When did reading in public become so damn popular?
Every single time I see this, (and it happens a lot here in Seattle, the nation’s highest “use of public libraries” city), I feel the following:
- Deep prides in this city
- Quickening impulses to teleport myself into their mind so I too can be involved in some heroine’s journey through her dysfunctional family
- Uncontrollable urges to rip the bookling from the reader and sniff its strange and magical pages (envision Mary Katherine Gallagher)
- Voyeuristic obsessions to find out which book is so damn engrossing, and then immediately judge a person by what they choose to read in public (i am a snobby elitist)
- Deep-seeded book envy which creates an inner dialogue reading something like this, “I want to be reading! I want to read standing at the bus stop, I want to read on the bus ride, I want to read while I drive, run, eat, sleep, and breath.!” (envision Veruca Salt)
And I want to read while I drink. This desire is what birthed BOOKLING.
I saw this girl at my bus stop today – in the rain, barely covered by an awning, enthralled in her 75% finished book. I felt my heart pang. My breath quickened, my stomach turned in knots and I felt the green monster emerging. “Damn it, I totally forgot my book.”
Then again, while on the bus, I saw this guy in great shoes pouring over his own pages. Damn it… the whole fracking city is reading.*
Except me.
I must recommit myself.
Dear Booklings Mine,
I am dreadfully remiss in my attendance to your ever-present needs. You require not much effort – only time. How my eyes long to skim your alphas and drink in your font. I fear that when I get my life back, I will again find you waiting for me in your patient and accepting manner, pages humbled with years.
It’s a lifelong love-affair, dear patrons.
"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." — C.S. Lewis
~Mme. Bookling.
*In BOTH cases, see my uncouth (and unsuccessful) bodily contortions to discover what manner of booklings were these, but it didn’t really look promising – you know, just some NY Times Best Seller bull shiet. Freaking Clive Cussler. “"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. " — Flannery O'Connor
3 comments:
"And I want to read while I drink. This desire is what birthed BOOKLING."
Ah, I do love you. And you need my newest pillow. I wrote about it this morning (in the etsy listing) that it wanted to curl up and drink wine with you while you read.
That was such a great description on your etsy sight. Dog-eared copy of Walden indeed.
I really think Lewis and I would fight if had met. Probably the same with Luther, but they would be good fights. I can curl up with a hookah and finish a book. I finished "Techniques of the Selling Writer" with one hookah. Maybe not bottle of wine big enough for me, but hookahs...yes! I am on to GM.
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