Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Then I Remembered, & Enough!

Bruce Springsteen at Obama's final rally
If you were a columnist, would you like your photo or a twee caricature to appear with your column?  

I don't normally think about such non-issues, but it was a distraction from the local paper's misreporting of election results. 


Then I remembered.  I have a blog.  It's very lucky, or I might have had to occupy the carapace of the dying newspaper and offer my editing skills.

The campaign seemed to last forever this year.  I missed Obama's appearance with Bruce Springsteen Monday night, because I thought the character who told me about their scheduled stop was joking, but I did the more important thing Tuesday when I voted for Obama and the Democrats. I voted out of a sense of responsibility and patriotism, but also out of depression and fear of what I perceive as the Republicans' threat to democracy.  Although I considered the election important, I briefly, sadly, paradoxically considered staying home from the polls, because the months and months of vitriolic political ads had pushed me almost beyond endurance.  I wonder if others also are irked by the expensive ugly ads.

I turned off the TV, and then I went to vote. I didn't get one of those cute "I Voted" stickers. 



The election is over, many of my people won, and now I can go back to what I do.

And that means a new reading system!

Nothing to do with politics, unless I want to read a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt.  


My new reading system is called Reading What Is Already in the House.  We have so many amazing books, and I realized the other day that I need to catch up with what is on our shelves.  I have so many of "last year's books," and I can wait for the paperback, or at least till Christmas, for the  new Ian McEwan, Alice Munro, and Louise Erdrich.    

Do you feel like this after a political election?  That you need some days to live quietly like your mother or grandmother?  Wouldn't they have been over-excited to know they had missed, say, Sinatra on the road with Kennedy?  Wouldn't they have settled down for a few days with a comforting copy of Bess Streeter Aldrich's A Lantern in Her Hand?


Back to my system....The first book tomorrow is... either by a woman or a man.  I'll let you know!

Pax! 

4 comments:

Alex said...

I get this feeling about once every six months. There are so many books staring at me from the shelves even as I type that I haven't yet read and I feel I am doing them a dis-service. The trouble is while I'm out today someone is bound to say to me 'have you read......?' and I shall be straight off to the library to find a copy. I hope you're more successful than I have ever been. You might spur me on to better things.

Frisbee said...

Yes, I already want one or two books I made the mistake of reading about. It would be good for me to stop reading reviews for six months!

Belle said...

Oh Frisbee. This year I have tried to read from my own bookshelves and then I keep buying books and have to add them to the pile. And what to do about the growing list of titles mined from reviews and blogs and recommendations by friends that I want to borrow from the library?

Sigh.

This book life is not for sissies!

Frisbee said...

No more reading book reviews! It's the only way.