another weekend

For a while, perhaps in last spring or the winter before, I used to go to Brown bookstore to spend Saturday afternoons. I would get a cup of coffee from Starbucks and then walk to the bookstore. Find a comfy seat, put coffee aside, put down my bag to claim THE SEAT. Go around the bookshelves, pick up a bunch of books with interesting covers and titles (yes in that order), get all of them to MY seat. Leaf through the first chapters or the first pages, put back the not so interesting ones, and hide the few interesting ones between me and the arm-rest of the chair. Start to R-E-A-D. ahh!!! Long and complete exhale, following an inhale of air mixed with the nice smell of ink on paper, excited to get into a new adventure.

Usually I would find about 2 or 3 "interesting" books. As I started to get excited reading the first one, I got anxious and impatient and want to read the other books. I kept thinking, "perhaps the other books are even more interesting." "oh, this one is too long, i won't even finish the first chapter for the whole afternoon." But then when I started to read the other ones, I got equally restless, perhaps I should just go back and focus on reading the first one, then at least I would probably finish one sooner.

But most of the time I would be in perfect peace. 'cause the books I picked up are ususally either photo albums of a photographer, or painting pieces of a painter, or some other easy-to-read stuff. I don't like to read fictions there, i don't like to stop in the middle of a story, no matter how bad it is. Sometimes I find biographies intriguing: how other people think and what they do, and more importantly I have the upper hand, as soon as things got boring, I'd just simply close the book and end their paper lives. Sometimes, I am just captivated by the words, the language. so beautiful expression. To those words magician, nothing is inexpressible. It was one of the most inspirational periods I had for the past couple of dark years. Often I got really exhausted in the middle of the afternoon. too many words, ideas, expressions, impressive paintings, images bombarding and colliding in my brain. It's like overdose of caffeine, I got really shaky and had to force myself to walk around to calm down. Everytime, when the bookstore was about to close, I walked out holding the empty coffee cup, felt an undescribable satisfactory fullness yet my steps light and shaky. ah. how I miss those days. Even though, after walking out of the bookstore, I would always immediately remember that I still have yet this and that experiment waiting to be done, or that another long meaningless jobless frustrating week ahead till next Saturday.

oh well. Can't even remember how long ago that was. now, instead of going to the bookstore, I do nothing. I don't even want to step out of the door. I just sleep. endless sleep, sleep through the day, sleep through the night. It is just another one of these weekends, spent without a faintest trace. (How sad. powerless to do anything to make it slightly more interesting.)