Last night, I got this overwhelming need to write to you guys, even though y’all were all probably curled up in bed with Conan or something. I was going to post, but then I got tired and fell asleep. While I wrote, I was listening to Spirit in the Sky on iTunes and it made me feel like I was an actress in a movie, but with live music feeding into the scene. It felt pretty cool. Sometimes I actually get songs stuck in my head at pivotal moments or just seemingly unimportant but reflective moments throughout my day, which makes my life feel movie-like. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing or if it means I just watch too much TV.
Probably the latter.
Yesterday, after work, I went to the library and checked out six books, because it had been a less than pleasant day and I needed some book nerd therapy. I hadn’t planned on getting that many; just one. But naturally I can’t walk into a library full of free books to read and only get one. I mean, who does that, anyway? So, I got six and had my arms full walking up to the checkout line, and it’s a wonder I wasn’t that kid in school who people walked by and knocked all their books on the floor, because that totally could’ve been me last night if people were generally uncivilized and acted like chimpanzees. So, my plan was to go in the library and get one light and fluffy book to read so I wouldn’t feel like the only 20-something loser trying to get her life together, but what ended up happening was that I only got one of those books (Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella) and five serious-type books. I don’t know how this always happens.
Before I got to the library, though, I checked my account to see what I owed, because unfortunately I returned some books late last time, and when my account pulled up it said I had OUTSTANDING BALANCES in red that equaled up to one dollar. ONE dollar. All that bloody, red fuss and OUTSTANDING BALANCES for ONE dollar. But, still, I felt ashamed. When did I become the girl with OUTSTANDING BALANCES in red? Oh, yeah, when I got to college and the world as I knew it commenced to unravel. It’s cool, though, because I had my dollar ready with my library card as the lady pulled up my account and rang up my books. “She’s a little unorthodox for such an avid reader, but boy is she on top of her fees,” is, I’m sure, what the library assistant was thinking. I say unorthodox, because stereotypically book nerds are punctual in all areas of life, wear glasses, have frizzy hair, and talk like Hermione Granger.
I also wanted to go to the library, because I am convinced that one day I will be out minding my own business looking at books or buying groceries or walking through the botanical gardens at the zoo, and a smoking hot guy will walk up to me and be like, “Checking out enough books today?” or “So you’re a Corona girl?” or “You like photographing nature?” Okay, so actually some variation of this did happen to me earlier this month, only it was at a bar and Tin Roof Kyle was like, “So, are you from around here?” Actually, I don’t remember if that was the first thing he said to me, but I know he asked me that question at one point in the evening, and I was thinking, “You’re hot, but I’ve had too much to drink, and I don’t think this is going to end well.” Naturally, a version of my daydreams comes true, but goes haywire by the end of the night, and I have no idea what’s become of Tin Roof Kyle since that Friday night. It would definitely happen that way.
Needless to say, I didn’t run into anyone at the library. At one point, globs of rain started plopping onto the roof, and I had this image in my head of the torrents coming down and a memory of the last time I got stuck in the library during a storm, and looking out the window as a poem flitted through my mind, and when I tried to write it down later it was harder to recreate, and the rhythm was lost. When I got home, I sat on my couch and stared at the boxes scattered across the floor – some packed with my things, some still empty, and I felt hidden away from the world. I felt sheltered and lost and unfindable.