking of anything else to make.

I am being encouraged by my cat Ginger. This lucky little boy gets the water squeezed out of the tuna can every morning. He meets me in the kitchen, rubs against my legs, purrs, waits for me to put his bowl on the floor. Gypsy is not allowed to have any tuna water because she has a delicate tummy and always, always barfs it up within minutes. She has even given up racing to the kitchen when she hears the can opener at work because I gently shove her away and pick up the bowl when she gets too close. In the beginning I even locked her in the bathroom until Ginger and I were done in the kitchen.

Unfortunately cats aren't real big on calendars, so Ginger doesn't know when it's the weekend and there will be no bowl of tuna water for him. He's so hopeful when I head into the kitchen and I feel bad for not giving him anything.

Today is another break in the routine. The Apple store in Kitchener is having a sale today, so I have to go to that
And poor Ginger! No tuna water! But if he's disappointed, it doesn't really show through his little kitty coma.

Burn Baby, Burn

I've been a bad, bad girl. I went out with bare arms yesterday and got a bit of a sunburn. Normally I'd pull a shirt on over my tee, but... well, I don't really have an excuse. I loathe wearing sunscreen because it's messy, gets everywhere, and I feel like it's sealing in the sweat, poaching me in my own juices. I do wear it on my face, though, and I wear a hat. I freckle and develop dark blotches on my skin.

When I was a kid we got sunburns as a matter of course, and it was fun to see who could peel off the largest chunk of skin. Now it's all hats and sunscreen. I am so glad I don't have kids. I'm glad I'm an adult and can make my own decisions, no matter how stupid, about protecting myself.

The itch on my arms was a shot across the bow for me, a warning that I have to make the effort to take care of my skin. Burns hurt, and skin cancer is really stupid because there's so much you can do to protect yourself from the sun. My dad had a little patch of cancer on his lip, developed after 70 years in the sun, so I've seen what it looks like and does. His was a really nasty open sore kind of thing. I know having moles are more likely to become cancerous with prolonged sun exposure, and I inherited them from him (the freckles came from my mom). I have a really big one on my neck (somewhere I hardly put sunscreen, even when I do wear it), and that seems like a particularly bad spot for a melanoma.

I do try to keep out of the sun, honest. I have blue eyes and even the darkest sunglasses don't give my eyes a lot of protection, so they can really hurt. I really do try to cover up. Writing this little piece made me realize the lameness of my excuses and the direness of my consequences. Thank you, internet, for the free therapy.

Holy Living Fuck

I just got back from having dinner with my book club. Do you think ten women can go out for dinner and figure out their share of the bill? No. No they cannot. I was pretty peeved that the restaurant wouldn't give us separate cheques, and said they had told that to the person booking the dinner, but they didn't.

This was the last meeting of the year, because God knows the world will be on holiday for the entire summer. We talked about The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency for about ten minutes before other books and families and cottages got in the way. I had volunteered to lead the discussion, and found out some interesting things about Botswana that I didn't get to tell them.

They planned out the meetings for the next year, and invited me to come when I can because I had already read some of the books they chose (I'm not really good at making clean breaks). Basically each person chose a book and it was added to the list. Some had read in the paper about the book, or heard the name of it, or saw it on the best seller list and recommended it without having a clue of what it was about. The consensus of the group was that they had tried to be too intellectual this year by including hard books like Paris 1919 and Bill Clinton's autobiography.

Well, I'm going to be up for quite a while. I said yes to coffee with dessert, not realizing it was 9pm by then. Any caffeine after 7, and I do not sleep. It's a lovely, cool night, I have plenty of things to read, and no where to be tomorrow. I miss listening to the overnight service of the CBC, so looks like now I have my chance.

I Am So Lucky

I just picked out another pile of books from the boxes my friend brought over. She bought an entire collection, picked out the ones she wants, lets me take whatever I want, lets the used book store take what they want, and drops the rest off at the Salvation Army. Still a few more boxes to go through! I gave her one of my potted lavenders because they are just about in bloom, and she didn't get a chance to buy plants from the nursery.

Mama's Boys

I suppose in addition to knowing that Marcel Proust worked in a cork-lined room, I knew that he was a mama's boy. One thing I didn't like about the chaper I read yesterday is the really unhealthy relationship the narrator has with his mother.

I also call my cat a mama's boy, just because he's my boy, not because he's clingy. Thought I should post a photo of both my mama's boy, Ginger (in the front) and my mama's girl, Gypsy (behind).



Ginger is five, very smart and affectionate. I picked an orange cat because I wanted to call it Ginger after my favourite spice, and after a lot of Gingers, actually. Gypsy is nearly eleven, small and warm, cuddly, clingy, and fluffy (and kind of dumb). She was a surplus lab animal, and came with the name which I was told I could change because she wasn't attached to it (no shit, there's a tatoo in her ear of what I think is her "real" name: 5E). I was planning on changing it, but after I got her she wouldn't come out from other the claw-footed bath tub and I felt like I had to hang around and just be there when she decided to come out. The movie Gypsy seemed to be on television every time I turned it on that weekend. I can take a hint.

