Maria Carry A Dog On Her Back

Barry of Enrevanche tagged me with a meme a few days ago, when I was crazy with the working-too-hard and am-I-three-weeks-from-homeless? hysterias. In fact, I have been so turned around for a couple of months it's been hard for me to read my favorite sites. I've got to know what Mr. Gato's doing!

A little background. I've mentioned this a few times but not lately. In 1997 - I think! - medication wiped my memory clean. Before this, I had books open on every surface wherever I lived. When I was 11, I answered a survey question that I was actively reading thirty-seven books. It was not an exaggeration. After the RotoRootering of my brain, I couldn't concentrate long enough to read a page, let alone a book. Recently, I've been able to start books and finish them, but only since the spring. My relationship with the written word is changing.


1. Book that changed my life.

The Diary of Anais Nin - I can't tolerate Nin since Incest, but I cannot deny that reading the Diary was a formative experience for the young Me.

2. Books I have read more than once.

Idries Shah's Nasrudin books; To Kill A Mockingbird, The Tanglewood Tales, Jaws, The Work of a Common Woman, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Auntie Mame, The Outermost House, a pile of Kurt Vonnegut's novels. Gloria Steinem's Marilyn. Tanakh: the Holy Scriptures.

3. Book I would want on a desert island.

The Oxford English Dictionary.

4. Book that made me laugh.

Everything by Douglass Adams.

5. Book that made me cry.

Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.

6. Book I wish I had written.

Mark Helprin's A Winter's Tale. He's a douchebag but I love that book.

7. Book I wish had never been written.

Barry mentioned The Turner Diaries. There's no limit to the list of books that've done that same kind of harm to the human psyche. In England once, eight people burned at the stake for owning and reading the Bible. I wish that'd never happened but it's not the books that harm people, it's misguided people who harm people. Thus, I hope Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh quit cluttering up bookstores with the means to misguide.

8. Book I am currently reading. & 9. Book I've been meaning to read.

I am not currently reading a book. My eyes are tired. There are tons of books I'd love to read and new ones published every day; there have always been piles of books to read.

10. Tag five other people.

I'll try!

Thank you, Barry, for the chance to consider the state of my Self. I am honored you chose me! One detail: my favorite magazine since I found it in the 1970s has always been slapdash International Gymnast. A lot of my books are about gymnastics, dance, art and photography. I have given away every book I do not love; the rest are my friends. It would break my heart to lose them.