By Golly, Ollie!

My library days are turning in to quite a delightful routine. I wake up on Saturdays, shortly before my alarm goes off and usually to the sound of Jon getting ready for work. I always contemplate rolling back over and going to bed, but I manage to talk myself out of it, peel myself from the bed, and brew myself a cup of coffee. On this particular morning, I stood out on the balcony and enjoyed unseasonably crisp, morning air with my Maple-Walnut blend coffee, planning out the chores I needed to do for the day and then promptly tossing the idea away favoring a few hours with the blogosphere and a good book before the library opened instead.

I usually get to the library shortly after it opens, but the parking lot is already getting full by then. This surprises me for some reason, but it also makes me happy. Today’s patrons were the usual library gamers who gab at each other while mowing down enemies and taking advantage of the library’s wi-fi and mothers with fussy children (who I discover do not annoy me in libraries like they do in restaurants– the children, not their mothers).

This week, I chose 4 books with nothing in common:

• Gotham Academy #1: Welcome to Gotham Academy, a graphic novel, by Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher, and Karl Kerschl
• New York: the Novel, a historical fiction…tome by Edward Rutherfurd. Seriously, I don’t know what I was thinking when I pulled this one from the stacks.
• What We Talk About When We Talk About God, a non-fiction book about…you guessed it– God– by Rob Bell.
• Kissing in America, a contemporary YA novel complete with a road trip (or so says the book cover) by Margo Rabb

My next stop is the grocery store where I pick up soup, a pre-made chicken salad sandwich (because I think I’ve bought a loaf of bread once while at my new apartment, and all but six slices went to waste), and a bag of bon-bons. Then I return home and relish in good books and good soup.

I intended to finish Bran New Death, a cozy mystery novel about murder and baked goods, which I picked up during my last library visit, but I was distracted by the new and shiny. Instead, I read Gotham Academy, which was fun in a novelty sort of way, and What We Talk about When We Talk About God, which I devoured in one sitting. How much I appreciated that book caught me by surprise.

For not accomplishing much, this day was well-spent. I just wish I could stretch the afternoon out for 3 or 4 more hours more. On my library days I just feel so…at peace.