reading material.

so, i'm just curious, uh, why do you always have newspapers here?

umm...so people can read them...

oh, okay, just curious.

right. what's up with people? god, i can be a really big bitch.

today i finally finished alphabetizing the office library of one of the senior fellows who is currently on vacation. it took me so long because i'm a horrible procrastinator. i must say, i'm impressed with some of his books, and i wonder if he's read all of them. there's something very intimate about going through someone's book collection, but i'm saved from too much intimacy because i'm sure that the books that tell the real story are probably at home. the ones that are in his office, though - i wonder about those. it's a collection of an academic who takes the idea of rationality and balance and objectiveness seriously, it seems. and then, all of a sudden, there's a collection of poems by june jordan. hm. a bit incongruous. interesting.

anyway, whenever i have a chance to look at the books people deem important enough to own, i do wonder about that space between having a book in one's possession and having a book in one's mind. and then i think, maybe this guy has read all of these books. hm. which then presents the interesting question of how we read. as someone who checks out books at various libraries for him, i would bet that he's a hard-core skimmer. he goes through too many books to actually have digested all of that mess. and i don't blame him - most of the books i've seen him reading have looked rather uninteresting and uninspiring to say the least. i wonder what he actually enjoys reading.

i have dreams of a large living room lined with bookshelves. my very own personal library. not so concerned with projecting an image of detached objectivity as opposed to confrontational subjectivity. that seems to me to be the only rationality worth attaining.

when i was a kid, i'd disappear for hours, only to emerge for brief periods of forced niceties, after which i would escape again to various worlds that were not my own, but which often felt more real and definite than i ever imagined mine could be. the difference now is that i escape within books that reinforce my reality in various ways. i have grown up to be much more of a critic, but what is it that is so addictive about reading a story that is not your own, and yet, you can imagine it as if it were? reading, i think, was my first real addiction. the monkey on my back that i've never been able to shake. i have to cut myself off from the constant access of online bookstores that make searching for books so simple, buying them with just one click. and what? there's a recommendation for me! how thoughtful. and so it goes. and then i remind myself of the stack of books by my bed; the books on my shelf that i haven't gotten to just yet but have every intention to do so soon; the books that i'm currently reading and have been reading, but with the attention span shorter than i am, the delicious possibility of yet another book is always waiting, gently pulling, feigning patience for my attention, as i think, yes, well, this book, this book could be the one i've waited my entire life to read. this is the book that will grant me clarity. purpose.