Cleanliness is Next to Alcoholism

Lately, I’ve been frustrated by housework.

I don't live in a dump. The house is picked up. There's a logical flow to the furniture and the way the kitchen is laid out. I try to keep on top of the dishes and laundry. I wave the vacuum attachments around in the arcane signs that ward off cat hair at least once a week.

I just don't feel like it makes any difference.

Because I have stuff.

Everywhere I turn, there’s stuff. It’s on my counters and my table and my couch. It fills every cabinet and closet and drawer. It’s under my bed, and sometimes on my bed, and in my garage and every other room too. Some of it’s awesome stuff. Some of it’s Matt’s stuff. Some of it’s… hang on… what is this anyway? Where did this come from? What does it do? Why do I have this?

---

I’ve long known that I have a stronger stomach than most people when it comes to gore. Years of zombie movies have inoculated me against sights that make other people wretch. Compared to your average slasher film, those “Trauma in the ER” shows are tame: I watch with academic curiosity as people get operated on, sutured, saved from horrendous accidents. As such, I have consigned myself to the fact that there are certain shows I can only watch when my poor, sensitive husband is not in the room.

One of those shows is Hoarders, which exposes people who live with so much clutter and junk that they can’t walk through their own homes. Some can’t open certain doors or use their own kitchens, others have literally lost pets in their mess. It’s madness.

It’s like a train wreck – I’m disgusted, but I can’t look away.

When Matt is on business trips or working late, sometimes I like to curl up on the couch with a fluffy blanket and a bowl of ice cream and queue up an episode online. “I’m glad I don’t live like that,” I say to the cats, who purr contentedly in my lap.

It’s one of my guilty pleasures, the voyeuristic feeling of watching a show with no artistic merit or positive value to it, save one:

At the end of the show (or sometimes in the middle of the show), without fail, I leap from the couch, tossing aside cats and fuzzy blanket, and declare, “I have to go clean now.”

---

“Really?” a friend said when I told her about it. “It has the opposite effect on me: I watch Hoarders and then decide my house isn’t so bad and I can totally read a book instead of cleaning.”

I don’t know, you guys: I can’t stop seeing myself in the people on that show. I have stuff everywhere!

I don’t know where it all comes from. I don’t even go shopping. Still, these things accumulate. An item here, an item there, that little thrill one gets from finding the perfect product at the perfect price, and then it’s a week later and I’m looking at one of these spur-of-the-moment purchases and thinking “Why did I buy that?”

I often think about just getting rid of everything and starting again from scratch, setting up my home like the sparsely decorated beach houses in the travel magazines. I sit on the couch, glance around the living room, and plan.

Yes, indeed. Everything must go. 

Except for that picture. I really like it.

And that vase.

I should keep that throw blanket too.

And that wall hanging is actually really nice and would look great in a beach house.

And there’s that other thing …

And eventually I’ve justified keeping everything I own. Seems that all of it would look fantastic in the fictional beach house if I only arranged it properly.

The problem must be the homeowner (which in this case is me).

---

I don't really like cleaning. Nobody does.

See, cleaning is like alcohol. Nobody likes alcohol either.

(Alcohol / Cleaning) is disgusting. The first time you try it, you think it’s (gross / not fun). You wonder what all the fuss is about. Maybe you know older and wiser people who (imbibe / routinely clean up after themselves), and you look up to these people so you keep trying it.

If you stick with it, you start to notice the benefits of (the occasional drink / having a clean house) so you (develop a taste for it / just get’er done). If pressed, you’ll admit that it’s still (sort of disgusting / tedious and boring), but you like the (buzz / sense of satisfaction) you get from it.

Early on you learn that if you (drink / clean) too much at once, you’ll feel it the next day. Sometimes it’s worth it, but mostly it’s better to spread it out over time.

Of course, one mustn’t go overboard. We all have that friend who (drinks / cleans) too much. Their (life is a total mess / house is totally spotless), and that’s just not right.  These people, we all agree, desperately need Jesus, or a hobby, or an intervention.

Sometimes people have (deep-seated personal issues stemming from a lifetime of familial or societal abuse / stuff). Maybe they (lack access to reliable and affordable mental health care / don’t want to get rid of their stuff). These people use (drinking / cleaning) as a coping mechanism. Really, we should pity these poor people. Because they’re (crazy / oh heck yeah so crazy).

---

So my house is clean but it’s full of stuff.

I don’t have all the answers.

But I might go have that drink.

