Julia Altshuler wrote:
(Heavily edited)
> In a moment of inspiration, I realized that anyone who would judge
> me or get to know me on the basis of the books on my shelves was shallow
> and I was shallow for thinking such a thing was possible. How neurotic
> could I get?

I got rid of twenty boxes of books after college. I put what I kept out
in a nice homemade bookshelf is the dense hope that SOMEday, someone
will strike up a conversation after seeing something on a shelf, like I
do when I go to the house of someone who has good books out. Alas, I
live in a cultural wasteland, and no one seems to have read "Things Fall
Apart" or "The Makioka Sisters" or "Njal's Saga" or "Extraordinary
Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" or "The Devil's
Dictionary". But I live on in hope. Since I had a baby, three bright
women with post-grad education have gone on and on about a Lamont book
"Operating Instructions", and I am sad it is the ONLY book anyone has
recommended to me in the last two years. To me it is full of whining
about "recovery" and the consequences of not using birth control, and
thnk the whole thing a fiction she did in the guise of a memoir just to
make a buck.
I had a big treat yesterday. I found a copy the book I just loved as a
seven year old "My Father's Dragon". I had forgotten the name, but never
the maps, or the Spoonerizing mouse that called out "Bum cack, bum cack!
We dreed our nagon!"
blacksalt
ObFood: My recent salad binge continues, as I continue on my sojourn to
lose my "baby fat". Every Monday I take a big, big bag of yuppie chow
to work, and a bottle with olive oil mixed with fresh lemon juice and
munch it up by Thursday.