Book Love

When I was in my early teens, I'd go to the local public library with my dad. I'd rummage around on the "new fiction" shelf, and the "adult fiction" (as opposed to the YA fiction, which I found tedious in multiple dimensions), and maybe look something up with the catalogue. I'd end up with a stack of books, and sitting in the car with that stack always gave me a little thrill. I'd read the first couple of pages of a few of the books, or look again at the description on the inside jacket flap, and I'd decide on an order in which I'd read the books, saving what i thought would be the best book for last.

It turns out that, 35 years later, I still do this.

I zipped down to the library late yesterday afternoon, expecting to pick up one book that was on hold for me and finding that two others had come in as well, and I stood on the train platform and started doing that surveying-my-haul thing.

While rummaging through the library's online catalogue, I stumbled across Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, about his hiking on the Appalachian Trail. I have had to be careful where I read the book, because he makes me laugh out loud--he is a very good writer, and it's extremely funny. (He could use a good editor or spellcheck program, though; I've found three or four egregious typos.) I highly recommend that particular book, and I'm definitely going to find some of his other stuff as well.

The other thing I found online recently is a bakery-cam. Yes, that's right; there is now a live webcam in the back of the bakery where I worked. It's more a stop-action cam--it updates every 10 seconds or so, rather than being a continuous feed--but still. I just peeked in and saw Phil and Bossman making rolls (it looks like they have a new roll divider; I'll have to ask him about that). I have to say that watching it the other day made my stomach clench a little bit: I look at it, and I am nothing but happy that I'm not doing that any more. In fact, being away from it for a year (and being able to watch it on my monitor) has made me realize just how much I hated working there by the time I left, for a combination of reasons.

I liked the people, and I even liked a number of aspects of the work, but I got up every morning and had to will myself to not think about how much I didn't want to be doing it. That kind of numbing isn't good for anyone. I've had office jobs where that was true, too--I think it's unavoidable, no matter what you do; that's why they call it "work" and why they have to pay you to do it--but I never felt anything like I did at the bakery. I think it was the combination of low pay and physically taxing work, along with the knowledge that I had absolutely no future either there or in that line of business generally, that made it so depressing.

And as for today's rant:

Burger King has now managed to completely piss me off with a second ad campaign. The current one has these two guys, one with a bag full of their new mini burgers. He tells his buddy to watch, and shows the bag to a woman, who proceeds to squeal idiotically over them, about how cute they are, etc., as if (a) the burgers are babies and (b) all women squeal uncontrollably at the sight of something small and cute. It is beyond annoying. Their previous campaign featured the announcer saying something like, "people are going to bed hungry tonight," or something like that, the solution being BK's new late hours. It was beyond offensive. Got news for you, Idiot Ad-Writer: many people are going to bed hungry because they can't afford food.

I know! Let's cut taxes! THAT will work, for sure! Or at least that's what the idiot Republicans will tell you. I can't even write about politics, because it will make my keyboard explode. (If I could lose weight by ranting, I'd have it made.)