Find Your "This"

“I was reading your post about being a nude model,” said a friend. “I admire your courage. I could never do that.”

“It was easy, actually. I just stood there.”

“You know what I mean!” she said, laughing. “I could never be that comfortable with my body.”

I wasn’t always. Let me tell you a little story.

---

I would be alone at the beach.

Sort of.

Well, practically.

I mean, my family was going with me but they didn’t count.

I would see the ocean for the first time in my life, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how horrible it would be. I was fourteen and my family didn’t, you know, “get” me. I mean, come on! We had nothing in common! What does one even DO with these people for four freaking days?

On the phone with my friend Melanie as I packed my favorite long-sleeved shirts, I said, “I wish you could come with me. Then I’d have someone to talk to.”

“Talk about what?” said Melanie, “How boring it is to hang out in a cabin ignoring the beach? Yeah, that’d be loads of fun.”

“It wouldn’t have to be like that,” I said. “We could find something to do.”

“Chica, it’s the beach. What people DO is go to the beach.”

I sighed into the phone. “I’ll go to the beach if I can go fully clothed.”

“Uh-uh,” she said. “We’re not having this conversation again. You need to get some sun on your pasty flesh.”

It had been a boom year for my adolescent development: I was tripping over my own feet, greasy, struggling with acne. My swimsuit from last year didn’t fit anymore. In any capacity. My bra size had increased at a speed that made the economic inflation rate seem tame by comparison. “My flesh is never seeing the light of day again,” I said. “I’m converting to Vampirism.”

“Just promise you’ll do one thing for me while you’re gone, okay?” she said.

“Stop reading Anne Rice?”

“That too.”

“What else?” I asked.

“Promise first.”

“Okay.”

“Do you promise?” Melanie insisted.

“Sure, I promise.”

“For at least ten minutes, hang around completely naked.”

---

I tried to laugh her off, but she was quick to remind me I had promised. I begged, threatened, offered bribes, but I was stuck. You can’t just break a promise to one of your very best friends, not when you’re fourteen. I had plenty of time to think about it on the long drive to South Padre, fretting over a future that would either contain nudity or broken vows. I stared at my own arms for hours as we crossed Texas, lost in thought. Am I as pale as I think I am? Am I supposed to be this hairy? Good Lord, my knuckles are wrinkly - what is that even about? Every inch of me was gross, every appendage lacking in some way.

When we reached the raised beach house late in the day, after we unloaded the car, everyone but me got ready to go to the beach. “Take your time,” said Mom, trying not to pressure me. “Walk after us if you feel like it.” I watched them walk down the stairs and along the road that led to the shore, letting the curtains fall shut when I lost sight of them.

Alone, I wondered what to do with myself. I read a few chapters of a novel and checked the local cable channels, but could concentrate on neither with this geas hanging over my head.

This is ridiculous, I thought. I have to get this done so I can say it’s done.

I marched into the bathroom and stripped. This was it. I could be naked for ten minutes while everyone was gone, then tell Melanie I had done my knightly duty, fulfilled my oath. I would be safe in the bathroom where my family wouldn’t question my state of undress if they returned unexpectedly.

“Okay,” I said to myself. “We’re good here. We’re fine. This isn’t so… Oh my God, my thighs are huge.”

It was easily the biggest mirror I had ever seen. My reflected thighs were as big as posts, like something you’d find in the lumber section at Home Depot. There was nowhere I could stand where I couldn’t see them – in the tub, by the door, even perched on the toilet, my incandescent flesh overwhelmed me from every direction, shining like a beacon of Gondor. Screw this. Ten minutes is too long to have to look at that, I thought.

But… ten minutes? I looked around. There were no clocks in the bathroom. I cracked the door and peeped out, toward the only clock in the beach house, the microwave in the cabin’s kitchenette, flashing 12:00 uselessly. It was easily a mile away. My heart pounded as I lingered in the doorframe, taking deep breaths. I pictured the front door slamming open: the propriety police would bust me on multiple counts of living it up. The judge at my hearing would be stern faced. The Mission Impossible theme played in my head as I stepped toward the microwave, carrying a towel just in case, prepared to duck behind furniture for additional cover.

I fumbled with the buttons, changing the time twice before I managed to set the timer. Despite the cabin’s air conditioning on my bare skin, my face felt flushed. I went to the fridge for a root beer, immediately pressing the can to my forehead, but it hadn’t been in there long enough to cool off.

