My big guilty secret

Okay, I'm ready to come clean. You all will probably be shocked, but we're among friends here, right? So here I am, ready to share the big guilty secret that I've had since childhood.

I buy books.

Yes. It's true. I buy the kind of books you can find for free at the library where I go to work for 40 hours a week. I buy those kinds of books. I go to Barnes and Noble and I buy them.

So there.

Apparently this is shocking to almost everybody I know because (as they point out) you can get them for free at the library. And since I'm there practically every single day working, and have been for at least 15 years of my life...well, you can understand why I don't like to admit to this book buying business in mixed company.

But, I can't help it. I like going to Barnes and Noble. The books are clean there. Believe me I work in a library, I KNOW what condition those books are in. And I really believe the smell of a book should not tell you what the person who checked it out before you had for dinner, or if they have an incontinent cat.

Plus Barnes and Noble arranges the books in nice tidy rows, all labeled for my convienence, so I know that the book I'm picking up is chick lit, or a national bestseller, or an Oprah Winfrey reading pick. I like that. I don't have to think about authors or what randon dewey number has been assigned to that subject. I like my book choosing to be as thought free as possible. I want to go in, be seduced by the smell of coffee, and clean shiny book covers that no other fingers have touched. I can't help it, I'm easy.

I really do love the library, and I do check out my fair share of books. Checking out of course is a relative term here, but I'm not in the mood to share that big guilty secret yet. You'll just have to wait for another blog. But getting your reading material from the library is like having an entire wardrobe of hand-me-downs. Sometimes you just NEED something new, something that you and only you have read. Sometimes you just need your own book to flip through, and break the spine and dog ear the pages and read while your eating cheetos leaving orange fingerprints behind on the white pages because it's your book, darn it, yours! And you can.

So you know what, I don't care that the library supplies free books. Or free magazines, or the free daily paper. I'm standing my ground. I buy books! I subscribe to the paper! I toss magazines in my shopping cart at the grocery store! I am a READER!!! And I like myself.

Best book I've read lately? "Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office" by Jen Lancaster.

And yes, I bought it.


We went dirt biking today at Carnegie. Both of the bikes worked, I did not fall off my bike once, and was able to ride for a decent amount of time. That's a first.
The boy is looking kinda hot here. Biker gear, biker boy...yummy!


By the time we left there was a full moon rising.