Saturday, September 21, 2002|
I have to quit working. I've thought it over and there's no other option. I have to stop going to work because there simply is not enough time. Work is interfering with my reading. I was at Border's tonight, paging through a book or ten and I realized that, with all the books I want to read and movies I want to see, there's no place for a job in my schedule. Do other people have three or four (or more) books going at once? Do others feel that flush of desire when confronting a stack of books at Border's or the remainders section at Barnes & Noble? I was standing in the store tonight, reading a section from Alice Sebold's book "Lucky". She is such a good writer and I started to walk with the book toward the checkout when, like an addict turning away from the stash on the coffee table, I told myself "No! Not until you finish a few others!" I love short stories and the new editions of the O. Henry Awards anthology and the always entertaining "New Stories from the South" are waiting for me expectantly. They are waiting for the moment while I finish David Brock's "Blinded by the Right" (more fuel for righteous liberal rage - Grrr!) before it's due back at the library. Periodically, I flog myself for not having read more classic literature and promise to do better. That's why I have "Anna Karenina" and "Moby Dick" in various stages of completion. I'll feel guilty, read a few pages (and they are both very good reads and I love them, but still tough sledding when you're not in the mood) and set them aside when the next title drifts into my field of vision. I've been reading the fascinating "Constantine's Sword" for nearly two years. It's not that I don't like it - I do! - It's just very dense reading and something else always seems to drift into view. (This is being written while listening to the Flaming Lips "Summertime" - well worth it!)
Then, of course, I need to reread "Maus" and it's about time to page through some Salinger again and the new Harper's and Atlantic Monthly are due, not to mention Entertainment Weekly and the daily paper and we haven't begun to discuss movies and . . . Well, you see how there's really no time for work anymore. I just need to find a way to make this understandable to the dolts at the rental office and the bank and the credit card companies and the electric company and, oh yeah, I gotta leave time to write in my blog, too! |
Last update: 7/12/04; 13:13:20 .
