One wish

5 June, 2008

My Alma mater was books, a good library... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity. ~Malcolm X

Upon looking at my bookshelves, and realizing that I just made Amazon.com a bit richer, I finally understood what I would do with my life if I didn't have to work. I would read. I would read a lot. I would buy more and bigger book shelves. I would fill them with everything I could every possibly want to read. I would buy those expensive as hell leather-bound books that cost like $150 a piece. And then, then I would methodically work my way through them.

When I reached the end I would go back through and read my favorites again.

But, alas, I do have to work. That won't change any time soon. That is my reality. In this reality I have two crappy Target bookshelves filled with annotated books, many with half-torn SBX stickers marring the covers. They are filled with doodles, paragraphs underlined for no reason other than a brief reference from a professor - a reference no doubt caught in a half doze - and notes passed to the person sitting next to me in class.

Inexplicably these books mean more, but all the same they are ugly. And still, they are my only real prized possessions. A strange realization, but true. These torn, bent, scribbled-upon, dirty books are the one thing I could not see myself living without. My computer would be gladly traded in for another Mac, my phone... well, I would miss it, but I could get by. Nothing holds the power over me that these books do.

I guess I should be happy about that. If someone robbed my apartment, I doubt the books would be on their list of items to take. Their complete lack of value to others is a blessing, a security blanket. How many people can say that their most prized possession has absolutely no value to most people? So, I guess in a way, I have what I truly want after all.

But, if anyone with the means to hook it up is reading, I'd still love to read full time!!