You're Reading Too Much Into This

I am a lesson in complexities. Or contradictions.
Pick your diagnosis.

Surprised? Don't be. Do the math.

I went in a bookstore today to look for a specific book. I left with two.
The Complete Beck Diet For Life
and
I Was Told There'd Be Cake


I avoid bookstores, actually. I don't feel well-read enough on what my top dozen scholarly reads should be - and therefore ill-equipped to choose. At the same time, there is always something I'd like to read, -- but it shouldn't be higher on my to-do list than what's already waiting for me to do at home.
So, my solution is to limit my bookstore visits or book borrows.

Hubby is not a reader, and in life, circles me constantly at a breakneck pace of 'doing.' I (self-inflict) the motto that if I am going to be sitting around - I shan't be just reading - but best be hand-tailoring suits, spinning yarn, or re-soling worn clogs. But who's the wiser? The tortoise or the hare?


After long hours of school work yesterday, I felt free today to get some ordinary this & that done at my desk and around the house. The exact reasoning, in fact, that made me want to go outside.

I don't do staying in, very well. Well at least not for hours on end, and when it is beautiful outdoors. One reason I went out today was to get some of that sunshine. But than, the only reason I needed sunshine, was because I had decided I wanted to stay indoors.
Did you get that?
It used to drive Hubby crazy when I would look out the window and exclaim, "Oh what a be-yooo-tiful day! Let's go to the mall!"
At least I've improved on those particular neurotransmitters . . . so that a beautiful day outside, does not necessarily an indoor mall trip, make.



Now if Shakespeare, Pluto, or Hemingway had written something, say, like, He's Not'th That Into'th You'th it would be a good balance for me, --attractive to the both sides of my brain.
Yes I realize Pluto is just a planet and Disney pup . . and if I were better-read I never would have used 'Pluto' as an example in my previous sentence. But like I said - I'm complex.

Books I'd read:
Pluto Six Degrees of Separation (from Mickey)
Plato Chicken Soup for the Western Philosopher
Aristotle Math for Dummies
Hemingway For Whom the Bell, Toll-house Chocolate Chip Cookies


Yeah.




If I sound like a reading snob, -I'm not. I'm practical.
I rarely clean my house as well as I should, finish on time - projects I should start, make dinners anymore from utter scratch, or stay ahead of instead of behind-on my studies.
Somehow I feel less self-imposed guilt doing nothing - than I do reading a book. Which I can see, --now that I've written it--doesn't make sense. Well if it's a school book, -I don't feel guilty . . . but I do feel sleepy. If it's a pop-book, I do feel guilty, but I don't feel sleepy. If it's an intellects' book, I feel low-IQ'y . . . and sleepy.


So I don't necessarily 'free-choice' read during the day. It seems unproductive to me. I read at night though, right before I go to bed. And at this rate I can usually finish maybe, two books a year?
I'm not good book club material.

I will buy a book before a vacation - and when the fantasy is that I will actually be on vacation, while on vacation. Sometimes the vacation part of a vacation gets a little mucky with all the action, cleaning up, or cooking. I've never vacationed in the lap-of-luxury, as it were.
I bring magazines on vacation - without fail. I pour over everything in a magazine. There are too many pictures and too many words to just skip through it. My camping buddy thinks it's very Dustin Hoffman/Rainman of me, because of my then ability to store and recall much ado (in magazines) about nothing.

I will give you an example.
Do you know what Lee's Art Shop is?

Because of my one day, today, of Rainman'ing -- I came across Lee's several times. I can now tell you in regular conversation (where it would so likely not come up), Lee's Art Shop is located in New York City, actually it's on 57th Street. Angelina Jolie was there recently with two of her litter. They left with white empty Easter baskets. (I bet the clerk just gave them to the girls.) I also know through my random-trivia-cataloging of the day, that the author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake (the book by the way, I ultimately decided not to get, and left behind), went there for stuff to use in her plexiglas dioramas. A diorama (in case you don't remember) (I got to see a picture, so that refreshed my memory) is a three-dimensional model, like what you might see a grade-school'er do for a science project.

Now look at all that I've learned -just by being aware of my environment and sticking my nose into bits and pieces of reading material, here and there. What is the likelihood I would have learned so much about Lee's, if I had been off reading some self-important book somewhere?
Is it all that more valuable than what Shakespeare would have me know? Or my Psych Professor? Maybe - maybe not. Wouldn't I be better off just sucking it up and reading a classic, - so that's what's stuck in my head?
Well than I wouldn't be me.
And we wouldn't want that, now would we.


Besides, there have been some little jewels of books I've read - that I never would have even known about had I not peeked in newspapers or magazines. It's like I'm on a treasure hunt all day, but only strike gold occasionally. So what I'm really doing, is totally living life on the edge (--in case you hadn't given me credit for that).
And I take it back - I am a reading snob. I'm very selective, and I don't need to read a book just for the sake of reading. At the same time, if I learn one more tidbit in news or magazine passing, about the Acai berry, Dr. Phil, Big Love, or U2, I may slit my wrists.

My intellect marches to the beat of its own drum. What can I say. I have been known to yell out 'No Soup For You!' without provocation or even feeling an explanation of context, necessary.
How do you reason with a person like me?


Who knows. But I can tell you this -
Why don't you read up on it -
And get back to me.