Greedy

I have a tradition with YiQi that goes back about 12 years from our earnest days as high schoolers desperate to be different and just a little bit eccentric. Through thick and thin, rain and shine, we have gone together to bookstores to wander and read book descriptions to our hearts content.

I've mentioned before that I have a rather guilty pleasure when it comes to cheesy books. As a writer, I should hate them. Screw Danielle Steel and her third grade grammar and large fortune in bestsellers. So what if I haven't even written a book before? I've written loads and loads of other things, and I'm sure I could do better than her if only someone would give me a chance. I mean I think a lot of people would want to read a book about my quirky thoughts and feelings. Right? Of course. Thank you.

But back to Barnes & Noble where YiQi and I entertained ourselves earlier this evening. (You'd think that becuase they pipe in classical guitar music that we'd subconsciously choose to behave in a dignified manner and discuss intellectual subjects like avant-garde cinema or sushi-making. Obviously, we're too sly for that little ploy.)

I was practicing my "Scot-ish broooogue" on a Highlander romance novel and YiQi was finding highly excellent typos in sentences. Somebody actually hyphenated "seldom-seen."

I was morally compelled to buy a book that mentions "nostrils flaring" twice in one sentence (the first reference was direct; the second was sort of implied). I decided I needed something to balance my stupid brain cells with my smart ones, so we went over to the sci-fi/fantasy section.

I had in my mind the kind of book I wanted to read, but was overwhelmed by the selection and frustrated by the necessity of looking at each book's binding to see if the title/binding art was appealing enough to get me to pick it up and look at the back descriptions. This was all YiQi's fault anyway. She forgot to bring me Coraline, which I had planned to read this weekend. :)

I want to make it quite clear that I do have principles as regards fantasy/sci fi, just as I do for romance novels: I don't read Robert Jordan, and I don't read any book whose cover portrays scantily clad women riding dragons.

Maybe I shouldn't lump the two together. Robert Jordan (may he R.I.P.) wasn't so very bad. His adventures just exhausted me. First, they found this one thing or person, I can't even remember. Then they had to spend 200 pages finding some other thing or person. They go to some inn and eat good food and listen to stories. Another 600 pages later and they're still traveling somewhere for no reason. At least Bilbo Baggins was trying to destroy the One Ring the whole time.

Another rule I have for reading sci-fi/fanasy, although less important, is to be sure that I don't have to sound-out more than one word per sentence. Dune broke this rule on multiple occassions, but I already was too invested in the outcome by then to care. I also despise writers who just replace perfectly reasonable nouns with random, madeup ones to sound smart.

E.g.: "in the middle of Kuth fastness of Habrigure" (Seriously. "Fastness" was a noun used on the backcover of a book we read today. However, it could have been a typo for "vastness." It was the same book that hyphenated "seldom-seen.")

Since I'm not a prolific sci-fi/fantasy reader, I had little knowledge of authors or series. Too many of the books I picked up had that awful cop-out of getting an author's friends to provide quotes about how great the book is. I hate this. Who the hell is Joe Thomas, author of "The Valiserlaifhg of Kathugurh" anyway?

And why should I take his word for a book's value? After all, if the author can't even get a Publisher's Weekly review for the back, then it can't possibly be worth $8. Yet, this evaluation is complicated by the fact that "Girls With Swords and Magic Powers" book may be the first in a series of 15. Isn't this economic evidence of people liking it? Perhaps, it wouldn't be so bad?

I balk at buying books without knowing whether I'll like them. I also grow very attached to every book I own, whether I like it or not. (I've only thrown away Tender is the Night, and in my opinion, that was an unusually terrible book. For the record, I did not throw out The Old Man and the Sea, even though I could barely finish it for being bored off my bum. Other books I don't need I turn in for credit at a used book store or donate to charity or the library.)

Most of the time, I rely on the library to help me save my bookshelves from further crap infestation. Yet, you can't get good cheesy fiction in the library. Libraries' paperback sections are usually relegated to true crime paperbacks and stories about teenagers with cancer (and of course, my donations).

