11.21.2013

oh the world owes me a lemon...



we got rid of internet/tv a couple weeks ago to help with our budget, and it is possibly the best thing I’ve ever done for my writing. Suddenly, I have all these tiny pockets of time that I wasn’t aware of—that likely got sucked up by social media or email or whatnot—and in them I’ve instead put reading and writing (but no arithmetic). We don’t have smartphones either—we are really amish-ing it up over here. we do go to the public library for books and movies, and I use internet at work sometimes. 

i don’t use the internet at the public library though because, aside from our really fantastic children’s section (complete with miniature, child-sized doors next to the larger, mommy-sized doors), our library is the creepiest library I have ever been in. not the building—the people. the building is up on a little hill overlooking the river, between downtown and the park. when the river floods, which often happens in the spring, the water creeps into the parking lot and our trail from the library to the park is overwhelmed with muddy river water.

there is no good way into the library--just a steep double set of stairs or an inclined roundabout path--not too inconvenient, unless you're eight months pregnant and carrying a two year old because we're late for storytime and it takes two years olds an awfully long time to safely climb stairs. florescent lighting, the check out front and center and isolated narrow paths past the often-read magazines into the less-read bookstacks, when you first enter. i rarely dig deeply into the bookstacks since poetry is only middle-deep from the center, and the audio-visual side is for computers, dvds, cds. upstairs is lined with local art--some bad, some good--and books even less frequented than what they have downstairs.

I never noticed the creepiness before because it isn’t in a bad area of town, and zu and I always made a bee-line for the cute children’s section for story-time and puppets. now that I’m browsing around a bit more, I can’t stand to be there more than just to grab what I need.  I think it is mostly because there are lots of men loitering about. I just get that feeling—that be-on-alert feeling. Maybe it’s the way they look at us? I don’t know exactly—it makes me look over my shoulder to make sure I’m not followed out to my car… and I also carry a knife in my purse so I can stab someone if they attack me. So, don’t get any ideas y’all. 
back to the topic at hand…after braving the library, I finally finished bossypants by tina fey last week (the chapter on motherhood is the best so read that if you are just going to read one chapter) and I’m reading the journals of Sylvia Plath right now (it is my rocking-june-to-sleep book. Sometimes it takes so long that I pick up a book and read a bit). I’m also reading through the southern poetry anthology, Tennessee volume, and I think it is my favorite poetry anthology that I’ve ever read—I know so many writers personally who are published in it (I’m in there too, but I wish my poem was better), and it is so good and it is so close to my tennessee born-and-bred heart.  

Zu has been watching old cartoons—like mickey mouse short-cartoons. Why are there so many drinking and drunkenness scenes in old cartoons? And why is goofy’s theme song “oh the world owes me a lemon…”?  June has been neither watching anything or reading anything from the library. She does however like to try to eat our personal books, when I’m reading to the girls with them both in my lap. 

i miss having internet on some days, since I can start to feel a little disconnected from the world, though for the most part I think this has been a really good thing. being disconnected is nice. It’s the reason I never have gotten a smartphone—maybe I’m a luddite at heart (I write, as I type this on my laptop… to later post on my blog…)

3 comments:

  1. googled it: he is saying "livin" not lemon! that makes so much more sense. and is more applicable to my life.

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  2. I'm catching up on your blog and I must say . . .

    CREEPIEST LIBRARY EVER!

    ReplyDelete