Picky Reader

I caught myself standing in front of the fridge again with the door open. I shut the door and went to stand in the pantry. There was all this food in the house yet nothing to eat. Or at least nothing I was interested in. Obviously I was not hungry but worse - bored.

Since I don’t have TV, with the 83 channels to endless flip through for hours at a time, I went upstairs to the library. When I moved into my house, I set up one of the spare bedrooms as a library or I suppose you could call it a study. I painted it a Ralph Lauren color called Balmoral Red with an iridescent Mother of Pearl ceiling. It is like sitting in a glass of red wine. Truly lovely. One long wall is covered with bookcases, full to the brim. The books are not only standing 2 rows deep but they are crammed flat onto of the top of the rows. There are books on the tippy top of the cases and on the floor next to the shelves. Honestly, They are starting to accumulate in corners like drifts of snow against the back of the house.

There are hundreds of books here, but nothing to read. I stood in the library much like I stood in the pantry. I picked up first one book, then another. I wandered into the bedroom to root around under the bed pulling out forgotten volumes. I rifled the piles next to the bed. I even looked under the pillows, where I sometimes hide books from the cats, one of who is a book biter, well to be really correct, more of a chewer.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of un-read books around, but nothing grabbed me. Not a single volume fell on my foot demanding to be read. I am one of those people that need to “be in the mood” to read something. I guess I am a picky reader, like some people are picky eaters.

As a fall-back position, I am going to browse a collection of short stories called All Aunt Hagar’s Children. Short stories are perfect for when I am unsettled, have a short attention span or am bored to tears.