"the world was hers for the reading"

i go through phases with food.
i'll go a long time w/o eating something specific and then, when i have it one day, i remember how much i love it ... and then i must have it all. the. time.

this post isn't about food, though.

tonite i laid my hands on one of these:

yes yes. i am officially a library card holder again.

it was kind of thrilling to go to a new library.

walking thru the doors. orienting myself. 

fiction to the right, magazines to the left.

re-acquanting myself with the dewey decimal system.

(seriously, why must the nonfictions be organized by number and not author?)

clutching a crinkled piece of scrap paper i'd been scribbling book names on for months.

stumbling across a few delightful moments of people-watching. 

(the imagination can run stark wild concocting stories about people based on the one book or movie they happen to be holding.) 

(i wonder what people would concoct about me?)

i spent much time in libraries as a child.

i'm old-hat at disciplining myself to only get as many books as i can carry.

or, almost carry.

so yeah, i'm also old-hat at ignoring my own library rules.

oh, and i'm notorious for returning books late.

like, collections-agency notorious...

shhhh.

when i don't go to a library for awhile, i'm always re-amazed when i return.

you mean all those books? in one place?

for free?

what, the movies too?

those are also free??

...why do people get movies anywhere else?

oh, and seasons of tv shows....

yeah, those are free too.

i go too long between books.

much. too. long.

and then i fall in love with one, and the whole sordid affair begins again.

and, pardon the cheesiness,

but it's like my soul exists again.

and i'm thinking real, interesting thoughts again.

thoughts that arrive in eloquent phrases, all packaged for publishing.

and everything becomes a story.

and i want to write all the time.

and i feel very much alive.

this one did it for me this time:

(review to come ASAP.)

i've been asked what kind of books i read.

uhh...

the good ones?

i mean, i think i read sad books.

books about human suffering.

(because it makes me love people more. not because i'm morbid.)

truth: i adore WWII fiction.

but i also really love books that reflect on human nature.

books with characters that are complicated so i always manage to see myself or someone i love in them.

books with characters so purposefully simple that i feel a little bit self-conscious for seeing myself so easily in their straightforward, predictable, sometimes childish actions and feelings.

whatever i'm reading...

i am the obsessive, involved kind of reader.

the kind that can't put it down.

that doesn't sleep until the book is done.

that daydreams about the characters more than real-life people.

(seriously, i waited for-freakin-ever for the ron&hermione saga to play out.)

the kind of reader that maybe cooks scrambled eggs with one hand while holding the book open with the other.

(no really, that happened 30min ago)

bleary eyed, sleep-deprived, incessantly distracted and deliciously happy.

oh library, you may not be healthy for me.

but thank you for your most recent treasures:

and the ones you are reserving for me, when some dastardly patron quits hogging them and returns them.

(who returns books late anyway? the nerve)

(oh yeah ... nevermind)

and now i must be going.

no more time for idle chit chat.

i've got a book on the brain.

and i can't continue two-timing with technology.

images from: DWSmg.com, perrotlibrary.org, uvu.edu, overstock.com, fantasticfiction, bookclub26.