Counting the Pages, Counting the Days

I'm reading a lot again. This happened last year, probably about this time, when I was sitting on the couch, reading reading reading until I had practically read emptied the LA County Library of books. I had a reason--I was unemployed. I was bored. I was trying to learn things whilst being totally unproductive.
And I learned a lot. I learned the entire history of Mormonism; how beautiful the mountains in Afghanistan are; what life was like for some during Hurricane Katrina; and all about Tracy Morgan's upbringing. Valuable, no? Some of it, perhaps.
It became a game, a contest of "how many?" and "how much?" I started logging my books on websites as if seeing the list stack up online, in public, somehow made the dusty stack in the living room by the couch seem less depressing, and more of an achievement. I was channeling my 12 year old self. The girl who was deemed "Class Bookworm" in my Jr. High yearbook. (And I surely looked the part. Huge glasses, braces and a perm that never should have happened.)
I remember a reading contest, judged by pages read, my teacher held. I don't remember the prize, I barely remember the books, but I do remember the competition, and the number of pages. My best friend was my page-gobbling nemesis. She and I were smarty pants book addicts who were maybe a teensy bit competitive. Maybe.
I won. That is all that matters. I read my teacher out of house and home (if that only made sense). She had a "library" of books on her back wall and I read them all. That's right. All of them. I was a reading freak. No wonder I needed the big glasses.
I am this way about consumption in general, I've realized.
My Netflix queue? FULL. Always full. Movies I've rated? Thousands. It's as if my brain starts chanting, "Must. Rate. Movies. Now. Now NOW!" and I can't stop. But what's the point? Exactly. There is none. Especially since I am soooo terrible at retaining the information I am devouring in all these books/movies/magazines/blog posts/twitter feeds (the list goes on...).
Ask me about the history of Mormonism.
I dare you. Just ask.
.....
Sigh.
Okay, so I remember a few tidbits (what a sordid past those there Mormons do have).

Last year my reading rampage began out of nothing-else-to-do (or so I thought. My beau at the time certainly disagreed), and this year, it's a little different. I still have almost nothing to do, and truthfully would rather be more productive and nearly too busy to read. But, alas, I've got time on my hands. And, well, currently I'm sick, and I've watched every episode of Top Chef and can't bear to start watching Hoarders because I might get even sicker. So, I read. I love that reading, when listed as a hobby, is so benign. It's so accepted and perhaps even highbrow. It's as if people don't realize that there is as much junk to be consumed in a bookstore as there is in the candy and chips aisle at the market, or on the FOX network full of reality TV fluff.
I don't read junk, in my opinion. In fact, those huge paperbacks with the cliche front cover and the author's name in a huge puffy font are not attractive to me. I'm more of a vintage-colored, subdued, rather thin memoir kind of gal. If you must know.
And if you're curious about my reads--head over to my shelfari. So I can boast in public. I'm still adding up the pages (always been terrible at math), and have no clue what kind of prize I will win, but I'm working hard toward it anyway, like a dumb dog racing after that stick.
What are you reading right now??

A snapshot of some of my books. I finally tried organizing them by color like all the cool kids do. But I still prefer alphabetical.

