The Burrow

I have a lot of books.  Actually, I used to have a lot of books and now I have the best of that lot.  The whole thing makes me antsy.  We had a library and a living room lined with bookshelves in Chicago.  We moved to northern California and found houses with big windows and high ceilings and expansive vistas..... but no wall space and certainly no bookshelves.  Californians live outdoors; there wasn't a lot of emphasis on the life of the mind, it seemed. I installed shelving in every home; my books took pride of place. Downsizing and moving, once again, I vowed that I would not pay movers to transport volumes I never would read again.  That plan failed as I, once again, underestimated the time and energy required to pack up two lives (and the detritus of two other lives whose owners were living elsewhere but whose possessions seemed destined to stay, forever and forever, with their parental units).  By the time the movers came to pack up the k...

Yesterday, in a throw-away line, I wrote that I was reading the last Robert B Parker book I'd ever read .  Well, I just finished it, and I'm sad.  I took a long long time to read the last 30 pages or so, which, if you've ever read any of his books you will know takes some doing. He's not big on description; he'll let you know where he is, but that's about it.  In the car (it used to be a Mustang, and it took center stage in some of the stories, but the 'stang was trashed and now his car is just his car) or in his office with Pearl's couch or at police headquarters or Spenser or Susan's apartment, or drinking in the bar at the Ritz or meeting a nefarious character on the Common, but aside from the windows and what can be seen through them, we really have no idea what the spaces look like.  He's just there, and he's Spenser, and I love him. Yes, I do.  If he showed up at the front door I'd send TBG out the back door.  The Little Cuter call...

TBG and I may be the only people on the planet who don't know any of the characters, plot lines or questions (there are questions??) surrounding Lost . Somehow, I'm okay with that. The cultural zeitgeist will just have to trundle along without me.