Something that feeds my brain is the topic of today’s #LoveMe Challenge post. My brain is something that has gotten me into, and out of, trouble all my life. When I was young and precocious, I made a lot of enemies for wanting to be the “smartest person in the room”. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve mellowed a bit; but sometimes that brainiac shows up and likes to dominate trivia night.
I am a compulsive reader. It’s actually a bit worrisome how out of sorts I find myself if there’s nothing handy to read. The smartphone revolution has been both a blessing and a curse. If I’m out somewhere and I’ve got spare moments, I can usually find something to read on the internet; but the dubious nature of some of the facts being reported as news these days means I find myself scrutinizing the agenda of the writer than actually examining the facts. Despite my love of books, I also have two Kindles – one a fancy FireHD that I mostly use for Pinterest and Sudoku games and the other an old first-generation Kindle that I use for reading. I love the print on paper look of the old Kindle and my cover that opens like a book is the only way for me to use an e-reader. If only they could make the Kindle smell like a book, I might be convinced to use it more often than I do. But there’s nothing like the visceral feel, smell, weight of a real book.
The library is one of my best friends. I had my own library card when I was five. I tore through the entire children’s section in a year and a half – much to the chagrin of the librarians when I started checking Stephen King novels out of the adult section at the age of seven. Even now, one of the first things I do when I move to a new place is check out the local libraries. I was actually horrified by the recent push to replace the hushed calm of the library with the boisterous screaming and yelling of a day care. The sanctity of the library was one of the few places where you could go to think – but don’t tell that to the San Antonio Public Library system who seemed determined to replace the books with DVDs, the quiet with the ambiance of a day care, and the orderly arrangement of the Dewey decimal system with patrons haphazardly shoving unwanted books wherever there was space. The poor librarians and the return cart personnel were no match for the army of pre-adolescents that would run amok while their parents ditched them there for a few hours of free daycare.
But some cities still respect the library and its place in this overstimulated world, a place of quiet scholarly thinking and research, of browsing stacks on end, of reading book jackets and selecting those simply because the title was eye-catching. Do I love being able to download a book 20 minutes before I have to leave for the airport? Of course but on cold, rainy afternoon, I can think of only two places I would want to be – either at home, curled under a blanket to take a nap, or quietly roaming the stacks at a library to find books to take home to read after I wake from my nap.