I CAN READ!!

I haven't settled on the exact direction of my direction. Does one want to be a niche writer? Settle on writing about mommy-hood or physical and mental health or craft or cooking or just super-crazy nonsense? Does one write a tell all about their childhood? Maybe a daily diary of caloric intake compared to kilowatt hours used by the household? Quandaries, no? So until then this is what we've got: I CAN READ!

Make me a list of 100 writers or books- the best of the best- honest to god greatness. I've read 60. I've heard of 20 of the others, hate 10 and have not a clue on Earth who the remaining 10 are. I have to figure my stats are pretty good (modesty aside). At least comparatively- although to whom I'm comparing I'm not entirely sure I know. I will note here that I am totally incapable of making said or proposed list. My brain doesn't work that way exactly oddly enough.

I think it also bears noting that the proposed list could be compiled by 10 different experts on literature and have 100 different authors thereby obliterating my statistics. So where do I really fall on the continuum? Probably not where I want to or where I think I do.

I covet books and hold them dear. I read "voraciously" as so many people claim. I don't like to borrow books because most of the time I know I won't return them- just ask the head librarian of any town I have ever lived in. I don't like to lend people books either- even to dear friends. Yes, for all the regular reasons: they could lose them, dog-earing, forgetfulness etc. But also because they are MY books.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. wrote in a commencement speech for students in April of 2007 - a speech he never got to give as a result of dying 16 days before he was meant to deliver it- bleh- run-on and poor grammar. Writing is a process and I do not claim perfection. Let us now correct ourselves.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. wrote shortly before his death an interesting passage regarding books.

" I consider anybody who borrows a book instead of buying it, or lends one, a twerp. When I was a student at Shortridge High School a million years ago, a twerp was defined as a guy who put a set of false teeth up his rear end and bit the buttons off the back seats of taxicabs."

A vivid description at the least and a valid point at the most.

Don't worry though- I do respect economics and understand both the frugality and green-ness of using libraries, book swaps etc to get your reading material. I don't call people "twerps" nor do I imagine my friends who ask to borrow books grinning gumless-ly in the back seat of a cab. I myself rarely pass up a book that is given to me, no matter from where it came. Still, in the back of my head I always want the new copy, the glossy pretty one that smells like fresh ink and paper and can join my collection and make friends. I think I have made it clear that I am a covet-er of books as objects but I should really get back to the original point. The list, the authors, the literature.

Half of my essays ever written have been not just about authors but about my obsession with them. When I like an author I flip to the inside fly pages to find the list of "Other Books Available by "MOST AWESOMEST EVER WRITER FOLK." Then I set out to match my brain with the list and be sure that I have really done the work of falling for the writer and their material. And sometimes when required of me while I was in school I would follow that with a paper that didn't quite match the assignment mostly because it was written to show my breadth of knowledge on the author and his/her work, life, cat's name etc. Not just why "Catcher In The Rye helped shape an image of disillusioned youth culture" or some such nonsense.

But there is a secret component to me having read so many books and for mastering an author so to speak. I don't want to be the wine guy at the party who says "Oh yes, the boldness of the Bordeaux reminds me of a passage in Dante's blah blah blabbbedy blah..." I don't want to be the girl in the back of the poetry reading who points out the connections to Rilke when the speaker said "god" and "flower" in the same stanza. I do want to keep my statistics steady or rising when it comes to that "top 100" list though. I want to eat the words and love them and thrive on them and let them fuel me. But I also want that one other secret thing.

I want to be in the Red Robins not the Blue Birds. Mrs. Abbott simply didn't believe me in 2nd grade when I said I could read as well as I could and I will be damned if she doesn't let me into the stupid, stupid, stupid Red Robins! Damnit- I CAN READ!

Yeah- I guess I can hold a grudge. I have spent all these years trying to out read and prove to everyone that I can read when I am fairly confident they figured it out a while ago. And when it comes down to it, the Blue Birds were reading too. They just weren't reading what I wanted to. In spite of my relatively petty and pretty neurotic need to prove myself to people who didn't need to see- that push really did push me so far that I can think about that list I mentioned about eight billion gobbledy-gook words ago and be a tad bit proud.

Okay so I have to post it in a blog that I can read and that I have read a lot of books but everybody has something they are desperate for people to know about them. Regardless of everything else about me the fact that I can and do read falls into the top five things I want everyone to know about me. It just says so much and leaves so much room for people to wonder and guess, assume and ask questions. How great is that?

I'll get to the other four.