Sleeping with Books

I read slowly. I taste every word, letting it flow over my tongue. I re-read passages I like. Where do the words go? Tell me if you know.

Current bedside companion is All of J D. Salinger, of course. Forget Catcher in the Rye. Too sad. Too heart-breaking. Am reading all his novellas and short stories, each published in the New Yorker during the 1950s and 60s.

When I open Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters to the title page I shriek with joy. The fonts! The typeset! Little, Brown and Company. I don't even mind that the librarian has penciled in a numeral on the bottom of the page, O Librarians of the World, you are so constrained by your damn rules, but, look so am I - "no food allowed in the middle of the night, only water."

Here is the joy-soaked dedication page of this bedside companion, Ruth Deming typing it in right now for the love of my readers:

If there is an amateur reader still left in the world - or anybody who just reads and runs - I ask him or her, with UNTELLABLE AFFECTION [Ruth's caps] and gratitude, to split the dedication of this book four ways with my wife and children.

[Said wife, by the bye, divorced him 2 yrs later by saying if she hadn't she would've been driven crazy. Oh, don't I know the feeling. In my case, I would've continued to live in a prison.]

Hopefully Raise High the Roof Beam is free of popcorn stains. That would be from the grease - olive oil. I told you I don't compromise when it comes to taste, only husbands.

Scott said to me when he came in from the cold at 9 am, How can you sleep with your legs in the air.

They're not actually in the air, they're crossed ladylike at the knees. It's so my sciatica doesn't get to me.

His most important job today is Catching up on his sleep. Sleep deficit rides with him all week and is made up on the weekends.

Did you make a copy of my Verizon bill?

Yep, he said, plus I left you a treat on the table. (Two-inch high stack of backs. No, not greenbacks, you greedy summa bitch, work orders.

Sample: Brush paint the flange area of all wheels trued. Let dry before moving the vehicle.

When he slipped beside me, we talked a few. Didja finish Huck Finn?

I tried to. I've only got 2.5 pages left but I hadda get off the train.

Shame. Great book. Whatcha gonna read next?

He doesn't know. He's got a stack of em we bought at Atlantic Books at the seashore. Impossible to believe we ever vacationed religiously at the shore.

On one of the 8 bulletin boards around the house I have an ad from my favorite shore hotel, the one with the indoor pool. Impossible to believe I even KNOW HOW TO SWIM or do anything other than type.

When I write, I'm always in the here and now. When I paint, my life flows before me like unending snow. Salinger uses the word unstoppable, I think. We pick up words from the greats.