That Was Too Close

I woke up at 8:03 in disbelief. 24 minutes ago. It was remarkable for me, because it's difficult to get back to sleep while Dad and Meridith are getting ready for work.

Generally, I need complete silence to sleep, and I got that after they had left, so I sank into what was indeed another world, for about 45 more minutes. Thankfully, it was only temporary, because I don't want that world. Ever.

I'm not sure what the circumstances of the dream were, what I had been doing up until that point, where I had been. Maybe I had been asleep in my room, maybe I had just come home from somewhere. That detail isn't important.

I remember there being dishes in the sink from dinner, and it was my night to do them, so I thanked Meridith for putting it all into the sink, and I told Mom that I would handle it.

I went into my room, and also into total shock. My nightstand was cleared of nearly everything I had on it; my books were neatly stacked around the room, some stacked in the boxes I use as bookshelves, spine side out, but there was one huge distinction: There were far less books.

The only stack that represented what I had had before in humongous stacks was next to my bed, and looked like it was on the verge of teetering like Jenga blocks. It wasn't that I thought I wouldn't be able to find anything that I was shocked, it was that I wasn't given a choice of what I wanted to keep.

Mom and Meridith were still sitting on the couch in the living room, watching TV, after I had taken in that horrific scene, and I rushed right by them into the master bedroom (which has a door leading into the garage) and shook Dad awake, demanding answers. He said, "You don't need that many books." I fairly shouted, "I bought some of those books for research!" And it's true. I have. Right now, there's a three-volume biography of Nixon by Stephen Ambrose in one stack, and another Nixon biography by Conrad Black under my widescreen TV, as well as a book about the creation of the Frost/Nixon interviews, all purchases inspired by my visit to the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, but now for research as well.

After that scene, I rushed outside to the recycling bins, hoping they hadn't been picked up so I could recover what I knew I needed. Too late. The truck had already been there.

I walked down the street, dazed, looking in other bins, hoping that Dad had also put books in those bins and that the guy operating the recycling truck hadn't been too careful. As I did, a few teenagers put some soda cans in one of the bins and brushed right by me as I rolled one of those empty bins back to the curb. A bin as empty as I was at that moment.

I know I have a lot of books, and that my room is small enough to make those books look big. But you never, never, never tell a bibliophile that he or she has too many books. We know why we have those books. We know that we have a lot. But that is our life, or at least part of our life. We want as many of those pages as possible in a day. I know absolutely that that's the reason I'm here, living this particular life (As for past lives, I don't know, but I've always been mildly curious after watching that scene in Defending Your Life where Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep are at the Past Lives Pavilion), and that I will not give up books or reading for anything.

I also know that I won't keep all the books I have in my room. I have one inviolable rule for my collection, which remains separate from all those stacks of books: I have to have an overwhelming desire for a book to have it in my collection. If I check out a book more than 3 times from the library, I buy a copy for my collection. That happened with a few of my Bukowski books, as well as This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes. There are the rare exceptions, such as The Library by Sarah Stewart, an illustrated children's book about a devoted reader whose house is so thoroughly stocked with books that it creates some problems, yet she doesn't see them as problems until the end, finds a solution that benefits her community, and then goes on reading for the rest of her life.

I know the stacks of books in that book, because they're mine. This was one title that I chose for Meridith to read to Tigger and Kitty, since she reads to them every morning, and after we had gotten back from the library last Saturday, I took the stack of books I had chosen for them and read all of them, since they interested me in some way, too.

As soon as I finished The Library, I went to abebooks.com, typed in the necessary information (title and author) and bookmarked that page, and looked it up on Amazon and bookmarked that, too, with the intent of buying it, which I did late last week. The Library will be part of my collection because it is me completely.

I probably have a few hundred books in my room. But my collection totals about 40 books. 40 that I will keep. 40 that will move with me when we eventually move. As to the other books, I'm not going to become a bookseller after I'm done with them. I don't intend to become part of the AbeBooks community. Those books probably will end up going to Goodwill if I don't need them in my collection.

Every book in my room is there for a reason. It may end up not being an immediate reason, but it is an eventual reason. I know in that nightmare, Dad was looking to keep the house more organized, but it reminds me that I remain very much annoyed by the manufactured disdain toward education in this country. Being educated and being able to tell a "v" from an "n" is not elitist. This is who I am. Call me whatever you want, but in all my years of reading, I know that I could probably come up with a better insult than you can manage.

Yeah, that last bit is completely incongruous with the rest of my words, but I had to get that out somewhere, and I didn't want to spend an entire entry with it.

The Two Sides of Cows

We went to the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Carl Boyer Drive fairly late last night. Considering that we don't usually go out on Sundays past 8 p.m. since Dad and Meridith have work the next day, this was fairly late. But we still had things to get that we didn't cover on Saturday.

