how does this kind of thing happen? when i buy a book from a book store, i don’t feel rushed to read it at all. in fact, there are a few books that i bought years ago just sitting, uncracked, on my bookshelf. but when i get a book from the library, i feel a rush. i feel the weight of all the hundreds of people who will read that book after me, and i feel like i’m sentencing them to death by asphixiation by not getting that book back to them sooner. i know how much it sucks to have to wait so long for a book, and i don’t want to be the bitch that holds it for a month, then has to renew it because i still haven’t gotten to it but really really want to.
i know, it’s silly. but i was nearly (if not more than) two hundred people deep on the wait list to get some of the books i have sitting on my designated “library” shelf. i can’t just return them without reading them… it’s almost a matter of pride. and blog material.
there is “Angel’s Game” by Carlos Ruiz-Zafon. “The Time Travelers Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger. “Goldengrove” by Francine Prose. “Reading the OED” by Ammon Shea. there are six more books on my hold list…and i’m thinking i better get on my ass, and read.
but the truth is, as much as i love reading… i just can’t do it when i’m mentally exhausted. i read pages, but they don’t stick in my brain. when i’m exhausted (like i am now) i can read the same paragraph for twenty minutes straight before realizing that not only am i re-reading the paragraph, but i still have no idea what it says. when i get like this, i usually resort to trash, because words don’t really need to stick in order to be understood. but i’m tired of reading trash, and honestly… i’m all out. there’s only so many trashy romance novels i can take before they make me want to shove my eyeballs through a paper shredder.
right now, my head hurts. my vision is blurry. i am tired. why am i not in bed, you ask? well… i’ve gotten to the point where going to bed is just depressing. i know i’m going to get up in 2 hours to [at least] lay the baby back down. there’s also this thing i do where i have to tinkle at least twice in a night. it’s also winter… and my current sleep deprivation headache can be blamed on the cold. i went to bed last night shivering. i layed in bed trying to sleep for at least an hour before i finally drifted off, only to wake drenched in sweat and shivering again. i’m not sick, or in the middle of menopause. it’s so stupid. when i’m not cold, i’m too hot. when i’m not too hot, i have to pee. when i don’t have to pee, the baby wakes me up. when the baby doesn’t wake me up… well, that hasn’t happened since before she was in the womb, so i won’t go any farther.
i don’t want to go to bed, because i know it’s going to be a miserable failure. i’d almost rather just sit in the livingroom and watch some grown-up television shows while getting some laundry folded or something. at least i will have accomplished something.