Usually pajamas until noon puts me in a funk - first there is the exhilaration of such an unlikely, irresponsible circumstance, and the absurdity of my unkempt self in the late morning sunlight. Then, there is the guilt. I think about women who wake up at 6 am, work out, shower, and head off to work looking like the Queen of Sheba or at least like Vana White on an average day. Finally, I am hit by a wave of discomfort, which comes from all directions when I realize that I am not clean, wearing no makeup, have hair that looks like it got caught in the vacuum, and need to get my life together and get going with the day.
But yesterday, I was peaceful. Clad in my new men's pajamas from Marshall's (thank you Santa, they are LONG enough! and bamboo!), I curled up on the couch with my new book and felt blissfully, entirely happy.
I mentioned this book in my post yesterday - Girl Meets God, by Lauren F. Winner. A college fair representative recommended this memoir to me about three years ago at Minnehaha. She had asked me about my interests, and I told her English and writing. Then she recommended this book. I remember scrawling it down on the college brochure she had handed me, and then keeping that brochure not because I was interested in the college but because of the book recommendation. Honestly, I have no idea which college this woman was from. All I know is that, three years later, I rediscovered the book on a Christian blog, checked it out from the library, and am thanking her for her sweet suggestion. Because I cannot put this book down. It is making me want to become an Episcopalian, bake challah bread, read the Mitford series by Jan Karon, move to New York City, and transform myself into a nerdy brainiac who reads books on Friday nights for fun. (Read the book, and this will all make sense.)
I love that great books still have the ability to transport me somewhere else. I love that I can be sitting on the leather couch in our living room completely unaware of anything that is going on around me, the voices on the radio, the smell of dinner coming from the kitchen. This semester only a few books did this for me - Frederick Douglass' autobiography took me away, and moments of Uncle Tom's Cabin did the same. But nobody else could hold my attention so fully.
I've missed this feeling, this utter consumption in literature, this complete diversion that is reading.
mitford series = great! i've read the first one. i need to re-read it and then move on to the rest of the series once my uncle figures out where he put the 2nd book.
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