it's all happening at the library

I think I made quite an impression on the middle-aged man at the library who worked behind the counter today. I unload my books from my cloth Whole Foods bag. I take my library card out of my compact man-wallet. He scans it and then begins to process my books as I slide my card back into its alloted plastic protector. Precise. Among the books, some mystic philosophy/science from Tielhard de Chardin, some fiction from a prominent Japanese author, a thick D. H. Lawrence, some short stories by Dave Eggers, a book entitled "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by the French-Czech author Milan Kundera (beautiful name to say and can you resist a book by the title? Of course not. Me either.). Well-read, can we say? Ah, and then the charges on my card. He reads them off to me - $9.40 for late returns on Stephen Hawkings' "Brief History of Time," two French subtitled films and two books by the philosopher-poet, Mr. Wallace Stevens. I impress myself sometimes with my literary ambitions. And he should have been too. Well, not so impressed. I attepted the hawkings book because it is referenced all over the place, seemed monumental. Occasionally I dabble at trying to understand quantum physics, string theory, evolution. I arrogantly and undeservedly dismissed hawkings as outdated though, a curious mix of over-simplifications and cryptic explanations. and the wallace stevens stuff too....just kidding...sort of. the vast majority of his poetry is untappable to me at this point in my life and attention span, but there are some standard favorites that are some serious stakes in my theology. Truly though, mister librarian should be rolling his eyes at my ambition. I have no ability to retain anything, you see, will forget all plots, characters, beautiful passages. The Lawrence book is actually one I have read before, but I have no idea what it is about. I just remember liking it. I think I went through a period of retention in high school and the first year of college and after that my brain developed a trap door mechanism on which non-pertinent and even potentially life-saving information tap danced for a commercial break timespan as I earnestly paid attention and then the inevitable happened: this information went down the chute and made abundant room for strange facts and odd myths about nutrition and healing and food digestion, and most of doesn't even make the best sense. Goodbye Shakespearean plots, stanzas of romantic poetry, CPR information, the philosophy of Hume, Occam's Razor, what I found to love in Paul Tillich's writings and Nabokov. (Well, not quite those last two.) I will let you know if this slew of books turns up anything interesting. Got to love the library. I can not afford my attempted reading list. I am frequenting the library alot these days, realizing that the majority of the books on my shelf could easily be pawned off and i would not miss them. I just don't reach for Hemingway, Faulkner, Kirkegard, Joyce, O'Connor, Millay, even Dickinson often enough to warrant the space they take up. (I did just go look at my bookcase to compile that offenders list.) Much less the philosophy texts that i like to think one day i will re-familiarize myself with. perhaps one day when i am very old i will sit with philosophy books on my lap, surrounded by handmade origami cranes and pictures of school children sniffing glue, and have a small jewelery business and a large magnifying glass, and the complete line of beenie babies starring at me unseeingly from surrounding shelves, tags of course attatched. The smell of rice cooking, strange home-made balms in even stranger containers, herbs growing in the bathroom sill, a picture of my friend Erin who was tragically lost to the mammoth mountains after a friend accidently scented her hair with canned salmon oils, a collage of birthday cards dating back to birth. ahh, but i digress. yes, i will let you know of any interesting reads.