slice of life, a la mode

My dad handed me an article today about a hand held device where one can access the Internet and buy books online, reading them on the tiny screen. I felt my insides being wrung like a dishcloth. The day books are replaced with computers I will hang myself from the nearest library's roof. Half the enjoyment of reading a book is holding it in your hands, smelling the pages, feeling the cover fluctuate in your hands like a wave in the ocean, noticing accidental ink splotches in the margins. There's something about seeing words on paper that makes me feel as though something has just been created that didn't exist before. One can write, "There once lived a man named Joe," and all of a sudden Joe once lived, where before he didn't. A new character and personality exists, who has likes and dislikes and a family, if you write one for him. It's not just a collection of books I have on my bookshelves. I have a bookshelf of lives between bindings. Computers are the end of life as we know it.

"'What shall I do with all my books?' was the question; and the answer, 'Read them,' sobered the questioner. But if you cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will...If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition." ~ Winston Churchill

I'm drinking coffee, and it just passed that perfect temperature where it's not hot enough anymore to singe off the flavor, but isn't cool enough to fail to warm your toes. It's reaching the latter stage and I still have half a mug left.

The cat slept with me last night for the first time since September. She jumped up on my bed without so much as a meow of inquiry, then felt around on my blankets as if she had every right, and laid down before I had a chance to protest. "Kitty," I said, lowering my Steve Kluger book (who added a homosexual character to his latest novel and therefore makes it very difficult for me to enjoy), "what are you doing?" She didn't even look at me, but if she were to answer I imagine she would've said something like, "What?" with an attitude.

I've decided to live the life of Jo March, and inherit a large estate from a cranky aunt to fill with raucous boys who give me lots of grist for the writing mill, when I'm not teaching them wise lessons and punishing them for their scrapes by tying them to the bedpost. (Actually it was Nan, a little girl, whom Jo tied to the bedpost. But still.) "I really don't know which I like best, writing or boys" (Little Men, chapter 3).