But, eventually, I found two cheesy books and one semi-smart book, so I suppose I'll be ok. I had to whittle these choices down from five books and I kept finding more along the way. I really am greedy in bookstores. I've decided that when I retire, all I'm going to do all day is hang out at the bookstore and read whatever I want. ::sigh:: It's a lovely dream.

Abject

Last week was a fairly stressful week, for reasons that don't bear going into. And of course, whenever I get stressed out, I break out like I'm 13, and huddle under the covers with good book. If I were given a spirit guide, it would probably be the ostrich. Sure, I can take the heat, or the freezing cold, eat iron, or elude lions. But when it's all over and done with, just let me shut out the world for a bit and bury my head in the sand.

And that's precisely what I did all weekend. I read, watched movies with Liontamer, cooked dinner, and played online scrabble. It was delicious being so isolated from the world for three days, neglecting all the things I need to do, should be doing to fully embrace sloth. Despite my best efforts, I feel a little guilty about it. I should have done something...even if it was just the dishes. Which makes me wonder: Why should I feel guilty about doing nothing? It's not as if I'm doing nothing while our country is invaded or while a dictatorship is raiding homes. I'm doing nothing in my safe, isolated, suburban community. I'm doing nothing and it has no greater ramifications than a sink full of dirty dishes and a pile of laundry on the floor.

And somehow, doing nothing, even for a weekend, feels to me like being nothing. I had this conversation a few weeks ago with a friend. I tried explaining why I cannot feel worthy unless I am doing something worthy.

I do not want to disappear into suburbia, a frozen face in a yearbook at an antique store, a name on a synagogue register. Perhaps I will be loved, but will I be remembered after all who known me are gone? If I am not then, does my life matter now?

It is a sad irony that I, a woman who works every day to help others understand why its so important that we all cherish and value the inherent dignity and worth of every person, must go out and acquire self-worth.

Maybe I am this way because I come from a broken home where I believed I had to be good and pretty to be loved by my father, and later Stepfather. Or, it could be that I simply struggle to accept my life as it is, now that the days of childhood dreaming are over. I cannot be anything I want to be with loans to pay and real world responsibilities. I've seen too many people more talented than me, luckier than me, hungrier than me. They will be the leaders of my generation, not I. And looking more broadly, perhaps I can blame the American work ethic, which asks people to rejoice at having the longest hours and least amount of vacation days of any industrialized country.....because busy hands make us closer to G-d.

And so, I negotiate with myself. I find solace in knowing the stories of those less fortunate than me, and being a force to help them, no matter how small. I swallow the jealousy I feel when I meet beautiful, smart women, who seem to have it all, and think to myself that maybe they aren't really that nice, or that pretty or that talented. I carry small hope in my heart that maybe one day, I will write a book that people will love and be inspired by and will make them remember me forever.

Around this time I started thinking about when I have been happiest in my life and it has always been when I travel. Although not doing anything for anyone but myself, whenever I'm in a new place or culture, I never question my worth....I like being who I am. I don't mind being jet-lagged, getting blisters on my feet from too much walking, and waking up early every morning of my vacation. I wouldn't even trade my situation for Angelina Jolie's.

After much soul searching I realized that maybe the old adage is right-Idle hands make the Devil's work. With too little on my plate, I begin to get grouchy and drink too much Diet Coke and think too much about my life and allow all the nasty parts of my personality to indulge themselves in a bacchanalia of self-deprecation, anger, jealousy, and selfishness. It isn't doing things that makes me feel worth, its making a life for myself that I feel is worth living. It's removing myself from a funk by filling it with things that have no time for the maudlin.

So, I've decided to try to create a little cheap adventure for myself. I'm making a commitment to go on photography expeditions twice a month to someplace new in the area and to try my hand at a new skill...furniture refinishing. Why furniture? I've always liked furniture design and I enjoy painting...and I have a really ugly inherited dining room set that I'd like to work my way up to making something I could sell eventually. So, today, I drove with Liontamer out to an antique store I've driven past every day for months now and wanted to visit. I purchased for $10, a wooden captain's chair that has much of its varnish stripped already. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it after I remove the rest of the varnish and sand it down, but I am excited to see what I can do with it. And of course, I will share this epic battle with the rest of you.