They're completely remodeling this Wal-Mart. Sections are being squished together, being moved, and in some cases, you can't find them unless you circle the entire store thinking that you might have missed what you were looking for, and lo and behold, there it is, near whatever that section used to be. This also makes for a shoe department that no longer looks like a department, but rather just a section of shelves with less brands than there were, at least until they figure out where they're putting everything in this conundrum of space. There's sheets of paper taped to shelves with blue tape from department heads (or maybe corporate department heads), indicating where everything should go, what kids' styles are being replaced in favor of ones that may sell better, and how the shelves should be stocked. It's going to be a while before this even looks like it once did, at least in actually having shoes.

These days, I don't wear my velcro shoes that often. They get the most use on the weekends, so they don't wear out as quickly as they used to. But even if I was looking for a pair, it would be hard to find here. Mom found one box that had two left sneakers in it and it took a box or two more to find an actual pair.

But that wasn't what compelled me to write all of this. There's a set of racks where leather shoes hang. If you walk swiftly past it, you get an overpowering smell of leather. It almost makes you gag as your knees buckle. It's like finding discounted Easter candy, but far less pleasant. Come to think of it, what this Wal-Mart and the one on Kelly Johnson Parkway (overlooking Six Flags Magic Mountain) had in leftover Easter candy wasn't all that pleasant anyway, not for me. I wanted more Cadbury eggs (stop your snickering; I figured there might be no chance in finding any more, but I still wanted to look) and Reese's candy eggs, the ones in those pastel candy shells with the fully peanut butter center. Nothing. Just Starburst Easter candies that shouldn't have even been there. I understand the fervent desire of candy companies to profit off of Jesus's resurrection as a perpetually horny egg stasher, but some candies don't go with Easter. If you're not Cadbury, strike one, and you're on a very short leash, so you'd better prove yourself quickly. Starburst already eliminates itself by those standards.

Anyway, back to the hanging leather. It fascinates me how that smell isn't at all one to want to encounter again, yet if you walk past a set of grills giving proper tribute to hamburgers and steaks, you've got heaven coming on a plate soon.

Bless the cow for being able to multitask so skillfully.

Damn You, Bourne! (Actually, no. You've already been damned enough.)

All the CIA intrigue in the movies The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy (I plan to rewatch The Bourne Ultimatum for the 54,892nd time next weekend) has got me on a suspense novel kick that includes the first three novels John LeCarre wrote (to see if I want to read any more beyond those), as well as many books about those who were in the CIA, such as Robert Baer, whose latest book, with his wife Dayna, is The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story, about how they met while serving in the CIA. I bought it from Amazon about two months ago, but hadn't gotten to it until last night, and it's so vivid in the telling.

Despite enjoying Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan series so far, I've found that I read that more for the characters involved than the mystery at hand. In fact, I think that's why I'm keen on those CIA books, because the stakes are already established, and they get higher and higher, and that's where the pleasure is. Plus, the details revealed are always fascinating. It's also why I've begun reading Joseph Finder's works. He knows how to work the levers of a thriller to their maximum breaking point.

A life in books never loses its sense of discovery, and always delivers a steady supply of interesting titles.

However, I'm Enjoying It

Initially, I started research for my second book with the intent to write one book. But as the research has gone on, I've come up with ideas for two more books.

Since they all involve the same subject, the presidents, but with different emphases, I'm now doing research for three books, since I don't want to go through those same books a second and third time.

The brain gets a good, strong daily workout in my attempt to keep in mind everything I need while I read the necessary books.

For You Jewish Sports Fans...

The final score from last night's showing of "The Ten Commandments" on ABC: God - 40, Egyptians - 0.

Next on ESPN, we'll have locker room reactions from, and interviews with, the defeated coaches and players...uh, well, instead, the 85th airing of today's SportsCenter is coming right up.

Crunch Time for a Bibliophile

As of today, Saturday, April 23, 2011, I've got six more Saturdays, including today, in which I can check out books from the Valencia library. On June 4, books can no longer be checked out from there, Canyon Country or Newhall, and on June 10, all materials belonging to those three libraries will be due.

Now, I don't know when holds being placed for materials from the other County of Los Angeles libraries will be cut off. I've been lucky because despite declarations that any items put on hold from those libraries have to be picked up from the Castaic library (separate from the three Santa Clarita branches), all the books I've put on hold through the online library catalog have come to Valencia. If this was not meant to happen, I hope they don't correct it. Not yet. I still need these weeks so I can keep bringing in presidential books for research for my second book. I need those books. As I've said before, without the County of Los Angeles libraries, I never would have been able to write my share of What If They Lived?. I don't expect to get through all the books I'd need, but just to get the relatively major ones out of the way and those notes transcribed and saved, so I have it and can be comfortable with either checking out what those three branches have come July 1, or buying for cheap whatever I need off of abebooks.com.

But this also presents a new conundrum. Because though I'm dedicated to getting this research done, to figuring out exactly how I want to cover the material I'm bringing together, there's a play that keeps nagging me. Or maybe two plays. One takes place during Grad Nite at Disneyland (inspired by chaperoning my sister's Grad Nite in 2007), involving two sets of characters at different places in the park during the same hours, and the other takes place just off the lobby at the Grand Californian hotel, at two plush easy chairs, with a small circular table in between them, and a lamp a few inches behind the chair on the left, and a long, horizontal rose-patterned rug. I had my sister take pictures on her phone and e-mail them to me so I get the setting exactly right.

