waste of tape

I returned a stack of books at our architectural disaster of a library the other day and the old bag working told me “Gee, you sure read a lot,” in a tone that clearly said Gee, you have no life at all, which, *bzuh*?  I do not read that much (compared to Liz and her 52 books in 52 weeks) and I certainly don’t read as much as I used to.  As a child, I read a lot, and I mean A LOT, as in constantly.  I’d even read while I was watching TV.  I don’t know how that’s possible, but I DID.  In the Winnie Units (grades 1 -4), I’d hang out in the kiddie library before and after school, but I felt like it was baby stuff—Newbury Award winners, lame horse books and the fantasy and girly series I’d already stolen from my older sister’s shelf.  All the books I really wanted were ALWAYS checked out because there was always only 1 copy of everything!  ALWAYS!  It took me like 5 months to wrestle Down A Dark Hall, The Westing Game (still quite possibly the best book ever written), Summer of Fear, The Last of The Really Great Whangdoodles and Anna To The Infinite Power out of the greedy, slow-reader paws of my classmates.  There’s no excuse to have ONE book checked out for A WHOLE MONTH!  NO EXCUSE! 

(Speaking of, there was this book I never got around to reading that was super popular and everyone loved it; I don’t remember what it was called, but the cover had a kid on it and one half of the kid was in normal clothes and the other half was in a suit of armor—does this ring a bell with anyone?) 

Now, I’ll be honest:  even as a kid, I was kind of a sneering asshole who never wanted to do anything fun like play or hang out with my siblings, although, that probably has more to do with the fact that my sister’s 10 years older, my little brothers were drooling babies and my older brother made me JUMP OFF AN 8 FOOT POST ONE TIME AND I BUSTED MY ASS AND NEVER LOVED TRUSTED HIM AGAIN. The highlight of my misanthropic youth was going to the wonderfully huge downtown library every Saturday after ballet class.  I loved that giant bastard of a building—the Hawaii State Library, built by none other than robber baron Andrew Carnegie himself.

Downtown Honolulu isn’t just the financial district, it’s also an historical area and political center: the Library is adjacent to ‘Iolani Palace, Kawaihao Church, Honolulu Hale, Ali’iolani Hale, and the State Capitol, so when you go to the library, it kinda feels like you’re not fucking around.  The entranceway is particularly spectacular, with these ostentatious 20-foot columns and the lobby area is open, so the ceilings are whatever, a million feet high; it doesn’t matter—when I was 10, I thought the Library was bigger than the WORLD. I knew every corner of that building; not only did I have the entire Dewey Decimal System memorized, I knew the physical location, down to the exact shelf on the exact bookcase.  Imagine my chagrin when I got to college and our assy library was classified Library of Congress-style.  I still say LCC can suck a nut.  There’s no consistency between classes!  It’s not static!  It’s frontloaded, for heaven’s sake!  I hate LCC more than I hate Barbara Hampton and that’s a lot.

My library addiction peaked somewhere in junior high. I spent maybe three hours a day in the Bishop Learning Center (our 5 – 8^th grade library)—before my first class, during study hall, after lunch and after school. I’d read the books I thought my parents wouldn’t like there, you know, true crime, ghost stories, Mysteries of the Unknown and sexy stuff like Clan of the Cave Bear and then walk home with as many acceptable check-outs as I could stuff in my rucksack.  I’d still hit up the downtown library on Saturdays and I found I could usually talk my father into going to another library closer to home, on Tuesday or Thursday nights, when they were open until 8:00, but there was just never enough time to browse the way I wanted to.  My preferred method was to pick a random bookcase and start scanning the shelves for whatever happened to pique my interest, which is kind of funny because, come to think of it, that’s exactly how I shop for EVERYTHING.  Don’t ever go shopping with me.  For serious.  You will find it frustrating and fruitless and will want to kick me in the face.

In high school, I got into a weird phase where I started doing research as opposed to really reading—I’d determine a subject and check-out every book they had and when I was done, I’d delve into the microfiche files and the periodicals. Most of the time, it was a run of the mill topic, like the Kennedy assassination or the IRA, but sometimes I’d get a bug up my butt about something random like T.E. Lawrence, windmills and Judas, I don’t even know why,they were like tangents of tangents.  I would go to the library for 3 or 4 hours and look at those flippy microfiche dealies until I ran out of dimes or went cross-eyed, whichever came first.  I made copies of everything and kept a file at home, bibliography and all, which I kind of wish I hadn’t just told you because it kind of makes me look like an obsessive-compulsive lunatic.

So, how far have I come after all of this research and book learnin’?  Well, I’ll tell you where:  watching Four Brothers for the FOURTH time in TWO days.  What can I say, I loves me some John Singleton.  And Marky Mark.  And Billingsley.  And the fact that it’s really just The Sons of Katie Elder Detroit-style, and who doesn’t love a Western?  And who else is a little disturbed by the fact that Marky Mark is John Wayne in this scenario?  Dear God, if Marky Mark wins an Oscar, please let him cry just like The Duke.  And also, let him accept his award in his Calvin Kleins.  Amen.