Cracking a window for fresh air, holding my towel protectively in front of me, I looked out into darkness. The sun had set while I dithered over my puritanical upbringing. Yellow streetlights illuminated the empty street below me and little else. In the deepening twilight, there wasn’t a soul in sight.

Leaning forward for a better view, I caught a glimpse of the ocean down the road. The breeze carried the mingled scents of sea and wood smoke from a bonfire somewhere. The waves lapped with a sound I had only ever heard before from white noise nature CDs, pulling my soul like a little tide.

I had a crazy thought then that couldn’t have come from fourteen-year-old me. In a moment of time-travel, I received advice from an older me, a thirty-, fifty-, eighty-year-old me, and she said, “This! This is what your friend was talking about! Not the fear, not the indecision. This is a moment you will remember forever. Do it! Do it while you’re young and stupid! This is going to make a great story someday!”

I opened the door to the balcony at the back of the house, stepped over my towel as it fell, stepped into the evening air, completely naked, and stood there for the space it took me to finish the warm root beer, leaning against the porch railing with the sounds of the ocean and the gulls, and I thought, This! This this this! at the breeze and the scents and what might have been stars behind the clouds.

Then I heard the microwave timer go off inside the cabin and I ran for my room like the coward I am and didn’t stop until I had my pajamas on. Sprawled on the bed, I buried my face in a pillow to stifle maniacal giggles and I knew – knew! – down to my bones that eighty-year-old me was right: This is a great story.

Don’t you think?

I Write the Song Titles

It was raining when I pulled up at the library the other morning, thirty degrees colder than it was the day before, made worse by the stiff wind coming down from the north. I huddled against the elements as I shuffled my key ring around to the library key, not watching where I was going.

I nearly fell over when a duck flew out of my path. A whole flock had been hanging out under the overhang by the library door. I watched them fly away toward the pond at the park.

“Inundated by ducks…” I thought. “I feel a song coming on…”

---

Guys, you won’t believe this, but my friends and I have written an album!

Or the liner notes for one, anyway.

Yeah, we’re pretty underground. You’ve probably never heard of us.

It all started about ten years ago around my kitchen table.

“Congratulations! The beast is dead. You search its den and you find the crown that will free the imprisoned god,” said Alex, our Dungeon Master for the night.

There was much rejoicing from the gathered nerds. “Awesome!” I said.

“That was a tough one,” said Matt.

“What else do we find?” asked Dave.

“Nothing,” Alex said, holding up his hands to staunch the rising protests. “I planned for you to get your reward after you free the god.”

“So I guess it would be a bad idea for me to say my character tries on the crown?” said Zach.

“His character doesn’t do that,” said Sarah. “His character does nothing and behaves admirably all the way back to the god in the basement.”

I giggled. “That sounds like a song title. ‘The God in the Basement’. Can’t you picture it? Like something you’d hear at a coffee shop, something Counting Crows would sing.”

“Maybe we should write it!” said Bridget.

We all agreed. Great idea! Let’s write a song! One of us will get right on that…

---

I thought about it.

For approximately ten seconds.

Then I forgot about it and moved on.

I’m not entirely ignorant, musically speaking. I’ve got great rhythm and I do pick around on my guitar whenever the mood strikes me.

The problem is the mood only strikes me about once a week and I can forget everything I know about music theory in three days. Every time I pick up a song sheet and try to sight read I have to recite “Elder Gods Break Dance Fabulously” and teach myself the notes all over again from scratch. It’s like if Memento was presented by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Still, I have no trouble imagining where great musicians get their ideas. Sometimes I look out over a moving event or a beautiful scene and I think, “Dude, that’s deep… I feel a song coming on…” except this thought is always followed mere moments later by “Yeah, no, I’ve got nothing.”

But I never let this stop me from writing down the song titles.

---

When Dave and Bridget took Matt and me out for my birthday, Matt and Dave both asked for kids menus so they could color and do the word search. Because they’re boys, this quickly devolved into crayon sword fights, with tragic results.

“I can’t believe you broke it!” Dave wailed.

“Dude, man up,” said Matt.

“Maybe I’ll just take the remnants of my broken crayon and go home!”

“Hold up!” said Bridget. “I think I feel a song coming on!”

---

“I nearly got my finger when I was chopping the veggies over here,” said Sarah, making a group dinner at my house one night.

“That would have been awful!” I said.

“Yeah, I’m sure no one would have appreciated blood on the carrots.” She grew quiet.