3310

I'm walking down the hill to downtown, ocean on my right, when I notice the voicemail: "Welcome to 3310 Howard St.!" I'm thrilled. I knew, somewhere confident inside me, that I'd gotten the place, but was waiting with stilled breath to actually get the confirmation from the owner. 3310. I'm 33. It's October. 10. Some nice numeric symmetry doesn't hurt my romantic mood about the whole thing.
The rest of the walk down I giggle, sharing looks with the ocean about all that lies ahead. I will only be in this little beaut of a cottage for around three months, but it's the now that matters. The meaning of it now is that I have a home. A borrowed one, but one that I fell instantly in love with as soon as I set a socked foot on the bumpy mosaic entrance, clearly homemade, and clearly made with love.
The love didn't end there--just began. Mosaics also filled spaces above the bench seats of the dining table area and the splash above the kitchen counter. Images of woman, in all her goddessness and voluptuousness were everywhere. As were hearts. The warmth of the place was instant and the kind of hug from someone you trust who is wise and knows what's best for you.
I realize, just now, that person is me. I'm the hugger, the huggee, the hugged, the ... well, I'm it. I know what's best and sometimes it comes in waves of feeling, rather than on paper in a list neatly segregated into piles of wants and don't-wants. The feeling decisions are always harder to explain. I get insecure trying to describe the illogical desire to do a thing just because, "It feels right." But what else is there to tell us what to do? The lists are fun, and sometimes a good distraction, but the feeling has to be there. Or else the desire is not.
So I will move in to this place (my two suitcases of clothes and now various plastic bags full of random items and my one bin of "important things") in a week and I will start what I hope will be My Life.
No pressure.
In fact it does feel a little like pressure, but not the heart rate raising kind. It feels like knowing hands kneading fragile but voluminous and heavy dough. It feels like that hug--that one that tells me when I'm doing The Right Thing. I've always thought 'the right thing' was what made other people happy, kept other people believing I was a good soul, a good friend, a good partner. That will be, someday, what makes a decision the right thing. I will have a partner who needs me to think of them first, a child or two who demand (passively and unknowingly) that I think of them VERY FIRST. But for now I have me. Barely. And completely. I am all mine and so are my decisions.
And so I move in to this tiny place by myself with the claw-foot tub and the romance and creativity literally built in to it. And there I will start it. My Life. In fact, I have started it all ready.
And it feels right.

Impromptu Florist

...my dad came home with this many flowers today--found on his last dumpster run of the evening. Stunning. Dumpster diving isn't always dirty and broken...

The Garbage Seat

I'm in the garbage seat. I'm pretty sure of it. My dad and I are on the rounds, collecting cardboard to take to the recycling center. He usually does this alone, and I'll bet when I'm not here he fills the passenger seat with the bits and pieces he decides to take home with him. Things like copper wire, old jars, broken toys, electrical boxes and chipped ceramic bowls.
Today I am his assistant. We sift through dumpsters organizing and folding cardboard boxes, taking things out of the dumpster that don't belong there. Which is nearly everything, but we only have so many hands.
I'm glad I brought gloves.
My dad is in a foul mood today, griping about people and their lack of responsibility, "How many times have I told them to separate their recycling from the yard waste?..." I go along with him, all the while thinking (and sometimes saying), this is your choice. You could stop caring. You could move somewhere where people are responsible. You could do something bigger than talking to six or eight people every week about this issue. But it is what it is.
Depressing.
This whole area is depressed. And I've come back here, to this town in which I grew up, to mend my broken heart. Well, that's not entirely true. I came here because I had nowhere else to go. And I happen to have a broken heart. The two are not related.
With his truck bed full of cardboard and newspapers we head to the recycling center, where the man who runs the place clearly does it for the business of it and not for the earth-centric appeal. In the middle of any conversation, he is apt to bust out with statements like, "He wasn't even born in the U.S.!", referring to our current president and his "illegitimate" election as our leader. It's no use. This town is what it is. It's a problem to be solved. It's a sad example of ignorance and poverty weighing down any possibility for progress.
It's my hometown. And I'm comfortably repulsed by it. I suppose as long as I'm here I'll keep searching dumpsters with my dad and feeding feral cats and soaking in the wet air of the swamp coolers, because that's just what ya do. I guess it ain't so bad. I guess it could be worse.

