Monday, October 15, 2007
Scratch that Itch
When I was younger, I indulged in lakes of alcohol and the occasional dip into something less than legal. As I’ve grown older, my drinking has tapered off a good bit (although I’ve lost none of my taste for good liquor) and my “other” has disappeared entirely. I indulge now in the written word.
My habit peaks--or, at least, the expenses peak--right before a vacation. I have to have a few books and a short ton of periodicals to read on the airplane and in the hotel at night. If there is a beach involved, the habit swells to something that any of the members of Def Leppard would instinctively understand (although they might be confused at the delivery device). I’m leaving for a vacation in just over a week and a series of packages arrived for me at work today that will carry me through my vacation and a bit beyond.
My exclamation of joy was met with giggles by my office mates--and then eyes cocked in confusion at the source of my joy. Books. Beautiful book with that sweet, earthy smell of paper and ink. Just as beautiful, the words inside.
“Watching him swinging on his hammock, like a big fish in a net, I was reminded of his nickname.”
“They took Sam down and buried him where he had fallen.”
“Thousands of our countrymen are dead: we accept that the world can never be quite what it was.”
The miracle of books--of well written words--is the drug that sustains me these days. Reading the thoughts, poetry, and creations of others (and, of course, wishing that I had their skill) is a happiness that I’ve always enjoyed in life, but now seem to crave.
While my coworkers don’t understand me, I’m betting that some of you will. Maybe you’ll even be a bit sympathetic.
The books? Paul Theroux’s On the Edge of the Great Rift and Hotel Honolulu; Victor David Hanson’s An Autumn of War, Between War and Peace, and Wars of the Ancient Greeks; Robert A. Heinlein’s To the Stars (a hardback containing Between Planets, The Rolling Stones, Starman Jones, and The Star Beast); The InDesign Idea Book; and John Bowker’s Beliefs that Changed the World: The History of Ideas of the Great Religions.
I think I’ll need a little more time off than I happen to have available…
Comments & Trackbacks
Long years ago, I acquired (from the long-defunct “Journal of Academic T-Shirts") a t-shirt billed as “an English major’s nightmare.” It consisted of a paragraph of text comprised of the first and/or last lines of famous books and novels, from “The Hobbit” to “Remembrance of Things Past.”
I’ve still got it (and the answer key that came with it) tucked away somewhere. To my regret, though, that t-shirt is the closest I’ve come to reading about half of the referenced works. I’ve never lacked for reading material, though - I have more books in boxes in the crawlspace than I have in the rest of the house, and I’ve got a lot in the rest of the house.
Huh. I’d kind of like to read your t-shirt.
I’m trusting to my genetics to allow me to live long enough to read all the books that I buy. This would be more likely to be well-placed trust if I were to reduce my rate of purchases down to something closer to my rate of consumption. (Note the use of the subjunctive mood in that previous sentence; it’s significant.) Instead, I’m about to place another order with Crackazon before I hit the mandated quiet period* before my birthday and Christmas.
* My family gets irate when I buy stuff too close to when they want to buy stuff for presents. This is a particular problem in the month between when I receive gift certificates for my birthday and when the window reopens after Christmas.
Darling girl gets mad at me for my frequent purchases directly before Christmas or my birthday. It makes the gift-giving experience for her far more stressful than it should be. I really should adopt that “quiet period” philosophy, too.
I, too, would benefit [I}f I were to reduce my rate of purchases down to something closer to my rate of consumption. That’s a hell of a trick, though, isn’t it?
I think on some level it comes down to having been poor with lots of free time for a few rather extended periods when I was younger. When I didn’t have money, I couldn’t buy books but I could read almost as much as I wanted to. Then later there were all those books that I realized that I had missed out on.
Now, I have the money to not miss out on buying books, but the reading ....