I thought about what she’d said. “No, I meant the part where you would have lost a finger…”

“What? Oh, yes. Sorry. I thought I felt a song coming on.”

---

“How did you get so good at this?” Dave asked Big Zach at the New Years party, after an amazing performance at Dance Dance Revolution.

“We had the arcade version at the theater when I worked there. Sometimes we’d play at night.”

“It’s your turn, Dave. Show us how it’s done,” Matt said.

“How what’s done? Falling down impressively?” Dave asked.

“Oh, hey! New song title!” I said, writing it down.

---

And I just kept writing them down. It’s kind of an Indie thing – I wouldn’t expect you to understand – but it’s my soundtrack. With titles like these, and the memories to go with them, we’re so hipster, we don’t even need music.

Without further ado, I now present for the first time ever, an epic musical event ten years in the making...

The Blind Cave Salamanders debut album, Lamentations on Wednesday.

Tracks:

1. The God in the Basement

2. Falling Down Impressively

3. Remnants of my Broken Crayon

4. Fear the Suburbia

5. Long walks with porpoise

6. I Blame the Scruples

7. Jogging on Broken Beaches

8. Giant Japanese Robots

9. Waiting for Haiku

10. Sauce Packet Wisdom

11. Blood on the Carrots

12. Deja Voodoo

13. Supernatural Frog

14. The Eleven and A Half Commandments

15. Paralysis by Analysis

16. Sweater Curse

17. The Muffin Crumbles

18. Mystifying Biscuits

19. Zest with a Sprig of Justice

Bonus Track: Inundated by Ducks

You can say you heard of it here before it was cool.

My Body and Me

On Mornings

Me: I have to get up now. I have things to do today.

My body: Sooo sleepy....

Me: What? No! Don't close your eyes! Don't -

My body: *honk shu*

Me: You cannot be... Seriously? I'm awake over here!

My body: *rolls over*

Me: Hello? I'm still here! Let's move!

My body: *still asleep*

Peaceful Negotiations

Me: OMG! Look at these cute clothes! I need to lose weight so I can wear them!

My body: But I like being 180 pounds!

Me: What if we do yoga everyday?

My body: That's fine, but the weight stays.

Me: What if we run three times a week?

My body: 180 pounds! Forever!

Me: What if we diet?

My body: Bitch, I will cut you.

At the End of a Hard Day

Me: Mentally exhausted. Let's just go to sleep.

My body: I'm so awake right now.

Me: Can we just lay in bed and try to sleep?

My body: Couch time!

Me: Are you even listening to me?

My body: What's on TV tonight?

Me: Fine, but if you quiz me on this later, we will fail.

My body: Ooh! He’s a pretty actor! Quick! What else have we seen him in?

Me: What did I just say?

My body: Doesn’t he look like Matt, just a little?

Me: I’m not actually watching this, remember?

On Healthy Things

My body: Check out the frosting on that donut... Oh, yeah! Lookin' good!

Me: Excuse me?!

My body: What? I wasn't doing anything.

Me: You were looking at that donut!

My body: Baby, I would never do that to you!

Me: We're supposed to be eating healthy!

My body: We do! I like healthy things!

Me: Prove it! Eat this lettuce!

My body: ...

Me: FFS!!!

On Bedtime Routines

Me: Nice hot cup of tea...

My body: Oh, thank you! That's so nice of you!

Me: How about a hot bath?

My body: That would be wonderful.

Me: Then some nice relaxing bedtime yoga?

My body: Sounds fantastic!

Me: Then we'll drift off to sleep for our early day tomorrow.

My body: Wh-what? Early? Who's getting up early?

Me: We are.

My body: Hell no.

Me: I've calculated it out. We'll be able to get a full 8 hours in.

My body: I can't go to sleep! I have plans!

Me: Please, enlighten me.

My body: ...

Me: Are you kidding me?

My body: I can lay here awake all night!

On Teamwork

Me: Okay, so first I'll make a grocery list and then start dinner. Or I'll make the grocery list while dinner is cooking. Maybe first I put on my pajamas and have some tea. Or maybe I... Hang on... How the hell did I get home?

My body: No sweat. I got this.

Me: You drove all the way home without my help?

My body: You were busy!

Me: That's not acceptable behavior!

My body: What's the big deal? I do stuff like this all the time. It's fine!

Me: Do you even know what a red light is? What did you do at the red lights?

My body: Of course I know what to do! I... wait... honestly, I don't remember if there were any red lights...