A Proustian Plan

I've been psyching myself up for this for a while, and last night, I plunged in.

Two years ago, I would never have considered reading Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (or Remberance of Things Past). I hate giganticly thick books, series of books, and, thanks to forced lessons in grades one through nine, pretty much anything having to do with the French language and literature. I knew Proust worked in a cork-lined room and that's all I needed to know.

Lately, there's been a gradual erosion of the wall keeping In Search of Lost Time out of my life, so gradual I can barely pinpoint the events that did the work. I read Madame Proust and the Kosher Kitchen for my book club two years ago and found out a little about Proust that way, and there have been other little dribs and drabs of things coming into my brain that changed my mind. By January, it seemed that reading In Search of Lost Time would be a good idea. I bought a copy of the recent translation of Swann's Way by Lydia Davis and put it on my shelf. A friend who knew of my change of intentions (and frequently supplies me with books) found the second volume of a two-part set (the Moncrieff translation) and gave it to me, so I had Book I and Books 5-7. I found volume one of the set at a book sale last month, as well as a biography of Proust. Now it was just a matter of reading them.

Perhaps I should mention a couple of things about me and intentions. In January I decided to start my own book club (with myself as the sole member), and this year I would (for some reasons I can't recall) I would read books in translation, one per month. I have been following through with this. But for the most part, my intentions mean SWA (Sweet Fuck All). I'll decide this or that, and then get excited about something else and dump my previous plans to make more intentions. I was very sorrowful when I read St. Theresa of Aliva's The Interior Castle. She advocates lowballing your plans, so if you do exceed these (and meet your original goal), you have done Good. On the other hand, if you fall short of your intentions, you have done Bad and invited the devil in. I invite the devil in a lot.

So I wasn't really even certain that I would actually read the books now waiting on my shelf. But it's a new month, and nothing was really grabbing me, so last night I picked up Swann's Way, and plunged in.

I read the first chapter. I loved it! The book went to something I think would be a good idea to read, to being a book I love to read. I am cautioning myself that there are many more chapters before I finish the book, then several more books before I finish the series, so I am not setting any intentions about when or if that will happen.

Okay, confession time. I'm also using this as an excuse to politely worm my way out of my book club. It's been great over the past three years, but everyone else is a retired teacher, and here I am, thirtysomething, unmarried, distinctly not a teacher--very different experiences and opinions. I call myself the "random outlier", the little bit of data that is so unlike everything else that it is conveniently shaved off because it doesn't support the conclusions. I really knew it was time to go when I was comparing a love affair in the novel, set in 18th c. Newfoundland, with the relationships in the latest episode of Doctor Who. Dead silence. Okay then, I certainly need more time to read books on my own then.

Guess it's been awhile

I'd pretty much forgotton about doing a blog. I wasn't really attached to the whole idea, it just seemed to be something that is good for me, like getting enough fibre. I do become more inspired when I see the work of others, though, alive to the possibilities of what this could be. Yesterday I asked someone in my art group if I could look at his blog, and that's what I've been doing. Sometimes I just feel really inadaquate when I see what other people have been doing and I really struggle to let inspiration win out over that. The only other alternative is switch yourself off, curl up in a ball and refuse to do anything. I suppose that's why I'm taking a drawing class, because I got so pissed off at people saying they couldn't write/draw/knit/sew/whatever. What does that mean, exactly? They don't like doing it? They don't know how? They do it poorly? Or do they just think they do it badly because someone else does it better?

I "can't" draw. I thought people who drew started at a very young age, drew everything, enjoyed it, did it well. I decided to learn to draw, thinking I could at least develop some skills that would be useful in coming up with inspiration and planning my quilts, knits, etc. even if I didn't produce drawings that were great masterpieces on their own. Fortunately, I have mostly given up the idea that everything I do has to be great in order to have value.

I kind of looked at some drawing books, but didn't really get much out of it. Classes are a much better way to learn things when I'm starting out, but again, I struggle with inspiration vs. inadequacy. Besides, I lack discipline. It's like a birth defect. I've tried to develop discipline, but I don't have the discipline to do that. Arggggh! It was never a problem for me in school--I can follow structure created and monitored by others.

Okay, my mind is starting to ping around, so I'll have to thing things out before I write more about discipline.


Yesterday I finished reading Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, which I found out about during the Canada Reads debate. A wonderful book, but it was poorly defended and others rejected it because they didn't want to include depressing books, trying to break away from the stereotype of Canadian literature.

I thought to book was fantastic. A few very predictable bits, and two stories of WWI trench warfare and natives in Ontario struggling to prevent having thier culture stripped from them by the whites were woven together in a way that there were little joys that kept the weight of either from being too oppressive.

Wonder what I will read next. It's strange that I don't have several books on the go at once. I'm a little sad at this, but it does make things easier.