5 posts tagged “book”

I am unhappy, yet I am quietly happy. The federal government is taking money out of my bank account, which they have every right to do, because I still haven't paid off all my student loans. But it throws what little balance I have achieved into a precarious state. Disaster looms. If the whole spun-sugar cage collapses under its own weight, what will I do then? Not sure. Hard to say, really. But I've got a little side project--a little book project, a self-publishing thing, personal--and when I think about it, nothing can hurt me for long. It's like I'm humming on the inside. If I had known self-publishing could make me this happy, I would have stopped looking down my nose at it years ago.

The Story of Science, Newton at the Center

Joy Hakim

So I ordered this book from a Half.com vendor. I homeschool my son and we are about halfway through the first volume in this series, which I really like. On Friday, I received not one but two copies of this book. Weird, eh? Wasn't sure what to do. I knew the proper thing to do would be to inform the vendor and offer to return the extra copy, but I am not exactly reliable when it comes to mailing packages at the post office, as anyone on my Christmas list can attest. So I didn't do anything.

Yesterday, I received yet another copy of this book. Needless to say, I checked my bank account to make sure I haven't been charged for all of these books. Everything looked okay. Finally, I broke down and dug around Half.com for a way to contact the vendor. I wrote him/them a note saying, Hey, you sent me three copies of the book I ordered. Something is wrong with your order fulfillment process. I didn't supply all the details, because I'm still not enthusiastic about returning the extra copies, but at least I felt a little less despicable.

So far, I've had no response from the vendor. But in today's mail, I received three more copies of the book. Three! Can you believe this? I feel like I'm trapped in some Internet shopping twilight zone. What's next? Will owls start dropping copies of this book down my chimney? 

I did that thing again, where I Google myself and try to decide, based on the results, if I have lived well or poorly. Usually I'm more depressed than impressed. But I felt a little better this time around. No, you won't find any links to my Vox blog, or any of my better writing, unfortunately; and the only picture of me that comes up is one I can't stand. But I've got a few more bylines out there, and you can tell that I volunteer in my community. That's something. I even spoke at a City Council meeting, comments that were paraphrased (albeit poorly) for the minutes. And I've been thanked in the acknowledgements section of three books. Three! One of which I didn't even know about! OK, it's a little bitty something, but I like it. Maybe I'm not such a complete loser after all.

I feel guilty because I didn't go to the hospital today. I went to Frank's house instead and did some work on the book. It's not my book and it's not his book but we're both working on it. Go figure.

But I didn't go to the hospital and I feel guilty. I feel like something might go wrong because I didn't go. I imagine the Filipino nurses clucking over my absence, asking each other, "What happened to the other daughter? She didn't come tonight, huh?"

I should go to bed.

The wind is blowing and the house is shuddering. Some door somewhere keeps soft-slamming itself. The whole house shakes. It scares me.

Usually, I do my work on the computer, but these days I am editing a book. It's a non-fiction book about a group of traditional people in a faraway place I've never visited. (Nor have you.) I printed out the chapters and carry them around with me in a fat red file folder and work on it whenever I can. This affords me the opportunity to lie on my bed and work. It can be a dangerous habit. The book is sometimes interesting, sometimes not. If I'm not tired when I lie down, I can easily become tired.

After I've been staring at my stack of papers for a while, quiet and hardly moving, the dogs get worried and try to intervene. They seem to think I'm depressed. They are not small creatures but they try to insinuate themselves between me and the book, like a cat would. Darla insists on having her head under my chin, pushing and clawing into position, which obliterates my view of the text. Or sometimes she'll just sit beside me and bat at me with her paw. Rusty crawls up next to me, whining and "talking," rolls up closer until he is functioning as a personal heater, whines, and flops his chin down on the manuscript. If I move, they move with me. If I put them out, as soon as they're back inside, they do it again.

They don't do it constantly, of course, or I wouldn't return to the bed at all. But they do it enough to make me feel loved, or something very much like it. It makes me laugh to try to imagine what they think I'm doing. Not being readers themselves, I mean. No wonder they think I'm depressed. Look at her! She's been staring at that paper for hours. She hasn't even tasted it!