Me: !!!

Hunger Games

My body: *Growl!*

Me: Woah, there, tiger! What was that all about?

My body: I might be hungry.

Me: Might be?

My body: Yeah.

Me: You don’t know for sure?

My body: *Growl!*

Me: I’m gonna take that as a “I’m hungry.”

My body: Okay.

Me: What do we want?

My body: Don’t know.

Me: Want an apple?

My body: Meh.

Me: Boiled egg?

My body: *yawn*

Me: Make you a salad?

My body: Don’t want salad.

Me: What do you want?

My body: I really don’t know. Name off some more stuff.

Me: Chicken? Beef? Bacon? Celery? Stir Fry? Almonds?

My body: *unresponsive*

Me: If you’re waiting for me to suggest pizza you’re going to be waiting a long time.

My body: I’ll take the apple then.

Me: Thought as much.

On Yoga

Me: I can’t remember… did I pay that vet bill? How long ago was that? Should I have got a bill by now?

My body: Excuse me?

Me: That’s right. I put it on the credit card. Did I pay it off right away or do I still need to?

My body: Do you mind? I’m trying to do yoga here!

Me: Oh, sure. Don’t mind me. You keep doing what you’re doing.

My body: I really need you to be quiet.

Me: Well, just relax over there for a bit and I’ll be done in a minute.

My body: This IS how I relax.

Me: Huh? Oh! Yoga! Right. Sorry. I’ll be quiet.

My body: Really?

Me: Yeah. For real.

My body: *balanced*  *poised*

Me: I’m pretty sure I paid that off.

My body: *stumbles* If you keep talking, I WILL fall down and it WILL be your fault.

Me: Sorry! Sorry. What can I do to help? Give me a job.

My body: I guess you could focus on the breathing while I do all the poses.

Me: Consider it done!

Me: *breathing in*

Me: *breathing out*

Me: *breathing in*

Me: *breathing…*        I think I’ll wear the blue shirt tomorrow. I could wear the long blue and green beaded necklace with it. Or my turquoise butterfly. Maybe the chunky brown necklace Grandma Kay gave me for Christmas last year… Would it go with that shirt? Hmm. Maybe I should wear the dark green shirt inste-

My body: BREATHE!!!

Me: Breathing! Breathing! Sorry! I’m sorry. I’m focused now.

My body: Just stop helping me.

Do or Do Not

Me: Got my running shoes and my running pants and my running app... Let's go running!

My body: buh.

Me: We're gonna do three 12-minute miles.

My body: I totally can't do that.

Me: Of course you can! You just did it on Monday!

My body: Absolutely INCAPABLE of doing that.

Me: You did it on Friday too, remember? We felt great!

My body: I weigh 800 pounds! Whales don't run! Return me to the sea!

Me: Shut up and run or so help me...

My body: It is physically not possible! No human could do this!!!

Me: Benjamin literally runs twice as fast as I’m asking you to!

My body: He’s a space alien. You’ve seen how he eats.

Me: No food until you do this.

My body: We can’t pick up enough speed! We’ve got no dilithium crystals!

Me: That’s it. I’m done. Even my body is a nerd.

Tori's Running Playlist with Mental Commentary

Three times a week, I lace up my running shoes, put in my headphones, and go. I’m always shocked at first. Wait, I think. Why am I doing this again? But eventually I settle into a rhythm, one foot in front of the other, breathing well and steadily, and my mind begins to run alongside my body, wandering wherever the music takes me.

Today, let’s peek inside my head on a typical run, complete with soundtrack (click the links to hear the songs).

---

Chrono Trigger "To Far Away Timescapes" OC ReMix

Oh Heck Yeah! Video game soundtracks playlist! Woot! This is the music that was playing that one time when I saved the world! So catchy!

Even if the time travel doesn’t really make sense. Did these people read any Bradbury before they wrote this game?

Still, how many other video games have both dinosaurs AND robots?

Hmm… well, actually, quite a few of them do. And several novels. Doctor Who as well…

But this game still rocks! For other reasons, which I can’t think of right now.

Obviously, the soundtrack was bitchin’.

There must be other things…

You know what? I am totally not healthy enough to outrun a dinosaur. Or to engage one in combat to the death. I need to run more. Before we discover time travel.

--- 

Zelda 2 "TempleTrance" OC ReMix

Link and I have saved the world hundreds of times. Why, that one time when Matt had to work late, we saved the world together from start to finish in about four hours!

