But I put down the actual books, mostly, years ago, and started to look around and see what I could find out about the world through my own actual experiences.
This was unintentional. I was around 23, depressed, and couldn't sit still with a book anymore. My book-reading dropped from 5-21 a week, to less than five, and not always even one.
I definitely had a problem, and reading books was a symptom. I started reading books all the time in middle school. Probably because I was depressed.
The intersection of depression and change is irritability. I am very irritable lately, and I have to say, thank goodness for the internet.
Because we had an internet when I was 23, and I met some of the greatest people I have ever known here. Because, at 23, I couldn't sit still for a whole book anymore. But I still needed to read, and the internet gave me teeny tiny nibbles to satisfy my print addiction, without driving me away with "the annoying".
The internet totally deserves a cupcake. But since it is also totally annoying, it probably has sprinkles on it.
I still keep in some kind of contact with most of the people I met because of the internet.
The best thing about the internet is that it's like a stitch and bitch crossed with a philosophical debating society, crossed with a Book Club. Where you don't even have to read the books. And someone will share with you the recipe you want.
One of the things that worries me is cheekbones. What is the DEAL with cheekbones? I totally do not get what 'good' cheekbones are like. More to the point, how in the flipping-flapping universe do you tell if you might need a cheekbone enhancing elective surgery?
I constantly hear people RAVE about the cheekbones on someone. I have apparently dated some of these people with great cheekbones. Maybe I am one.
I asked my mom about this the other day, and she told me that I grew up in a cheekbone-rich environment, so they just seem totally normal to me. The first part could totally be true. I literally can not tell.
But you'd think if that was true, there would be some class of people in the world who, in some way, do not look normal?
Which is another problem I have.
One of my neighbors suddenly reminded me of my grandma this week. I couldn't figure out why, at first, and then I realized she had had her hair done in curls, just like my grandma did.
Which, other than age, is pretty much where the similarity ended, but I as I was standing there trying to figure this out, I had a crisis of faith about her genetic heritage. She is Japanese, from Japan, and speaks with a noticeable accent. And WHILE SHE WAS TALKING I was looking at her, and listening, and asking myself:
Me (silently): wait, is she Japanese? I thought she was, maybe I am wrong! Does she LOOK Japanese? I CAN'T TELL! Is that an accent? WHY CAN'T I TELL?
After I figured out it was the hair, my confidence in the information that she is Japanese was restored. And I have had this information for about four years.
I have this problem with Semitic people too. When I was a kid, there was plenty of anti-Semitism going around, and since my grandpa was a Jew, I worried about it a bit.
One of the theories 'out there' is that you can tell who is Jewish, just by looking. This is BS, but I didn't know this at the time, and I couldn't figure out how everybody else could tell!
My problem here was caused by my mom, and all of her sisters. They don't really all look alike. But people in Seattle didn't know that, back then, and they had a lot of fun switching IDs around when they got carded.
And this problem is that they were all Catholic. So in my mind, people who look Jewish? Are Catholic. Or family. Or something.
Oh, and the worst thing about the internet? THERE IS NO ERASER FOR YOUR BRAIN.
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