More than once, today, I checked the contents of my hipster man-satchel, a sideslung messenger bag meant for boys two-thirds my age, half my weight, and twice my coolness quotient. I was making sure it was there. Not my coolness quotient, but the book. It was there, of course. I put it there, last night, after midnight, after the month began. Ulysses, a very famous novel. A novel I will be carrying with me for the next month. So that I can read it.
I did not read it today, nor do I expect to read it tomorrow, nor even on Saturday, which automatically demotes this month from a December to a February, and not even a leap-year February, at that. But I did have the book with me today, and that means the month has begun, the clock is ticking, etc, etc, and etc. Sunday I may open the book. I may feel the opening pages with my winter-chapped fingers, I may flip through the pages, feeling the breeze fanning off their edges. I may, then, elect to take a nap. It has been a very long year, and I'm short what feels like a couple hundred hours of sleep.
I'm beginning to suspect I did not think this plan through very well, not very well at all.
(More as more becomes available.)
3 comments:
Dear God, why are you reading that book when there are, like, good books out there!
I once slept with Notes from the Underground under my pillow for six months. Still didn't finish it.
Occasionally I assign something from my list of the Great Unread to my more advanced writing students and ask for summaries. It's then easier to pretend like I've read them around colleagues.
OD: Cuz sometimes, there comes a time in a man's life, when he's gotta throw back a couple cups of coffee before saying, "Screw it--I'm goin' for it." (Except in my case it was more like, tossing back a couple shots of vodka, before drunkenly stammering, "I bet you a BILLION dollars I can read Ulysses in a month!" ... I'm totally collecting.)
BT: The beautiful thing about Ulysses is, is it can actually be the pillow.
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