And I obviously never ever need to play that game again.

Come on, Tori. Link runs all over Hyrule all day. If he can do it, so can I.

Of course, he’s the Hero of Time and I’m not. I can cut myself a little slack.

Also, I don’t know that he runs all day at quite this pace. Possibly it’s just a light jog…

Or maybe he runs faster? I don’t know… fit people can run really fast and make it look effortless. He might be running way faster than he looks.

How would I calculate his pace?

I’d need to figure out how many miles across Hyrule is… But how?

---

World of Warcraft "Club Thrall" Myndflame

You want to talk about a character that runs all over the landscape all day, my Warcraft character did that. We’re talking hills, and snow, and sand, and inside a volcano, and that chick just kept right on running.

She sure looked good, too. And everything came in her size and looked spectacularly on her. I can’t even find a good bra.

AND she had a pet dragon to ride on. How is that even fair?

How many hours did I spend playing Warcraft before I quit? If I had spent those hours working out instead, how much faster would I be running right now?

Maybe if I had as many reasons to run as she did, I’d be more motivated? What I need are some murlocs! That’d get me running! With those teeth, and their big eyes, and their gurgling murgle… You bet your biscuits I’d run enthusiastically from those!

I could make a fortune in the fitness industry from genetically engineering murlocs. Not to mention from all the people who would pay good money for the privilege of killing them. Repeatedly.

---

Kirby’s Dreamland "Fountain of Dreams Redux" EliteFerrex

I feel like I have a lot in common with Kirby: we’re both squishy, we eat everything in sight, we gain superpowers from food, we dance when no one’s looking…

Although…

I can’t say I’ve ever gained power from consuming bits of my still-living enemies.

Damn, Kirby’s a little bit of hardcore. That’s, like, Viking berserker stuff right there. A pink, pudgy warrior out of ancient nightmares, the monster that the mommy waddle-dees warn their babies about.

Maybe King Dedede had the right idea all along. Hit it with a giant hammer.

I guess I don’t have as much in common with Kirby as I thought…

---

Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past "Farore Lies in Wait" OCReMix

Oh, yes, that’s right. Where were we?

Measuring Hyrule.

Maybe we can use the trees somehow?

If we imagine that Link is an average height, say 5’8”, and he’s standing right next to a tree and the tree is twice his height – we’ll call it a Link Length – then the tree is two Link Lengths. So when you’re far enough away from the tree that it appears to be the same height as Link, or 1 Standard Link Length, and then figure out how many seconds it takes to reach the tree, we could theoretically come up with a distance and then a pace.

Or, I could, you know, just spend all that time running more and leave the math to people who actually know what they’re doing.

Maybe I could ask an engineer? I know a few of those! I even know a few who wouldn’t look at me funny when I ask them this very crazy question!

In fact, to most of them, the craziest part of the question will be the fact that I wish to apply the knowledge to my running workout.

Yeah, I’m a bit mystified by it myself.

Things the Books Teach Me: An Education

(This was my speech for the library's annual volunteer appreciation dinner on 4/12/13. For last year's speech, click here.)

I wonder what it does to my brain, working around all these books.

I mean, have you noticed the way things change when they’re in sync? How longtime spouses grow to resemble each other, or your pets behave just like you, or how your best friend is always mistaken for your sibling? Well, sometimes, I think about my job, and how twisted and weird it is, and I wonder what this says about me. How much do I resemble the books I work with?

I often see books that resemble their topics. I’m not talking about your normal, run-of-the-mill book humor, here: Of course the book about do-it-yourself plumbing came back to the library dripping wet – it’s the sort of book one would take into a soggy environment! And of course the book about dog training was eaten by the dog, or the book about raising well-mannered children was returned with crayon damage! The uninitiated find this sort of thing humorous, but such a turn of events barely elicits comment in a librarian’s world.

No, I’m talking about the way perfectly normal books sometimes cause me to question things.

For example, I was once stumped by a Richard Scarry picture book about a character named Lowly Worm, who is just a worm. He wears clothes and a hat and a single shoe, but he’s a worm – no arms or legs. I caught myself wondering, “If he doesn’t have any hands, how does he tie that dapper tie?” and my mind has been uneasy about the subject ever since.

Another time a science book touted itself as “The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather.” I flipped through the book once, twice, a third time.

“What are you looking for?” a coworker asked.

“Hubris,” I said.

