It's July. How's that Resolution Coming?
We all strive to be not just ordinary people but extra ordinary. By this point, we often make plans in January to do something different, set goals, try to be a better person. I will admit, I usually don't partake because I get sad that I don't achieve it. As well, I want to be evolving and open to change at any time of year.
Nevertheless, my one true and real resolution to and for the betterment of myself this year was to read one book.
By this, I wanted to read more. I look back at being younger, how every summer I would do that Summer Reading Program and go to the awards ceremony. The library was my hang out. I would check out 3-5 books including Jules Verne The Mysterious Island. I remember that as being the thickest book I had ever read. Flash up to reading my college roommates' copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Michelle Manrow had brought her collection of high school books and I had never been approached to read this classic. I read it in one Friday night! In my first relationship, I had a wall of books. Kay and I installed "L" brackets and bought over time those expensive pieces of wood presenting almost 100 or more books. Then when I met Andrea, my true love. Despite or maybe because her Daddy had two huge wood bookcases of new and used fiction and non-fiction books, she expressed that she never could understand her dad's shelves. Why keep books you had read up for display? I said, well, for reference....
But in retrospect, there is much pride in my book-reading. When a person sees a large book case there is a reaction from other readers as "wow!" and that means, wow, you have a lot and you have a lot of stored knowledge. Boasting!? The pride before the fall was when upon great urging, soon after I had moved into Andrea's apartment, we purchased matching wood bookcases. We placed some books upon it, and mostly A's Disney collectibles. and one morning about 3 am the fire alarms came on and we lost it all, most of it, to smoke and water damage as the whole brick building went up from basement up the walls to the third floor. We were on the second.
I will say, about June 1, I did have to go to the library and get Nancy Drew books. I got two and read one. That is my one book. But I feel once again a failure. And I reflect: was my resolution meant to be prideful? Since I have been the Daddy Dyke, the mom of our great writer kid, I read parts of things. Even through college, as an English major mind you, I read the beginning and the end of classics. On the subway when living in New York City for ten years, (six at least without a personal car), (also pridefully lost when I got new tires and pulled a quick left after dropping off my little one at day care, and crash!) Well, on the subway you just read parts. You act all cool, here I am holding on to the center metal pole reading TS Eliot, old beaten up copy....but you just read in the middle. Poetry is easy. You can read it randomly. But why can't I read a WHOLE book anymore??
Mornings are spent waiting for my wife to get ready for work, puttering around between cleaning, playing with the dogs, waiting for (in summer) the writer and her cool cousin who is staying with us to wake up and take over the living room. I clean, I putter, I go on my cel phone, sometimes annoying but loving Laurie calls me, I talk. Then I have to go to work. Or try to get the kids outside. Suddenly, the day is done. Night is spent after work at Fast Food, me on my cel phone late at 11 pm. Reading. But not a book. Now I get home at 9 or ten and I try to read, but we quickly turn out the lights. It's too late for my partner who now goes to work at 7 am. It just doesn't fit in.
Am I being prideful and boastful?
We all strive to be not just ordinary people but extra ordinary. By this point, we often make plans in January to do something different, set goals, try to be a better person. I will admit, I usually don't partake because I get sad that I don't achieve it. As well, I want to be evolving and open to change at any time of year.
Nevertheless, my one true and real resolution to and for the betterment of myself this year was to read one book.
By this, I wanted to read more. I look back at being younger, how every summer I would do that Summer Reading Program and go to the awards ceremony. The library was my hang out. I would check out 3-5 books including Jules Verne The Mysterious Island. I remember that as being the thickest book I had ever read. Flash up to reading my college roommates' copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Michelle Manrow had brought her collection of high school books and I had never been approached to read this classic. I read it in one Friday night! In my first relationship, I had a wall of books. Kay and I installed "L" brackets and bought over time those expensive pieces of wood presenting almost 100 or more books. Then when I met Andrea, my true love. Despite or maybe because her Daddy had two huge wood bookcases of new and used fiction and non-fiction books, she expressed that she never could understand her dad's shelves. Why keep books you had read up for display? I said, well, for reference....
But in retrospect, there is much pride in my book-reading. When a person sees a large book case there is a reaction from other readers as "wow!" and that means, wow, you have a lot and you have a lot of stored knowledge. Boasting!? The pride before the fall was when upon great urging, soon after I had moved into Andrea's apartment, we purchased matching wood bookcases. We placed some books upon it, and mostly A's Disney collectibles. and one morning about 3 am the fire alarms came on and we lost it all, most of it, to smoke and water damage as the whole brick building went up from basement up the walls to the third floor. We were on the second.
I will say, about June 1, I did have to go to the library and get Nancy Drew books. I got two and read one. That is my one book. But I feel once again a failure. And I reflect: was my resolution meant to be prideful? Since I have been the Daddy Dyke, the mom of our great writer kid, I read parts of things. Even through college, as an English major mind you, I read the beginning and the end of classics. On the subway when living in New York City for ten years, (six at least without a personal car), (also pridefully lost when I got new tires and pulled a quick left after dropping off my little one at day care, and crash!) Well, on the subway you just read parts. You act all cool, here I am holding on to the center metal pole reading TS Eliot, old beaten up copy....but you just read in the middle. Poetry is easy. You can read it randomly. But why can't I read a WHOLE book anymore??
Mornings are spent waiting for my wife to get ready for work, puttering around between cleaning, playing with the dogs, waiting for (in summer) the writer and her cool cousin who is staying with us to wake up and take over the living room. I clean, I putter, I go on my cel phone, sometimes annoying but loving Laurie calls me, I talk. Then I have to go to work. Or try to get the kids outside. Suddenly, the day is done. Night is spent after work at Fast Food, me on my cel phone late at 11 pm. Reading. But not a book. Now I get home at 9 or ten and I try to read, but we quickly turn out the lights. It's too late for my partner who now goes to work at 7 am. It just doesn't fit in.
Am I being prideful and boastful?
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