Some Light Reading

I need to branch out in my reading material this winter. For some reason, I’ve been reading memoir after memoir, and I need a break from all that fuckedupitude. I remember once asking my father in law about his choice in movies, as he always went for the inane and eschewed all things deep and dramatic. “I go to the movies to be entertained,” he told me. “If I want to know about all the horrible things in the world, I could watch the news or read the paper. Why would I want to waste my leisure time depressing myself?” People read papers back when I asked him that. He had a good point though. The news is depressing as hell. Times are tough the world over, my friend.

So why spend my rare free time reading depressing memoirs one after another like so many burned potato chips? I love fiction, don’t get me wrong. Fiction is great stuff and offers us a wonderful escape or soporific, depending on what you want it to do. But lately, it isn’t doing either for me, so I find myself turning to memoir more and more in an effort to find something to hold my attention long enough to get sleepy. In fact, four of the last five books I’ve read were memoirs or creative nonfiction, and I’m worried my trend is a reflection of my watching too much reality television.

I just finished reading a memoir called The Burn Journals, which is about a fourteen year old boy who has a little thing about arson. He fucks up pretty good at school by intentionally lighting a pack of matches on fire, but then in a panic with the burning matchbook accidentally lighting a t-shirt and the locker it was in on fire as well. Fearing the very real possibility of expulsion, he goes home and attempts suicide by, you guessed it, setting himself on fire. This was not like a Tibetan monk self-immolating for his beliefs and religious freedom; this was an impulsive teenage boy in over his head. The book is mostly about the year of recovery after his suicide attempt, and much like burn scars, it ain’t pretty.

Before that book, I read a memoir by Alice Sebold. You might recall her name, as she is the author of The Lovely Bones, one of the most disturbing pieces of modern fiction ever written, about a girl who is raped and murdered, and the effect of her death on her family, all told from the victim’s point of view.  I remember reading it and thinking that she must have had some serious trauma in her life to create that kind of creepiness. Her memoir is entitled Lucky, and it is about her own rape and the aftermath on her family and her life, including the difficult court trial.  It seems I was right about her.

Prior to that one, I read a translated documentary novel called The Druggist of Auschwitz. I’m pretty sure you can guess what that was about. That’s right, three feel good stories in a row. No wonder I have trouble sleeping.

So I decided to try something different. Now I’m reading a book by Celia Rivenbark, a  columnist who is sort of a Southern Erma Bombeck. She writes humorous essays about nothing, only with more success and acclaim than, say, I do.

Anyway, here’s what I can’t get past. She writes a lot about her family, as do I, only she refers to her child as “The Princess” and her husband as “Duh-hubby.” Sometimes, she just calls him “Duh” but we get the point. She thinks he’s a bit of an idiot, and he is either too stupid to object or very secure and doesn’t mind.

I don’t write much about my husband, which he prefers. Once, back when I first started sharing my essays, I wrote one about him being startled by a snake in our backyard, and he was mad at me for days afterwards. So the understanding we have reached in an effort to remain friends (and also married) is that I don’t write about him without his permission or prior review (with the exception of right now).

Sometimes he is a main character in a story I need to tell, so I can’t leave him out entirely, although I am pretty sure he would prefer I do. He is not looking for his fifteen minutes of fame; he just wants to be left alone. This is an individual who is convinced Facebook is really Big Brother data farming us all, waiting to turn all of our pictures and thoughts and connections over for some sinister use.

The thing is, he’s probably right. The NSA has probably stored every email I’ve ever sent, every Facebook status I’ve updated, every meme I’ve texted. Yours too, by the way. All of ours. Somewhere in an underground bunker in Colorado is a team of extremely overworked government employees who can’t believe how dumb the rest of us have become.

But back to my point, before I went off on that conspiracy rant. I can’t imagine making a living out of smack-talking my spouse and still having one. Maybe my spouse is correct. Maybe we have become a culture of oversharing idiots who can’t take a crap or make a sandwich without wanting the whole world to know about it. If our moms didn’t cut the crusts off our sandwiches or our dads laughed at our sophomoric efforts in card making, we don’t need hours of therapy that result in a book deal. We need to maybe move on and get over ourselves.