Last night I rode a cool old cruiser with a seat that lacked any padding at all. But I didn't care. There's something great about riding a bike on a hot, so hot, summer night: it's called instant breeze. I rattled around on this old bike hoping nothing would break, feeling like a reckless driver without a seat belt on. A few visions of spaghetti sauce colored knees and mangled feet passed through my mind, but I soon let them go. It just wasn't likely I'd fall. Somehow I had faith in this old bike that my dad had proudly proclaimed, "kept air in its tires!"
Riding around on the country roads near my childhood home I became ageless. I knew if anyone saw me they wouldn't be able to tell my age. I look young anyway, but especially on a hot summer night, riding around giddily on a bike. Only kids do that sort of thing. Right?
Huge 4x4 trucks (the standard ride in small town America) rambled past me, not slowing down, but thankfully scooting over to the other side of the road. Families sat outside on their small patches of green bermuda grass, enjoying the almost tolerable heat the evening and shade trees brought. I passed a tractor, but was mostly watching the horses across the street. Munching on tall grass, they looked serene, almost bored. A tiny donkey made me smile.
Near the end of my ride, the bike fell apart a bit, becoming more rickety and jangling around as I spun the wheels with my pumping. I sounded like I was driving the old Chevy from the yard rather than this engineless machine; front fender scraping on the tire and creating sparks as the rubber warmed. (Okay, they were tiny pebbles flying off the tire, but they really looked like sparks.)
Guess it's time I learned how to fix up a bike.
On my way back home I passed my lifelong neighbor's house. The tradition when passing each other's homes is to honk our car horns as if to say, "Hi, neighbor!" As I passed, I hollered out, "beep beep beep beep beep!!!" feeling silly and happy all at once, my ridiculously loud bike probably announcing my presence more than my yelling.
It wasn't until I got home, sweat trickling down my back and making my glasses slide down my nose, that I saw the name of the bike.
Free Spirit.
Perfect.

Space Travel

I know there is no such thing as time travel, but what I just did comes as close to it as anything I can imagine. Last week I moved from Los Angeles to a town of 5,000 in the hot Northern California valley. And let me tell you--it's a different world. In one day I went from the diverse, smog drenched vibrance of L.A. to the dry, simple, yellowed fields of nowhereville. Of course, I welcome the simplicity of huge and plentiful parking spots with no meters and a grocery store with short lines and baggers that sweetly ask if you'd like "help out" to your car, regardless of the items or weight of what you've bought. But in those same grocery stores I've had to eat my words.
It was just several days ago that I was reassuring my dad during a serious discussion of the state of the earth that MY generation of young mothers and fathers was having a revolution. "We are growing our own food, bringing our own bags to the store and avoiding plastic toys as much as possible," I said brightly, proud of 'my people.' He didn't seem so sure. Now, having grocery shopped in this very small town, in which I grew up, I know why. Because it's not true. Because in small towns like this all over the country there are just as many processed foods and plastic bottled water buyers as ever. And they aren't bringing their own bags to the store. Far from it.

I had been excited to think that my friends and I were the majority, the happy future of living wisely on this planet. Disappointingly, it only took seven minutes in the supermarket line (this one was long because someone's food stamp card wasn't working. Embarrassing.) to realize my friends and I are among the "green elite." It ain't the real world.
This backwards experience at the grocery store is only part of the time warp of small town life. I'm the only Prius in town, nothing is organic, and though we are surrounded by farms and orchards, strike me down if you can find locally sourced food for sale. I haven't seen any.
Sigh...
Is it worth easy parking and going to a bank where all the tellers know your whole family lineage to deal with the otherwise archaic ways of living in a small town? Don't think I will be here for long.

misaligned

if you think i
will fall that easily into your arms
pay an arm and a leg
to make you happy
and whistle while i work

if you think i
am your easy listening station
your weekly ration of food
your proof of success
a battle won while sleeping

if you think i
can solve your pains
will hear your sorrows
and mend them with
my own sad hands

if you think i
am capable of loving you
am the one who knows you like
no other

if you think i
see that you are something special
see where you came from
see where you are going
care about your every move

if you think i
want to know your history
want to seal your past with
strawberry lip-gloss kisses
and carefully placed praise
of your many, so many, talents

if you think i
am the one who will save you
serve you
be with you till the end
get you through
get you up
teach you the rest of the story
and tell you the rest of the idea

if you think i
will let you make me feel crazy
and give up my world for yours
and
will ask me for what you could
never give
then you are partially right
and you are just like
all the others.