Comments | renenet: rediscovered childhoods

renenet

rediscovered childhoods

Aug 31, 2002 01:52

When I was a little kid, my parents were great. I say this not to brag, but because I often have to remind myself of it in the wake of the psycho, annoying crap they started to pull when I was about eleven. (As an adult, I can see that that later stuff was all about them being unhappy, fallible human beings with issues. Fair enough. But it sucked ( Read more... )

childhood, books, library, family

Comments 4

great post herself_nyc August 31 2002, 11:31:06 UTC

And I envy you getting the books in the mail as a kid--my parents never purchased books, although we were fully immersed in the public library experience. Still, I always wanted to own them. (And now, God help me, I do.)

so glad for you! heresluck August 31 2002, 12:39:12 UTC

Wow--when you first mentioned the book to me, I didn't know anything about the context (just loved the pictures!). In light of this post I'm especially pleased to report that Icons v. 1.0 are on their way to you. I've heard so much about your parents in their scary bad days and, more recently, their difficult sad-sack days that it's really nice to hear about their good sides.

And, of course, I'm terribly jealous that you got to own books as a kid. Sarah and I have agreed that our terrible addiction to buying books when we already have a dozen unread ones in a pile by the bed is a belated attempt to make up for never having enough books to read when we were younger. I still experience a constant pull between wanting to re-read old favorites and wanting to have so many books that I will never HAVE to re-read one.

Re: so glad for you! renenet August 31 2002, 14:33:53 UTC

Hooray for my new icons! Thank you! You're the coolest! You'll notice me trying them all out right away to see how they look in context.

I've heard so much about your parents...it's really nice to hear about their good sides.

Well, it's just so much easier to complain, isn't it? ;) And some of the bad stuff makes for funny stories. (I mean, who doesn't enjoy a good laugh at the expense of the fundamentalist Christians?) But I do have a lot of good stories, too, from the younger years. In a very real sense, during my first 10 or 11 years, my parents equipped me with the tools to survive them for the next 10 or 11. So, that worked out nicely, then.

book buying renenet August 31 2002, 14:12:01 UTC

Yes, one of the great joys of adulthood is the ability to buy books to your heart's content (or your wallet's contents). I did cherish the books I owned, and it would be very hard for me to ever part with that beat-up bookshelf. (It's hardly ever been more than five feet from my bed.) Still, the vast majority of books that shaped my psyche (especially from about 4th grade on) were library books. Once I started in with the full-length chapter books it would have taken a millionaire with an unlimited line of credit to keep me stocked with books. Or perhaps just a couple of librarians. I read my way through my school library, my public library children's room, my mom's books (LoTR!), my sixth grade teacher's in-classroom stash, the public library's young adult section, and then on to the adult books. My junior high was across the street from the public library, so I always had enough books to read at that point because I could control my access to the library. Those points of access satisfied my constant search for something new, ( ... )