Other times the books literally ask me questions. One day, I was processing a book about women and money that, in bold letters on the back, inquired, “Why don’t women make what they’re worth?”

“Gosh,” I wondered aloud to Karyn, who was sharing the desk with me that day. “Why don’t I make what I’m worth? Could it be because I work at the library and there are budget cuts all around? Or because I work in, when you get right down to it, a nonessential service job? I mean, I love what I do and I believe in the power of reading and all that, but the fact is there will be little room for librarians on the colony ship to Mars.”

Karyn looked at me over the top of her reading glasses, eyebrows raised, but I carried on, “I’m serious. Librarianing is not an essential skill when one is populating a new planet. But those OCD housewives whose well-appointed homes are featured on all those decorating shows? They’re not getting on the colony ship to Mars either. I take great comfort in that.”

Karyn merely sighed and went back to doing actual work.

The books often cause me to imagine scenarios that otherwise would never occur to me. Once, while I was checking a book for damage before returning it to the shelf, a page fell out and fluttered to my feet.

“This book about snakes is shedding its skin!” I said.

Benjamin snatched the page from the floor. “Is it missing the page about venomous snakes?” he asked. “Can’t you just picture it?”

Without missing a beat, we dissolved into an elaborate game of pretend. I sank into my chair melodramatically. “I’m bit!”

“Quick!” Benjamin said, feigning panic, “'Which snake is the one that bit you?'“

“'I don't know!” I cried, frantically flipping pages. “It's not in the book!”

Our coworkers looked on, shaking their heads.

The books have exposed me to hobbies I never knew were hobbies. When once a giant coffee-table style art book was donated to us, I glimpsed the duck on the cover and assumed it was a book of wildlife photography, but closer inspection revealed it to be “The Great Book of Wildfowl Decoys”.

“Hang on,” I said to Kathy. “There's a whole book for that?”

She shrugged and began to flip through it with me, admiring the flocks of wooden ducks, wooden geese, wooden swans, and one lone wooden owl. Noticing that the top of one page was labeled “Connecticut,” Kathy said, “Let's find the pages for Kansas!”

To our horror and dismay, the index revealed that the decoys were not sorted by species or habitat; they were, in fact, sorted by the home states of their famous wood carvers.

“Gracious me, these people are serious!” I cried.

It was at this point that we found the appendix of “Prices at Auction” and discovered that the rustic wooden duck on the cover could fetch a cool $300,000 in the right market.

We put the book back in the donate pile and tried to forget.

Just as informative are the things the books don’t tell us. For example, we have books on introverts but none on extroverts. “Guess they’re too busy to write one,” Benjamin mused.

And also, I don’t want to alarm anybody – I mean, it could just be a coincidence – but we have no books on the Illuminati. And it might be a conspiracy. I’m just saying.

We have a nonfiction book called Death for Beginners, about planning your will and such. It fills me with questions: Is there a Death for the Advanced Learner? How about Death for Dummies if Death for Beginners is too hard?

I’d like to ask, “What makes this author a qualified expert on death?” but for all I know, he’s been through it. We get books written by dead people all the time. Robert Ludlum has been dead ten years now, but we still get a new book by him every six months or so. Benjamin and I have more than once discussed the inevitable future of the publishing industry, how someday all stories will be written not BY different authors, but UNDER different authors. Every novel will be published under a name instead of a genre. The children of this dystopia won't say “Someday I’ll be an author,” or “I want to grow up to be a novelist.” They'll say, “I want to be a Nora Roberts.” or “I’m going to be a James Patterson when I grow up.” Instead of offering degrees in British Literature or American Classics, universities will employ stuffy professors of Lee Child studies or Clive Cussler technique.

I think about books a lot, and not just their weirdness. I think of their humor, their depth, their willingness to embrace adventure. I think about their possibilities and the daring spirit with which they question the way things are, their willingness to embrace the world both as it is and as it could be.

And when I lay in bed at night, wondering what the books have done to my brain, asking myself if the books have rubbed off on me, the answer is…

God, I hope so. 

Well Endured, Part II

(For Part I, click here.)

When I looked in the mirror the other morning, what do you suppose I said to myself? Was it “Hello, sexy! All the running is doing you good. You’re looking mighty fine today”?

Sadly, no, that is not what I said to myself. That’s what I would like to say to myself. Psychologists these days go on and on about positive body image and healthy self-esteems, building yourself up through positive affirmations… I’ve really given the matter a lot of thought.

