Star-Crossed Lovers

I'm back (tho if you're reading this it's probably ten years from now and you're a fan scrolling through the archives to learn of my origins). Having been recently shamed of not having written here in a while, coupled with the fact that I did some other writerly things today, I decided I'd talk about something that is plaguing me right now. What is my folly?

Book. Separation. Anxiety.

So I'm a college student in TN (I live in MD), and whenever I go home, I book-binge. What this entails is me checking out far more books than I can read in the 1-3 weeks I'll be home (btw, the library will let me check out 50. I've had conflicts over checking out over the limit before).

So over the break I read some really great books, top notch. But I'd start multiple ones at a time, and then I'd get hooked on one in particular, and would ignore the others until I'd finished. But it just so happened that I was reading many other books while in the middle of A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin. Y'all, it's a big book. The bitty little paperback was over 1,000 pages, which was the copy I was reading. As a result, it is now almost February, and until I get back home in March, I will be perpetually in the middle of these books:

Deathless, by Catherynne M. Valente, is the folk-tale remix of Koschei the Deathless, and Marya Morevna, the girl who just may be his undoing. I got right in the thick of this one just before I left, and I am pining hardcore for this one. There's nothing I love more than a book that stands out completely on its own, one that you get frustrated at because you don't know where in your system of shelving books it should go.

Do I even have to explain? City of Lost Souls, by Cassandra Clare, is the fifth in the Mortal Instruments cycle. I know I should be flogged for taking this long to read it period, let alone wait until it was too late to finish it. Like Deathless, it grabbed me just as I had to pack up and get on a plane.

Some of you may be sighing and saying "Really? Really? You live in Memphis, TN and have no access to a library with a copy? Do they even have books at your college?"

To which I reply, yes, yes they do, but there are a few ingredients needed to get one of these books from a library down here:

1. Transportation to a library.

2. The book in stock.

3. A library card.

As a poor college student, transportation out of here when it's a singular expedition is about as rare as a vegetarian zombie. As for the library card, I tried to get one last year, but you need a reference from Jesus or something to get one here. Needless to say, inaccessibility is pretty much the ultimate buzzkill to any quest.

So yes, this is a whiny post, but whomsoever has pined for a book may cast the first stone, if you get me.