I've already spent time on the Dramatists Play Service website (http://www.dramatists.com/), and spent some money there, ordering those plays that hew fairly closely to what I want to write. I want to see how those playwrights did it, how they staged their plays, how they presented those situations. I want to learn as much as I can from them. At the same time, I've also become very much inspired by the works of Sam Shepard, or rather his prose. About two weeks ago, I checked out as many of his plays as I could find, intending to read them. This week, I've got more presidential books on hold to be picked up, and those are crucial in the face of these dwindling weeks.

But maybe there is a way to still have Shepard's plays, even though I'll likely return them today to pick up the books I need. I'll just put them on hold again after I've returned them and picked up my books on hold, and hope for the best. I should have the same luck next week that I've had this week. With so many people having abandoned the Valencia library in favor of Castaic and other County branches in anticipation of the transfer of control from the County to the City of Santa Clarita (It's a lot emptier on a Saturday than it used to be), there's more space for me.

Oh, one other thing to mention. I hit upon this book in an e-mail I subscribe to containing Washington Post book reviews. It's called Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation by Andrea Wulf. A rather unwieldy title, but important to me because Wulf wrote about the first four presidents' passion for gardening. This is exactly what I'm seeking. It can be done, and so can the aspect of the presidents that I want to write about. I just have to figure out how to do it and I'm sure this book can help in some way. I don't intend to buy it now, since it's just a little too pricey for me after what I've already bought in recent weeks, but I will soon. I want to see how Wulf wrote about Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison, and maybe there'll be inspiration in there for me.

Couldn't Do It

I did better than my record while at Broward Community College, in all the time I spent at Southwest Regional Library. Then, I didn't get past Moonraker. This time, I made it to Doctor No and this time, the run included Diamonds are Forever and From Russia with Love, both of which came after Moonraker.

Is it because I was reading them one after the other and perhaps got tired of their inner workings, the establishment of the missions, the woman beside Bond, the weapons, the descriptions of the food he ate, the details that Ian Fleming felt were important for us to know about the history of a place or of what Bond planned to do to defeat the villain?

I could never get tired of Fleming's food descriptions. I love descriptions of food in books, which is why, when I went on my latest shopping spree at daedalusbooks.com (It happens once in a while, not always once a month, but it always goes above $30), I bought Literary Feasts (http://www.daedalusbooks.com/Products/Detail.asp?ProductID=62969&Media=Book&SubCategoryID=&ReturnUrl=%2FProducts%2FSearch%2FHomeQuickSearchResult%2Easp%3FSearch%3Dliterary%2Bfeasts%26Media%3D), a compilation of food scenes in various novels.

Is it because I mostly knew how Fleming tended to operate within his novels, when the villain would be revealed, when Bond would be introduced to the allies that would help him on his mission? No. I think it's because it felt like Fleming didn't care as much when writing Doctor No as he did with From Russia with Love, which preceded it. In From Russia with Love, Fleming gives 71 pages over to the murderous Soviet organization SMERSH before even re-introducing Bond. He describes the operatives, the plan that they intend to carry out (to ruin and then murder Bond and completely upend the British Secret Service), and it's more than what the feature films gave with SPECTRE. President Kennedy had excellent taste when he mentioned this as one of his favorite books.

Doctor No is a huge letdown. It has everything one can expect from the Bond novels by that point, but it's written without the same attention or the same intensity to make you be completely absorbed in Bond's mission. I was disappointed when Donovan "Red" Grant (You may remember him when Robert Shaw played him in the film version of From Russia with Love), doesn't appear until nearly the end of From Russia with Love, because he's described so vividly in physical form and in personality that it feels like he should have more to do besides just basically lie in wait for the moment to kill Bond on the Orient Express.

The same disappointment is there in Doctor No, because Doctor Julius No comes into the novel fairly late, and isn't much of an interesting figure. This is who Bond will battle? It's not much of a battle towards the end anyway, and it's no wonder the script for Dr. No changed that drastically.

Now, it could be that I need a break, but I'm not ready to continue, or even certain that I'd want to continue. The James Bond movies are my Star Wars, and I had hoped that the same would stand for the books. Not to own them (since I haven't come upon any I'd want to have in my collection), but to know them as intimately as I do the films. If I got bored with the next set of titles, I could always close them and return them, but at this point, so close to when the County of Los Angeles is going to hand over control of the Santa Clarita libraries to the City of Santa Clarita and cut off access to their hundreds of thousands of titles (and leaving me stranded in so many ways in my research for the books I'm working on), I can't afford to waste slots like that.

So maybe not now. Maybe not later this year. Maybe next year, or the year after that. The feeling may come again. But I'm not going to force myself back into it. That's not the right way to read anything.