Jeremiah's School of Levitation

As something of a trick question, I often ask people what they think the most important building in town is. The answers I get range from city hall, to the mall, to Starbucks, but rarely do I get the RIGHT answer, which is, the LIBRARY. To me, it's always the most beautiful, most prestigious, and most useful building in town. The vast collection of knowledge and inspiration there is akin to living inside the brains of a zillion people and, yes, is even more satisfying than the Web simply because I can put all that knowledge into my hands, creep off to a musty corner, hide myself in stacks of that knowledge, and do some serious, back-hunched, eye-squinted, paper-fume-inhaling reading.

In fact, I love the library so much that I try to stay out of it as much as possible. For two reasons. First, I no longer have the time to actually engage in the fantasy that I just spoke of a paragraph ago, so to go there makes me nostalgic for the time when I could really spend all day in there and not have to explain myself when I got home. Second, when I do go in, I can't help myself, and I check out enough books to fill my passenger seat, and then I promptly go home and keep them out for six months. Because, like I said, I don't have time to engage in the fantasy of reading a bunch of books, but that doesn't seem to stop me from THINKING I can. So, in effect, I end up keeping a bunch of books of which I can only read the first 20 pages of, and, six months later, I'm owing the library enough money to finance a librarian's vacation to Hawaii.

So, on my last trip, I finally put shackles on my fantasy and only checked out one book, then I sprinted from the library as if all the other books were chasing me, trying to pry my library card out of my pocket and check THEMSELVES out.

"Aha!," I said, to no one in particular. "I've finally beaten the affliction!" I got one book, I got out, and, I'll finish it and I'll return it in time. In a mere three weeks from now, I'll jog in slow motion to the return bin, slip the book in, and turn around and do a Rocky dance on the front porch. The librarians will all emerge from the shelves, still in slow motion, and they'll gather behind me and clap and nod as I Rocky-dance. Zoom in to my gleeful face, bouncing up and down. Freeze frame. Slow fade.

Yeah, right.

Yesterday, I get an email from the library. "You owe 26.75 on your recent checkout. Please return the book immediately to avoid being reported to collections." 26.75 (actually, only 14 bucks of that is the fine--the rest is a fee for losing the book, if that's what I did, which I didn't--I know I didn't lose it because I'm still reading it)! After three weeks, the late fee is something like 15 cents a day! Do the math! Then, tell me the answer because I'm too embarrassed to do the math myself!

That's a personal one-book record for me. I'm however, not proud of that. And, my wife is just baffled (to put it nicely) at my lack of library responsibility.

All this means, you say, is that I should just buy books. Well, I do that too. I have a whole shed full of used books that I'll read probably in the summer of 2020.

I think the remedy is to just stop reading. Just listen to podcasts, books on tape, and only read the hot link headlines on Cnn.com.

That way, I can stay out of collections, which will help assure that I don't get kicked out of that other important building in town--my house.

I have the same affliction, and I buy the books. But now I have enough books to make my own library, and would need to spend 18 hours a day reading before I die of very, VERY old age!

Oh yeah, and $14 divided by 15 cents a day is 93.3 days.

My book illness manifests itself in used book stores. I buy all these books, read many of them, and the rest follow me around the house hoping for some attention.

Then i box them up and take them back to the used bookstore where i ger 5 cents for a book i paid 7.95 for.

Do THAT math.

I suffer the same affliction.

The Seattle library is also the most important building architecturally speaking, imho, but I'm all about the books.

I just go to Powell's and walk in, shaking like I'm going for a fix. I LOVE the smell of books, but I think booksmelling is (hands down) Badoozer's territory. It's almost embarrassing. I can't take her anywhere near a book when she visits me.

I've never been to the library up there. I bet it has a Starbucks.

What's the fee for showing up late for dinner?

First, that's me with books wherever you get them. Moving to Quebec has helped curb my problem as there are only a few English bookstores and they are full of romance novels and tripe. So Amazon gets my business but slowly. I do however miss that Library up your way and Twice Sold Tales...mmm.

Second, as I was reading this, especially the first paragraph, I conjured the image in my head of that library scene in City of Angels. Love that scene.

Oh, man, I have the problem. I love, love, love the library, and always have. The fine issue kept me out for a time, but now that I actually have to walk past the library on my way home from work, it has sucked me back in.

I feel you, J. I did part of my growing up in a small town. For a 13-year-old who didn't play organized sports, there was little to do but ride a bike or hang out at the library. So I did both.

Most Saturdays during the summer, I hopped on my Schwinn 3-speed with the twin wire baskets mounted across the rear fender, and I rode across town to the library. There, I spent the day listening to old scratchy Bill Cosby records and digging around in the unabridged dictionary that seemed nearly as thick as half my height. One day, I tried to ride my bike down the front steps and learned that the key to riding down steps is to commit. Which I didn't, making the ride home a painful, swollen one.

These days, I'm lucky if I can focus long enough to finish one novel a year--unless it's a real page turner. Seems like I spend all my time sucks into the computer and not reading.

But there was a time as late as 1984 when I still spent a lot of hours in the company of books. I know this because I recently found the following among pages of self-indulgent scribblings in a not-quite-blank book:

Ebon ink stains virgin page
With the range of our emotions
Not lost as sand thru memory's fingers
But soaked into the very fiber of time
Giving weight and substance--
Permanence--
To thought

Even now, I can pick up a book, flip through the pages, and think to myself, "Somebody created this from his (or her) own thoughts. And now it's solid. I can carry those thoughts around or put them on a shelf, and later I can go back and read them again. That's so cool."

Foo, I did the same thing, only the library had a lovely banked concrete slab wall around it that was great for bicycling, until the old lady next door came out and threatened to call the police. But the libraries in old small towns were once a great place for kids to hang out. I'm not sure so many do that anymore.

i wonder what you're like at hollywood video? got a couple dvd's from 1999 rolling around in your car?

I was a library junkie when I couldn't afford to buy the books but it was always a conscious effort to return them on time. When finances permitted, the library trips became few and far between and were mostly research related for the children's school projects.

For me, I read on average about 10 - 20 books a year. It usually takes about 1 - 1.5 weeks for me to finish it and I usually do not start the next one right away - because there is also the business of having a life to attend to - other things that demand one's attention.

I squeeze in reading by taking time for me. I ride Transit to and from work so I have on average about an hour or more to read each day, if I choose to. There are also nice soaking tubs and a lazy day in bed under the covers every now and then to keep the pages turning.

Libraries are small pieces of heaven. I frequent mine (and I do mean frequent) because if I bought enough books to keep me busy, I'd bankrupt myself.

Then I discovered the e-library. The collection is small, but you can't run up fines, because they automatically corrupt the file on the due date and "check it back in". Find out if your library has that, or move to New York. :)

Oh, and let me know when you're clearing out your shed. :)