once a reader

Back from our vacance de l’anée to Cancun. I will post about it at length in time. I was hungover on my first day back at work from half a glass of diluted absinthe I enjoyed in M’s company the night before. I don’t regret the alcohol; if anything, I regret not calling in sick to work; but the universe’s balance was quickly restored when I fell sick later that evening and was forced to call in sick on Friday. My dad and brother also fell sick around the same time apparently, so it was definitely something we caught in Mexico or on the way back. Lest I be accused of malingering, I was forced to miss my piano recital on Saturday, which I was really broken up about, because I’d thought I’d have two modest new performances to post on social media at the end of it. Maybe some other time.

No matter how many times I’ve been sick (and it’s been a lot of times over the history of this blog), I’m never prepared for how mind-numbingly boring it can get self-quarantining and abstaining from exercise and other vigorous activity. I decided to go for a walk yesterday evening, terminating at this quaint second-hand bookstore on Capitol Hill called Twice-Sold Tales that I’d passed numerous times on my runs but never visited. The place exceeded my expectations. The inside was a maze of floor-to-ceiling bookcases (not that the ceiling was high), making it feel as if the modest space had been folded in on itself twice or thrice over to make more room for books.

The owners’ cats had free rein of the bookstore, with perches and beds stuffed away among the books throughout the store. If I didn’t know better, I’d think some of them were browsing for books just like the rest of us. It seemed that patrons visited equally for the books and to follow the cats around.

I was a little dismayed to find that books no longer moved me as they once did, say ten or fifteen years ago. Now when I came across an interesting title, my first thought is, “There’s no way I’m finishing this.” I came close to buying a parallel English and Latin collection of Julius Caesar’s writings but was stopped by that thought. What happened to becoming an expert on Ancient Rome? The velleity has faded away. What about the collection of American news articles covering World War 2 from 1938 to 1945? Interesting to be sure, but would I really have time to sit and read it for hours? Ultimately, in a desperate attempt to find my lost fire, I sought out Wodehouse, of which I’m happy to report, there was a small collection of books that I’d never read, and bought a couple. Perhaps Wodehouse will show me the way back to books.