deeplyshallow // book em

book em

I don’t spend as much time in bookstores as I used to. I remember a period in high school when, if I found myself with nothing else to do — which was often — I would inevitably gravitate towards Borders, and leave with a bag of paperbacks. I would read anything in those days, it seemed, and I barely remember anything that I did. Over the years I’ve had less and less time to read books. I say this knowing that my current pace — a book every week to ten days, something like that — still outstrips that of many people, but I miss having all the time in the world and blowing through a stack of books in a couple of days.

When I end up in a bookstore nowadays it’s usually because Felicia’s on the hunt. We’ll poke around, she’ll find whatever it was she was looking for, and we’ll bounce around like pinballs, hitting our own respective targets — hers, cooking or knitting books; mine, politics and science — before tumbling into a pair of uncomfortable chairs and reading.

As much as I like to learn from the books I read, there are times I wish I hadn’t. A couple of weeks ago, there we were, kicked back in those awful Borders chairs, Felicia thumbing through the newest books about how to make your own yarn from alpaca, um, hairs or whatever, and me miserable in the midst of an allergy attack, sneezing hard enough to jostle books from the shelves. I was flipping through Neal Stephenson’s Baroque books, wondering if I ought to give them a second chance, when Felicia looks up and gasps and points. We’re sitting in the sports section, and she’s gesturing towards a book about the Miracle Mets, the amazing club of 1986.

My curiosity is peaked. I don’t like sports books, but I like books about baseball. Baseball’s more than just a sport. Baseball is the secret of life. Baseball can cure death. At the center of the universe is a ballpark where only home runs are hit. So I flip through the book, knowing that anything about the ‘86 Mets will contain plenty of stories about the player I grew up idolizing, Darryl Strawberry. Strawberry gets an awful rap, I know — but let’s not forget, okay, that of all the superstars that Mr. Burns assembled for his ringer-loaded company baseball team, Darryl was the last man standing. But as I sat in the chair, reading page after page about the Mets and how they somehow bullied their way to the World Series, I am taken aback at every word I read about Strawberry. I might be the last person on the planet who thought that maybe the guy just had a bad run of the worst luck, who didn’t think that maybe Strawberry was an enormous asshole who probably deserved every last ounce of the shit he went through. Call me an idiot, but I was surprised that his story was less about a kid dealt a shitty hand and more about a guy who rose from a shitty childhood into a life that every little boy dreams of — and proceeded to fuck it all up in the most aggressive and destructive way possible.

You know, I started this entry with a point, I promise I did. Midnight’s approaching, however, and I’m goddamn tired. So, you know. That’s that.