4:40 a.m. - Friday, Jan. 17, 2003
Ms Leslie... a Friend of the Library!
Did I mention that I joined the Friends of the Library the other day? Had I known our Library was feeling that lonesome, I would have joined earlier. I�ve seen the Library, of course. From the outside, it showed no indications of loneliness at all. Even on those occasions when I�ve gone in to spend some time flipping through the magazines I would never buy, the Library seemed not overly busy, but content.
Now I realize it was all a courageous show, and how it really must be an awful feeling, a lonely feeling, to be so desperate for friendship that you loan books� little pieces of yourself, really, to strangers, just so you can see a friendly face or two. But then to have those same people who were all smiling and happy to find a book they wanted�.. to have them just ignore you. To make you call them and send cards begging for your own book to come back to its rightful owner. It�s kind of demeaning, don�t you think? I guess I�d feel taken advantage of too.
So I went to the Library with Ann the other day. Yes, it�s the same Ann who gives my detractors hell in my guestbook. She makes a good friend, but I�d hate to be on her bad side. She has this special move. It�s called a �step-over toe-hold�, wherein she will step on your toe to keep you in one place while she slaps the living dogshit out of you. It�s disorienting to say the least. Ask me how I know.
She wanted a book from the library and as we went in, we noticed a used book sale at the back, so we stopped to browse the stacks of outdated and excess books piled on four long rows of folding library tables. Under the watchful but polite supervison of two ladies even older than myself, I pored over the titles until I had selected several I thought I could own: �A Natural History of Homosexuality�, by Francis Mark Mondimore. I�ll leave it up to you to wonder if the author was gay and if so, whether his name had any influence over that. �The Arts of Costume and Personal Appearance�, by Grace Margaret Morton, �Diane von Furstenberg�s Book of Beauty�. How to become a more attractive, confident and sensual woman�, by�..(ahem) Diane von Furstenberg. And �Wrinkles: How to Prevent Them, How to Erase Them�, by Lida Livingston and Constance Schrader.
You heard me correctly. How to ERASE THEM! According to these two geniuses, we can erase our wrinkles through facial exercises and the judicious use of a hot spoon, used like an iron to smooth those babies back down where they belong. Oh how I wish THAT were so. But whether or not the hot spoon treatment works, the book is full of facial exercises that probably do help, and lots of good ideas on skin care in general.
Total cost so far: $2.00. And I�m not even a friend yet. I might have gotten a break if I�d made friends first with the Library.
While I was choosing my books, the two ladies at the paying table� ovbiously close and long time friends of the Library, were quibbling over a cookbook, trying to decide if it was proper for the one lady to buy it, or if she was duty bound to wait until after the sale. When I took my books up to pay, I asked her about the cookbook. It was �Beatrix Potters�s Country Cooking Cook Book� by� now don�t get ahead of me�.. Sara Paston Williams. As it turns out, Beatrix Pottor could just barely manage to fry bacon and boil potatoes. But the book is filled with fabulous pictures of some amazingly good English food as well as some wonderful Beatrix Potter illustrations. It was a steal at five dollars, and the lady who had been holding it insisted that I buy it. So I did.
It was then that I was introduced to the Friends of the Library. It cost five dollars to become a friend, but I thought, �why not? I�ve paid a lot more than that for friendships before. And so now I will get a newsletter, telling me all about what the friends are doing, when the next sale is, and how I can help my Library out once in a while. I think it�s going to be good for the library and good for me. I suppose I�ll never actually get to meet the library, but I�ll get to hang out some with the other friends of the library. Judging from the two ladies I met, it�s going to be an excellent chance for me to be the youngest girl in the crowd for once.
I can hardly wait.
And you thought my life wasn�t interesting?
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