Book Hunting

It's been a busy couple of days.

Friday I stayed home all day and read about 120 pp. of my nonfiction writing course and philosophy course (I have to summarize the first half of this philosophy text in written form for Tuesday, which I should be doing now). I sat outside on the deck, the sky partly cloudy, clouds streaming past on a blue Ocean sky. That night, since my Dad wasn't home, I took my mom out for dinner at La Masia, a Spanish (like from Spain) restaurant I frequent.

Saturday even though I think I had a (hopefully) transient stomach flu, I spent the day book hunting with Earl in Bellingham. I wanted to take this one book in to Hendersons to see how much the owner would give me for it. The book is a beautiful leather edition of Zelazny's The Nine Princes of Amber or something like that. He wouldn't give me enough, so I brought home. Earl gave me some gas money in the form of a book he pulled out to sell to the Henderson owner; I told him I wanted it, and we arranged the trade. The book is an out of print, paperback edition of Contemporary Literary Theory: A Christian Appraisal. I also picked out a volume of Andre Gide's Journals and a novel by French writer called Bataille, Blue of Noon. Later that day, while I was out and about, my cousin and her boyfriend came over to stay a night. They've been hitchhiking across and around Canada, and they had some great stories about the different places and the different people they met.

Today I went to church for the first time in a while. It was good to go. My spirit deflates from all the blows it receives from my own weaknesses and from the steady bombardment of appetites and instant gratification projected at me from popular culture. I met this lady at church, the mother of an old high school friend Frank, and I asked her about Frank, how he's doing, etc.. She said, things are going better for Frank, and I knew exactly what she was talking about.

Frank was one of those guys who needed to be part of a social group so badly that he tried too hard. One could almost read the need on his face. And of course the exaggerated effort labeled him a goof ball. Youngest of the family of 5, I remember his older brother ignoring him completely and his sister being really mean. His father was an idiot too, a strict Dutchman with a temper. After high school, I have a feeling Frank had no friends whatsoever. He started to drink at bars, and eventually got into trouble with the law. Now he's divorced and struggling with alcoholism. A hard life. Some would say he made his own bed, but I doubt he asked to be born into a family that treated him like a piece of shit. It could have happened to me. To anyone not yet born.