Reading the Library Books First ;-)
I am in a time loop. In a bind. When I started steady work eight years ago I started buying books. You know, just in case I ran out of things to read. LOL. Three moves later, I have about two hundred books stored in boxes and in piles in Living Room and Bedroom cabinets. Books I’m not getting around to reading. 
Why am I not reading the books I own? Because I am reading the Library books first! It’s a vicious cycle. I work downtown. I have nothing to do at lunch. I go to the library and peruse the new book shelf or worse yet, the one week loan period new book shelf. Which my library just introduced. Book titles in high demand have a copy or two set to a one week loan period for those of us who can read a book in that time period and/or don’t want to wait for over a hundred people ahead of us on the reserve list to read the book.
Then, of course, I read book blogs. Book bloggers are evil, evil tempters. Oh, all right, I have no resistance when it comes to books. I’ll read anything that sounds interesting. I use to write down the titles I wanted to read. Now, I go to my library website first and put the book on reserve if they have it. If not, the book information goes into my to read someday book list book! So, last year, I decided that I would only go to the library if I had a book in. Didn’t work…what part of vicious circle did I not get? Damn, Libraries are tantalizing dens of seduction; I can’t resist a good read.
This year, I’m reading the books I own alongside the library books and not buying any new books. Hopefully, by this time next year, I will have put a dent in my to be read, already own, pile of tempting, tantalizing books. Wish me luck!
Walking Home
Yesterday ended well.
It did not start well. I had to work. I hate working weekends. Got a degree so I would have more say over my hours and it isn’t happening. Arghh!
But it got better. I was working with my favourite co-worker and only had to spend half a day upstairs greeting/serving the public. It was a slow day probably because it was our first nice day in ages.
Just after I got back from lunch my co-worker pointed out two young adults outside carrying balloons; orange, yellow, purple, red. The sight made both of us smile. Not long after that the balloon carriers came inside to peruse the museum. 
They came, they saw, they left with balloons in tow and headed south. I was out for a break shortly after they left. We are a short walk from a few of the city’s statues. One of them is a statue of a local radio personality. People put sweaters on him in the dead of winter. Yesterday he had on a red sweater and was given an orange balloon by our mysterious balloon artists. My day got better 
My co-worker and I joked that it would be nice if the children statue also got a balloon. Three hours later, after a long tiring day, I headed home going south. The first statue I encounter is the children statue. They stand there, doing handstands, holding each other up, all in a circle. They have two balloons; purple and red.
I continue walking home. Much happier now and feeling less tired. I cross the bridge and pass Bill Epp’s statue of the young girl and her dog. Picture them covered in snow. We’ve had a lot of snow this winter and are getting lots more today.
She and her dog have yellow and red balloons. I cross the street at the light heading for my 
local grocery store. I pass the buskers playing in front of the local cheese shop. They have purple and red balloons.
My walk home yesterday consisted of balloons and statues and smiles.
Thanks to the balloon artists. Mysterious young adults who had nothing else to do on a somewhat sunny Saturday.
Thank you Balloon Artists. You cheered up my routine walk home and made a just bearable Saturday much, much better. Thank you.
Not Buying Magazines
I only bought one magazine today. The year end issue of Entertainment Weekly to be exact! Yes, yes I know. You’re rolling your eyes, 
You’re wondering what the big deal is. 
I started buying magazines at age thirteen, once I had my own income to spend. Usually Glamour or Seventeen. I was lucky enough to get in on the very first issue of Ms magazine (a rare find in my small town). Back then most magazine issues were priced under a dollar. In comparison, I was earning 25 cents an hour babysitting.
Reading magazines opened me up to the vast world that lay beyond my small town Saskatchewan life. It opened my eyes, my heart, my dreams. It gave me courage.
When I started reading magazines, there were fewer magazines but they had more content. I learned so much. I enjoyed the experience. I was a regular pop culture vulture. A magazine junkie. How ironic that the only place to buy magazines in my small town was the local Drug Store!
I started out spending maybe three dollars a month on magazines; before I made a concerted effort to stop I was spending over $50.00 a week on magazines. Of course, the issue price now varies from three to eight dollars an issue.
I’ve stopped buying magazines because, for the most part, they’ve just become one big advertisement. One big advertisement that hardly ever tells me something that I don’t know.
I’ve stopped buying magazines because they’ve stopped publishing poems and short stories.
I’ve stopped buying magazines because I’m no longer their target age and I can tell.
I’ve stopped buying magazines because it’s a lot of money for so little content.
I’ve stopped buying magazines because I read online now.
I’ve stopped buying magazines because I no longer need them to show me what the world is like.
I’ve stopped buying magazines because my eyes are open, my heart is true and I’d rather create my own dreams.
I’ve stopped buying magazines because I get my courage from within myself now.
I’ve stopped buying magazines, but I haven’t stopped reading and I haven’t stopped dreaming.
Occasionally though I will buy a magazine because sometimes I just want some lite Brain Candy to help me wile away the afternoon.
gigi (not necessarily)
Two Books
January 25, 2009 at 9:48 pm (Book Commentary) (death, friendship, sisters)
What the Dead Know
It didn’t end the way I thought it would end. I thought I knew how this story would/should end. I read a lot of mysteries: few of them surprise me anymore. This one surprised me.
“The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing:”
Ecclesiastes 9:5
This book is about what one dead soul knows.
Two sisters, young teenagers, disappear in 1975 from a mall and someone claiming to be one of them reappears thirty years later. This book tells us both stories. This book tells us many stories: the girls, the cops, their parents. The then & the now.
It was, for me, both a nostalgic journey and a mystery. I was a young teenager in the seventies. The fads were familiar and haunting. Now, I look back to the past with a more mature eye. I know what the world is capable of.
It is not often that the ending of a story surprises me.
What the Dead Know
Laura Lippman
New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins, 2007
Sadness
Then the thought came to Miles, like the tolling of a large and leaden bell, that Bethany was dead. This may sound strange, but in my experience it’s strange and it’s also just how it works. You wake up and you remember that the person you love is dead. And then you think: Really?
Then you think how strange it is, how you have to remind yourself that the person you love is dead, and even while you’re thinking about that, the thought comes to you again that the person you love is dead. And it’s the same stupid fog, the same needles or mallet to the intestines or whatever worse thing you want to call it, all over again. But you’ll see for yourself someday. (p.5)
(The Wrong Grave/Kelly Link pp.1-30 in The Restless Dead ed. by Deborah Noyes. Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2007)
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