Believe it Or Not

For all those who thought I couldn't do it...I am on a mission. I'm doing all the things that I've put off for the last few weeks while I dedicated myself to the improvement of my mind:

• running
• going to the gym--yes, Mizzou's state of the art affair. I've finally found the place (because I've been searching again, you know).
• eating like a human as opposed to a dog (as in, eating anything in front of me as fast as possible)
  
• listening to Christmas music until my ears are bleeding
• my art project
• writing things that aren't research proposals
• reading

School is finished and I've been doing everything but sleeping. I do not say that figuratively. I seriously can't sleep for more than four hours a night. Last night I fell asleep at 10:30 and woke up at 2:30. And I was awake. There is nothing worse than sitting in bed waiting, waiting , waiting for sleep. And we all know how patient I am. So I waited until about 2:35 and I got up, made some food, some hot cocoa, read a book...as in a whole book.

I said I was going to read 52 book this year. I've read 30. I'm probably not going to read 22 books in the next two weeks. Maybe before I go back to school, but not by Jan 1. But, damn it, i am going to give it my all. I have been to the library, and--God, I love the library. Especially on a cold, gray day. There's nothing better than the quiet murmur of people turning pages, gray and purple dusk creeping up to the windows, and the smell of old pages. As a general rule, I like to own my books. It's one of the only things I guiltlessly consume with reckless abandon. I like to see them lined up on my bookshelves, so pretty and colorful and inviting. Someday I'll have a floor to ceiling bookshelves. I'm kinda like George on Seinfeld: he wanted to be ensconced in velvet, I want to be buried in books.

I particularly like Columbia's library. Not so much the outside. In a relatively recent expansion, they did somethings to the outside of the building, including putting in a sculpture that looks like a chicken truck rolled over, and what's left of the birds is left fluttering on the highway. However, the inside still has much the same feel of the library I grew up with--don't ask me how, most people would say it looks very different. Something about those walls, though...

Side note: even more fun, to my mind, is Ellis Library, MU's flagship book receptacle. It's a nightmare if you're trying to actually find something, but there is something so beautiful and harmonious about the way they've been able to design the place with the most state-of-the-art technology, special glass cages, I mean, study rooms and copy centers coupled with the old, rickety stacks of books for floors and floors and floors, complete with old wooden study carrels (sp?) and green and red tile floors. I bet they still have card catalogs...the real ones. And there are wings, with funny letters attached, like 3R or 3L. And the stacks are my favorite place to get lost in.

I swear all this reading in dim places...I'm going to lose my eyesight by the time I'm 35.

Anyway, I was at the Columbia Public Library for like two hours, browsing, wandering, curled up in an alcove, paging through books, trying to decide which one gets the privilege of going home with me.

I said when I started this project I was going to diversify, not just read a bunch of children's lit or novels or comic books. So, here's what I got at the library:

• Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
• New Zealand and the South Pacific Islands, John Chambers
  
• The Green Guide, The Complete Reference for Consuming Wisely (forward by Maryl Streep. Go figure.)
• So Brave, Young and Handsome, Leif Enger (this is not a romance novel)
• This House of Sky, Ivan Doig
• Come on Shore and We will Kill and Eat You All, Christina Thompson
• Don't Get too Comfortable, David Rakoff

This is what I'm reading for the next week. As soon as I finish watching Pride and Prejudice (the really yummy Colin Firth version--be still, my heart) and It's a Wonderful Life (my very favorite Christmas movie, naturally) and Disc 1 of Northern Exposure, season 3. Because, even though it's been years since I've watched it, it is as brilliant at 29 as it was at 15 and 22.

Ask me when I'm going to do all this?

When I'm not sleeping of course.