March 9, 2020—Still in the 600s, I’ve gone from Nutrition to Lawnmowers to Pets to Sewing to Cleaning and Stain removal. It’s a wide-ranging section. Bad news for cat lovers. The library has 2 ½ shelves of dog books, and less than a shelf of cat books. And cats must share the space with dogs, hamsters, rabbits, and cheese-making. It’s an interesting section, the 600s. I’m happy to see oil smears on car repair books, water damage on boat repair books, and dirt on the gardening books. March 13—Friday the Thirteenth, Day of Infamy. The San Juan Public Library will be closed starting Sunday March 15 until Friday April 24. Fortunately we got notices this afternoon, because we are volunteers. We made a mad dash to the library, grabbing books and DVDs off the shelves as if they were toilet paper. The only upside to all of this is that I can keep the book I had checked out on Inter-Library Loan for an extra month. February 24—Yes, my birthday, because shelf reading doesn’t stop for high holy days. I wonder what archaeologists of the future will have to say about us when they see all the books about diet and health, books on every conceivable body part including The Prostate Book, brain, kidney, IBD, IBS, Alzheimer’s, anti-Alzheimer and anti-aging. And orgasms. Lots of books about orgasms, like Come As You Are, Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm, and The Orgasmic Diet, which happens to currently be checked out. Some of the spicier books are only available as ebooks, like 365 Sex Positions, possibly to be read in tandem with An Orgasm (or More) a Day, also only in ebook format. This may be a geezer thing, or simply a factor of having more time to stop and smell the roses, but we have become avid bird watchers. Not fanatic, mind you—we don’t maintain a life list or anything. We just like to watch them at the suet feeder outside the kitchen window in winter. The activity of the birds masks the hideous color of our neighbor’s house and makes it disappear. I mention birds because the library has four shelves in the natural history section devoted to books about birds (call number 598). I am thinking this may be a factor of the age of the Friday Harbor population. There are indeed a lot of birders on the island, the kind who do keep life lists. |
Author Rebecca Moore is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. She is currently Reviews Editor for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and Co-Director of The Jonestown Institute. Archives
December 2021
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