Library Book
I sit cross-legged on my bed. So proud of the new, dark hair on my upper legs and belly. Is it my bed, now, just mine? It's weird not being sure whether someone lives with you anymore. The window is open and I hear rain on metal, steady and soothing. It's warm, so there are only four cats on the bed. I've actually gotten a lot done the last couple of days, because sometimes it's easier to be busy. And/or tired.
I'm the champion of long naps. It feels good to stop thinking.
Here's a weird neurosis I didn't know I had. Last week I took my mother to the main (downtown) branch of the library. While there, I checked out a book about the moai of Easter Island. I started reading it, and it was very interesting, but having the actual book in my possession nagged at me because I didn't own it. I wasn't afraid of the Library Police; I didn't think a guy was going to sodomize me in the bushes while forcing red licorice down my throat. (And, depending on the guy, I mightn't be averse to that.) It's just that I've had these recurring dreams, for years and years now but a whole lot of them lately: having to go back and finish high school again for some ungodly reason, not being able to show up for the classes or do any of the work, but sometimes I check out books from the school library, and then I get dream panic attacks wondering when I'm going to bring them back since I never come to school. I used to check out library books all the time, right up until 1995-2005 when we lived in Broadmoor and the Rosa Keller branch was just around the corner. But as I say, I've been having these dreams a lot lately, pretty much whenever I don't take Xanax before bedtime, and they give me nasty cold sweats from the apocrine glands, and I wake up feeling like a half-drowned mink, and having the damn library book just made me too nervous, so I returned it without having read more than fifteen or twenty pages.
That's the same library branch where Ignatius Reilly worked. The Loyola Avenue one, I mean, not the Rosa Keller (which I hear is reopening with a coffee shop soon). His tenure was brief because, although hired to paste slips into books, he could sometimes only post one or two slips a day and still be satisfied with the integrity, taste, and decency of his work. So maybe I'm still doing better than some.
I'm the champion of long naps. It feels good to stop thinking.
Here's a weird neurosis I didn't know I had. Last week I took my mother to the main (downtown) branch of the library. While there, I checked out a book about the moai of Easter Island. I started reading it, and it was very interesting, but having the actual book in my possession nagged at me because I didn't own it. I wasn't afraid of the Library Police; I didn't think a guy was going to sodomize me in the bushes while forcing red licorice down my throat. (And, depending on the guy, I mightn't be averse to that.) It's just that I've had these recurring dreams, for years and years now but a whole lot of them lately: having to go back and finish high school again for some ungodly reason, not being able to show up for the classes or do any of the work, but sometimes I check out books from the school library, and then I get dream panic attacks wondering when I'm going to bring them back since I never come to school. I used to check out library books all the time, right up until 1995-2005 when we lived in Broadmoor and the Rosa Keller branch was just around the corner. But as I say, I've been having these dreams a lot lately, pretty much whenever I don't take Xanax before bedtime, and they give me nasty cold sweats from the apocrine glands, and I wake up feeling like a half-drowned mink, and having the damn library book just made me too nervous, so I returned it without having read more than fifteen or twenty pages.
That's the same library branch where Ignatius Reilly worked. The Loyola Avenue one, I mean, not the Rosa Keller (which I hear is reopening with a coffee shop soon). His tenure was brief because, although hired to paste slips into books, he could sometimes only post one or two slips a day and still be satisfied with the integrity, taste, and decency of his work. So maybe I'm still doing better than some.