Tag Archives: Library

My adoring public

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I was horrified to learn that Terrell Owens would join my hometown team, the Seattle Seahawks. What were they thinking, hiring a man with an ego the size of the Titanic (and just as likely to self-destruct)? I don’t know from personal experience, but I’m reasonably sure that his poop doesn’t smell any better than the next man’s.

Unlike T.O., I’m kind of nervous about getting in the spotlight. I don’t think that I’d have any problem with public speaking if it didn’t involve public. Sunday, I was invited to join a panel of local authors for a program at the library. Other than a case of insomnia, some rampaging diarrhea, and an ice cream binge prior to the event, I was cool, calm, and collected.

I’m proud to say that I didn’t even pick my nose or scratch at my crotch once (consciously). I did panic slightly when the moderator started throwing out multiple-part questions. My fall-back answer to any quiz is “North Dakota,” which clearly wasn’t going to cut it in this instance. My fellow panel members were also on the mature side, so I can only imagine that they were similarly trying to remember if they closed the garage door.

Sometimes I need an ego boost, and this event did not fail me. I hear Mariah Carey requests $90 bottles of water before a show. Even better, they had peanut butter cookies for us. I was definitely feeling like a star. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why Mariah Carey can wear a size zero dress while I struggle to get one thigh into my Spanx.

Yesterday, I went to the beach with a photographer to get some shots for my next book cover. That brought it all home. That’s why I pig out on cookies at the library and squeeze into my Spanx … because I want to share something I created with others, and because I like peanut butter cookies.

I don’t think I’m in any danger of developing an over-inflated ego. Just remember that if I’m town, I like homemade cookies with enough saturated fats to melt in my mouth … and go straight to my Spanx.

The library didn’t want it back

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With some trepidation, I placed the book on the counter and explained how it came to be in this condition. Our kind local librarian said, “That’s OK, you keep it.” I think she just wanted it out of the library so she could wash the counter with boiling bleach.

There on page 123 was the evidence of my first bout of car sickness. I told my parents I wasn’t feeling well, but they refused to break up the family band for something as piddling as the stomach flu. One page and two blocks into the trip, I yarked on the book, my sister, and the back of the car seat. I haven’t been able to read in a car since, and the little church where we were playing got treated to one accordion, one banjo, one tambourine, and a really foul odor.

This little incident hasn’t dampened my love of books. I think us oldtimers are still sold on the kind of books that you can read in the bathtub without fear of electrocution. Problem is, you’ll need an oxygen tank and a sherpa to reach the top of my to-be-read pile.

Someday, I’d like to live in a house with a library: bookcases stacked to the ceiling, with a little slidy ladder. If you go to a used book store, you may find me in the stacks, huffing old book scent. It ranks somewhere between felt tip pens and fresh baked bread.

I was shocked to learn that my hometown newspaper, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer went out of “print” in 2009 in favor of electronic news. Damn tree huggers! Don’t you know that you’re trading convenience for trees? Those notebooks are not going to do you any good when you need to line your birdcage.

So how can a six inch screen compare to all that? For my birthday, I got a Nook. I’ve started building my electronic library, and to my surprise, I like it. My eyes no longer feel like they’ve been sandblasted, then squirted with lemon juice; I don’t have to wear the purple reading glasses (what was I thinking when I chose those frames?); and I look cool to all my techno friends who don’t realize that it’s the cheapest version they had. It still totally counts.

Best of all, I just discovered that Box of Rocks is now available for Nook at Barnes & Noble, so like a total dweeb, I immediately bought my own book to add to me eLibrary. (cheap plug)

So long as Ikea keeps producing cheap bookshelves, I don’t think we need to worry about the extinction of “real” books, but ebooks are definitely making a strong showing in the market. Too bad they don’t come with a slidy ladder.