Among the awesome Christmas presents I received this year, I had requested this new volume of selections from Thoreau’s journal. I own the only complete edition currently available (the huge ones from Dover), which were birthday presents from my wife and from my parents five years or so ago. I’m infinitely fond of them, but they are a bit…unwieldy. I have a few of the selections, including the Odell Shepard edition (excellent) and the Dover Thrift edition (which I bought after a thunderstorm in July 2003, at Walden Pond, the day before we moved away from Boston). These make great gifts, great reading on a camping trip or train ride. But they can be so short! I’m hoping this new volume is as great as it sounds. It’s on my nightstand right now, though I’m well into The Road to Oxiana right now.
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Last weekend, in Philly, we went bookstore hunting, among other things. I had written down a lot of stores and addresses. We only actually went to two of them: Book Trader in Olde City, where I went in August when I was there for a week; and House of Our Own, an independent shop in West Philly.
House of Our Own had a second floor full of used books. Within two minutes of getting there, I had an arm full of Michael Chabon and was mourning having to leave behind Hemingway’s works on bullfighting. I’ve seldom been to such an organized bookstore, and the lady working there was incredibly nice. They had sections for everything: American Radicalism, Economics, Ecology, Eco-Economics, Peace Studies, Nonviolence, Gandhi (!), Community Organizing, etc.
Our train was leaving shortly, and we had a long walk to get there. So I didn’t get to check out the first floor or hang out in the reading nook. They put bookmarks in the books for you, which is one of my favorite things. I buy a lot of books when I travel, and it’s nice to remember where I got them.
I have always been both fascinated by and obsessed with drinks. Not alcoholic ones, mind you. Beverages. When I was a kid, I was always always thirsty. I needed juice or soda or milk constantly. I realize now that it was because I could literally not stand to drink water until I was 20 years old and was probably mildly dehydrated all the time. I think I’ve mentioned that I’m 29 and have been drinking coffee consistently for about 21 years, daily for 20. I’m American, so you know I’ve had my share of Coke. Etc.
So I began reading A History of the World in Six Glasses last night, and I am enjoying it immensely. I was tempted to consume the beverage in question while reading the six parts. Still am. But I read for my lunchtime whenever I can, and I can’t very well get tanked at work. (That only happens when I need to talk to someone and have to track them down at a community happy hour and — poor me — have to drink beer in the afternoon……..trying to think of who I can track down this week……..) Perhaps after the third part, when the drinks under examination are coffee, tea and Coke, I can indulge.
I wish I could sit home with a good book on a day like today. I like my job. Here I am, hyped up on coffee and with a few minutes to spare. And I’m blogging on company time, on a computer that is supposed to be “monitored.” But, like I said, I like my job. A lot. Being a VISTA is great, and I have a nice little office with nice people in nice little offices up here on the top floor. I have a lot of lunch meetings, but not today. Today, I get to do my favorite thing aside from biking up to Charles Village to meet Mrs. P.: get a coffee/snack and hole up in my office for an hour reading a good book. It’s a good way to spend lunchtime.
I wussed out and took the bus to work today. I rode the bus three days last week, but that’s because The Duke was tire-less. I’ll ride my bike in the rain, and I have. But “severe storms” — no. Not if I don’t have to. Not today. The bus picks me up outside my apartment building and drops me at Penn Station, across Charles Street from my office. It’s a good deal. I am soaked now from a coffee run with a co-worker. My sandals are on the AC vent drying. My bike is at home with new rim tape, new tubes and new tires with frikkin Kevlar in them. I feel like I’m cheating or being disloyal.
I am tired. I went to see Candlebox with my brother Sunday night, tickets to which show (along with a Tshirt) were my birthday gift. It was a hell of a lot of fun, but I was beat yesterday. Yesterday, I worked from 9am – 8pm and ate pasta and green beans when I got home and watched TV and went to bed. I’m still tired, but that could be the weather now that I think of it.
This blog got all “this happened, and I did this, etc.” all the sudden.
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