But I didn’t say any positive affirmations to my mirror the other day. On the day my 38DD appeared to be loose, I said some very naughty words followed by, “This cannot be happening! I just got this! It was too tight! It cost a fortune! Why did I take up running anyway?!”

---

Returning to Lane Bryant like an abusive relationship I just couldn’t tear myself away from, I got measured again.

“I’m showing you at precisely a 36DDD,” said the shop girl. Such conviction! Precisely that size and no other! Not between sizes anymore, praise the Lord!

Except…

“Triple D? That sounds like an impossible size to find!” I said.

“Well, you for sure won’t find it here,” said the shop girl, turning to leave the fitting room as though I no longer interested her. “Our smallest size is a 38.”

---

Oh my God! Ten years we had together! Sure, there were ups and downs, but we had had a pretty good thing. I couldn’t believe Lane Bryant was breaking up with me!

Now, I would have to find a new store. I would have to go shopping in places I had never shopped before…

I could change! I could gain back all that weight I’d lost! Don’t do this to me, Lane Bryant! Let me stay at the plus size store! I’m so bad at shopping! I don’t even know which stores are likely to carry bras! Especially a bra with so many letters in it!

---

In the only other bra store I could think of, Victoria’s Secret, I wandered the aisles like a soul in purgatory, lost among bras made of too much lace and not enough elastic. People joke about how Victoria doesn’t have many Secrets left, but she still has one: namely, the secret to wearing bras that look like that because, obviously, wearing it like a bra could never actually work.

I was mystified. Where were the bras with the reinforced backs and padded straps and extra wide bands? Why should I care if my bra is sexy? The only man who ever gets to see it is allowed to see me without it, and I'll generously give you three whole guesses as to which view he prefers.

When the shop girl approached me, I worried she might ask me what the Secret is, like it’s a closely guarded password. I wouldn’t know the Secret and wouldn’t be allowed to shop there. Instead, she only asked, “Can I help you?”

“Lane Bryant kicked me out because I lost weight,” I said.

“Congratulations!” she said, more brightly than I felt. “What sort of style are you looking for?”

“A supportive one,” I said.

She stared at me, smile slipping, as if awaiting more. There wasn’t more. “Okay,” she said finally. “And what size do you wear?”

I told her. She pulled a few samples out of a labeled drawer and steered me toward a fitting room. Grabbing a marker for the dry erase board on the door, she said, “And can I have your name?”

I thought, briefly, about making something up, but it seemed ridiculous just then to lie to someone who already knew my bra size, so I told the truth. “It’s actually Victoria.”

We stared at each other for a long beat.

“The humor of this has not escaped me,” I said.

“Okay, then,” she said, writing it down. “I’ll be back to check on you in a few minutes.”

Alone in the fitting room, I looked at the bras she had set out for me, all shear lace and anorexic cotton straps. It looked like if I pulled one taught it would snap into dozens of wispy ephemeral pieces like a flash frozen daisy. I was sure it didn’t stand a chance against the gravity of my situation.

Trying them all on only proved me right. “How are we doing?” the shop girl asked, knocking on my door.

“Are you sure these are all the same size?” I asked.

“Yes. Why?”

Back in my own clothes already, I opened the door to show her the offending bras. “I’m falling out the top of this one but the band fits well. The band is too small on this one, but the cups are the right size. And this one is the right size but the underwire is trying to stab my lungs.”

“Oh, it’s normal for all of our bra styles to fit differently depending on your body type. You’ll just have to try on everything in your size to find the style that fits you best.”

Hmm, yes, trying on different styles to see what fits, I thought. I’ve heard of this before… what was it called? Oh, yes: Sizes.

“Are you sure that’s the right size for you?” the shop girl asked. “When was the last time you were measured?”

“About ten minutes ago, at Lane Bryant.”

Her face flickered between emotions. I caught her sneer before she got it under control. “Well, different stores measure these things differently,” she said, thus explaining why the women’s underwear industry has a standard sizing system in place to begin with. (I’m so glad we cleared that up.) “Why don’t I just measure you again?”

I sighed, but relented.

“Well,” she said, clucking her tongue. “It looks to me like you could wear either a 36 or a 38.”

“If there’s no such thing as a 37, we’re done here,” I said.

“No, that’s not a thing,” she replied, in an eerie echo of the Lane Bryant shop girl six months before.

“Thanks for your help,” I said. “I can see myself out.”

Keep your secrets, then, I thought. Some things are not worth knowing.