Dear Books,
I know you've been waiting patiently for my attention. Some of you have been sitting in your stack for months now. I see you there in your various boxes or on the shelf that I provided for you in this new house. And then you see new books arrive and wonder if you'll be pushed back yet again. Don't worry. Things have changed quite a bit in the last two weeks. While before July 16th I was on a pace to read over 100 of you by year's end, a pace that would have been amazing considering my track record of long periods of drought and procrastination, I'm now wondering if I'll finish more than a half dozen in what remains of the year.
Take solace, it's not only you that will have to suffer. The blog which has been a center of my attention for three years now is feeling a similar despair. Every day that goes by since the 16th has been a struggle for me work up enough energy, whether it be from lack of sleep or lack of inspiration or a combination of both, to add not just quantity but quality to Syntax of Things. This post, for instance, took three hours for me to finish. See, Marlie seems to be a morning person and by that I mean she likes to be held and paid attention to in the morning. Because Elaine takes the night shift, I have mornings and unless I can figure out a way to type with one hand while holding Marlie with the other, all the while talking to her and rocking her and making sure that her head isn't banging against the desk, then it'll probably be this way for a while.
And you, books, being a major part of what I do on SoT, can only be further collateral damage in this war for attention. Just think, I haven't posted a single thing about Madonna in weeks despite the fact that she's been in the news a lot recently.
Of course, it's not all bad news. The afternoon before Elaine went into labor, I read half of the stories in Ander Monson's Other Electricities, a collection I've been wanting to read since it was picked by the LBC. Loved the book. But when I tried to pick it up in the hospital the day after Marlie arrived, I found the complexities of the story a little too much for a mind saturated with so many other thoughts. I had my own schemata and diagrams of a future with a child, my child, rushing around in my shocked brain, so adding ones from fiction seemed an improbable task. Thus Monson's book has been put on hold for a few weeks and my urge to finish it is great. In the meantime, I've picked up Robert Sullivan's Cross Country. I'm nearly halfway through its 400 or so pages. I wish it were more of a page turner, wish that Sullivan would spend more time on the 21st Century roads, but I'll give him credit for his passion for the cross-country trip and its historical significance. After that, I have plans. Not just to get back to my reading, but the reviews must follow. I promise.
And just think, when Marlie, who is crying again, who wants to be held or fed or changed, when she grows up, you books may receive a second life. She may ask me for something to read and I'll tell her, "This is what I was reading when you were first born."
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