Details, Unnecessary

All True Adventures, Books, books, books 2 Minutes

I went to King’s Bookstore in Tacoma yesterday and felt a mixture of awe, longing and hopelessness. (Awe=Look at all these books! Longing=I want to curl up and read for ten years straight! Hopelessness=So many books . . . what is the point of adding to the stacks with an original work?)

I only had ten minutes before my movie started at this non-profit movie theater. I felt so cosmopolitan, shopping in the local independent bookstore and viewing a movie in an independent theater.  The streets were mostly deserted, though, because Tacoma is Tacoma, not Seattle. 

(The book I bought? Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.) At the movie theater, the woman who sold me my ticket tally-marked the movie I intended to see in a column. Then, she moved over to the popcorn area and sold me popcorn. I counted about a hundred seats in the theater itself. What an odd experience compared to the fifteen screen megaplex where I usually see a movie. (Cheaper, too, almost by half.)  And, I’m sure you’re wondering what movie I saw: “Thank You for Smoking,” which I chose by default. 

My husband has taken my daughter and her three year old buddy to the park, so I’m enjoying a guilty moment of freedom from her incessant crazy demands. When she woke up from her nap, my husband said, “You need to get dressed and comb your hair,” for she was wearing her 8-year old brother’s pajamas and had a head full of fuzzy curls. She decided this meant that she must take a bath–STAT!–and furthermore, she wanted her friend to watch her. I said, “No, he will not watch,” and she cried pitiful tears into the bathwater before forgetting her woe.

Then she poured cupfuls of water over her head and used two brushes at once on her head. She looked pretty much the same post-bath as pre-bath, except her clothes matched (sort of). Pink flowers and green leaves on pants . . . entirely different pink flowers and green leaves on jacket which was wholly unnecessary because it’s supposed to be eighty-five degrees this afternoon.

Anyway. I should be cooking up a scrumptious dinner at this very moment so the big kids will have something worthwhile to complain about.  But it’s so much more fun to blog about life than to live it.

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11 thoughts on “Details, Unnecessary”

  2. Books! I’m with you on them. Can’t walk into a bookstore (or library) without that feeling of awe, longing and hopelessness (though my hopelessness relates more to the feeling of just not having enough TIME in a lifetime!). I end up reading 4-5 books at a time, all the time. And that’s without re-reading the ones I really want to re-read. Crikey, how would I deal if there were kids/man/others to consider??

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  8. “Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Ecclesiastes 12:12

    And…

    “Books are the carriers of civilization… They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.” Barbara W. Tuchman

    And…

    “You can never be too thin, too rich, or have too many books.” Vogue – Carter Burden

    And lastly, just for you Mel…

    “A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.”
    Edna St. Vincent Millay

    And that is how I feel about books. So many books, so little time.

    Congrats on getting a day to yourself!

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  9. Look at you all fancy schmancy and everything. Very nice look. I’m so glad you kept the quote I think is brilliant and I still think it’s brilliant. It’s withstanding the test of time.

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