I stopped reading books a couple of years ago. I checked a book out from the library and it was so bad that I stopped reading it after about 75 pages. I turned it back in on a Saturday, couldn’t find any other books to read, and left. When I went back to the library on Monday, I tried to check out more books, and the librarian referred me to the head librarian, who came out of her vanilla candle scented office, wearing her fall (it’s quite a nice one, brown, past her shoulders, but disconcerting when she doesn’t wear it) and guns ablazing.
Basically I was accused of bending a page. I pretty much admitted fault, saying that it was possible that I had done it, but that it had not been deliberate and could I check out books, please? Oh, well, I was being fined, and I didn’t have the two bucks I needed. I did point out that I had patronized the library for ten years and had never bent a page before, so it wasn’t as though I made a habit of it. I didn’t point out that there were apparently people in the community who read books by underlining in them in pen and pencil (kinda hard to erase those ink marks), and that I had never done that either. I also mentioned that I had made regular donations to the library, not that it excused the bent page.
I guess she was thinking that I had bent the page to mark my place. The page was clearly bent. I was willing to pay the fine, but I didn’t have my wallet with me, and they refused to let me have any books. The head librarian even followed me out into the parking lot to discuss it further, but the bottom line, is that I never went back. Their book selection wasn’t so hot anyway. It was getting to the point where I was checking books out twice by accident. Yeah–how many years can you leave a book in the new books section before it becomes, um, an old book?
But, the bottom line is, I became much more aggressive about managing my DVD movie by mail service. Everytime I see one of those little red and white envelopes in my mailbox, I know that a night spent with a book is now a night spent watching a movie. No more quiet dozy afternoons.
So, I have a confession to make. My DVD queue is up to 355 movies. I can get movies online, but it’s hard to watch the foreign ones–I prefer original language with subtitles to dubbed. So many movies! So far this week: 30 Days of Night (wow, how can you leave an entire indigenous people out of your movie and put the pipeline in Barrow?); last night, Dan in Real Life; tonight, Margot at the Wedding.
This is Mellita, and I am watching.
Tags: movies