It might be time to look at the New York Times Book Review and make a more appropriate reading selection, or maybe stop by the classics section of the library and expand my range. Hell, I could step into the other room and finish the copy of Jude the Obscure I never made it past the first fifty pages of in college. I’ll get right on that, after this TLC “Four Weddings” marathon is over.

Long Overdue

What is it with the library these days? I remember it being a large building where you could go and borrow books. Not so much anymore. It has become like a town hall, or at the very least, a neighborhood club house. Surely there is some other public gathering spot people can use for their so called meetings. Some of us would actually like to check out these used books, thank you very much.

I have always loved going to libraries, even as a kid. There used to be this big thing called a card catalog, which was someone's anal retentive way of keeping track of all the books. Now everything is bar coded and computer inventoried, and the card catalog is nowhere to be found. It has gone the way of so many things...TV antennae, dial telephones, white dog crap, to name a few. But for me, the library was always about the books. The endless supply of titles and pictures and stories waiting to be taken home and occasionally lost. Library books even have their own smell and look, somewhere between old lunch box, mildew, and stale cigarettes, as well as a collection of crayon scribbles, pen marks, and disturbing mystery stains. These books, shared by us all, are clearly well loved.

My husband doesn't share the same enthusiasm for the library that I do, as he feels most of the books are covered with fecal contaminants or flu virus. And he might be right, but I go every week, and I have yet to report one case of bacterial meningitis. The truth is, I don't think I can afford my reading habit. Well, I can, but the risk is great. What if I buy it and don't like it? I am pretty sure Barnes and Noble won't take a book back because you think it sucks. If I don't like a book at the library, I turn it back in and get another one. Which I do frequently, at least once a week. I have discovered many writers I love at the library, writers I would not have given a chance at a book store. Does that sound cheap or practical? I' m voting for practical.

Which (finally!) brings me to my point. Since when is the library no longer about the books? I tried to go to my local branch three times on three different days last week, and each time I drove away in disgust because there was no available parking. On Monday, the old people took over. Buicks were everywhere, parked haphazardly on curbs and crookedly in parking spaces. I don't know if it was knitting guild day or just a rush after the spotty weekend hours, but either way, I couldn't even get to the drop off box.

On Tuesday, a political rally was held in the large conference room. Trucks plastered with conservative bumper stickers had taken over, and I kept thinking, couldn't they do this at a church? I like to think of a library as being neutral or possibly left leaning, what with its many volumes devoted to learning and educating a free mind. How dare the people who want to burn or ban half its contents use its building to influence more people to vote for someone who will pull funding from such things as...libraries!?!

Wednesday was less politically charged but no less irritating. It's story time on Wednesday, and every stay at home mom with a young child and its home schooled siblings come to decimate the shelves and fill the trashcans with used diapers. The parking lot was overrun with mini vans all driven by the proud parent of a Star of the Week! I again left in disgust, but at least I didn't catch a cold or the pox.

I tried once more on Thursday, and was lucky to find the last parking space in the lot. I grabbed my oversized library bag and hustled in, only to find the entire front area filled with men and women and a cloud of cigarette smoke, Old Spice, and Jean Nate. They were milling about the new book section, taking over all the benches as if waiting for the doors to open at a WWF match. I was mildly curious to know what all these people were waiting for, but not curious enough to ask anyone. My nosiness paid off when I saw several people with Home Depot aprons waltz in, heading straight for that overused conference room in the back. The crowd stood up and slowly made their way to the back of the building, and it appeared to be a library once again. I find it hard to believe that there was no space available in a Home Depot to conduct whatever it was they were conducting here. It's a warehouse, for Christ's sake. At least now I know why you can never find anyone to help you at Home Depot. They are all at the library.

I want my library experience to be like the days of old. Don't write in your books. Turn them in late and incur the wrath of the return desk matron. Cover your mouth when sneezing or eating and reading. Read your magazines in the bathroom, not a book handled by who knows how many other people. No sleeping in the corrals. And above all else, Sssshhhhhh! But if I could add one tiny request, have your community meetings at the back room of the Ryans. Some of us are here to read.