Repressing my inner Book-Lover

Can you see the three stacks of books? Okay, let me explain what you're looking at. Stack one: Books I am currently reading for fun. Stack two: Books I want to read. Stack three: Books I have to read for school.

Hello, my name is Brooke, and I have a problem. And the problem is greater than my desk being too small to house all these paperbacks, along with my laptop, writing utensils, and the occasional pileup of dirty coffee mugs.

It all started with a trip to the Herrick County Library. My first trip there. They had a Spanish movie I needed to watch for class that Van Wylen lacked, so I trekked over in the snow one Friday morning. Got a library card (and a tiny little card for my keychain - did you know libraries did that nowadays? They certainly didn't when I got my first library card about 14 years ago!). And I ended up leaving with more than just the Spanish movie, of course. Leaving the library with just one book/movie is like trying to just eat one chip or one peanut m&m - not possible. Or trying to just spend two minutes on facebook - "I'll just check my profile and sign off." YEAH, RIGHT, YOU WILL! What a ridiculous thought. The quiet voice of reason that sometimes pipes up when I do rash things murmured, "Brooke, you know you don't have time to read the 2011 Best of the Small Presses, nor do you have time to read the Best Christian Writing of 2004 or listen to Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal on C.D. Stop. Just take the movie and leave."

Did I listen? I wish! I trekked back to my dorm in happy oblivion of the unhealthy addiction I was feeding with every barcode scanned.

Then, I went to Van Wylen one night after work intending to do homework. Of course, I got distracted by the shelf of new releases on the first floor. Twenty minutes later, I was plopped down in an armchair, practically comatose, flipping through a stack of books on grammar and pro-life activism with a nagging sense of wrongdoing. Like when you open the package of pop tarts and eat one, and then stare at the other one and tell yourself that pop tarts are a really nutritious snack.

I went to the library again the other night. Ugh! Why? Had I finished the books I got before? Of course not. But out I came into the cold night with a delighted smile and three new books.

The problem with being an English major is that when you're an English major, reading books that are not assigned for homework makes you feel very very guilty. This is a horrible, horrible thing - reading books should never induce guilt. Half of the world never even picks up a book on a daily basis - we who do should be proud. But when my time is limited and I have to read 15 Shakespeare plays this semester, it's probably not in my best interest to curl up with a novel. Or when I haven't emailed Grandma back, or figured out which 4-credit lab I want to take this summer (correction: have to take), or haven't sat down with the most important of books, my Bible, for a couple days.

It's not in my best interest to read for fun.... or is it? Maybe the time investment in good literature is always worth it. Maybe this English major needs to calm down, embrace the disease, and succumb. Maybe books are not an evil distraction from real life, but the best distraction possible...

Maybe it's about snagging the extra minutes of free time once the vital things of the day have been accomplished and feeding the book-lover in me. That book-lover in me is the sole reason I am an English major, anyhow. And if she continually gets reprimanded for her excessive library card use, she will be a very confused, sad English major indeed.