“I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”

Or, "I don't want to work, I just wanna play with my books all day..."



My new bookshelves are installed.
Merry Christmas to me!
Easily one of the best Christmas presents I have ever received.
As I expected, the space was perfect for bookshelves, almost as if that was what should have been there from the very start.

Now this can be dealt with:
And now, the fun but difficult part begins: what books belong on these shelves, these shelves in my bedroom - that most intimate of spaces, the shelves closest to my bed and therefore my heart...I foresee some books being relegated to downstairs, even as some of my favorites from downstairs (AS Byatt, Salman Rushdie, Andrea Barrett) are transferred upstairs.

This could keep me entertained for days, if not weeks.
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*Anna Quindlen

"There's truth, but no logic." *

“The Fields of Athenry,” that festive and jolly Irish song, is a big bedtime hit round these parts.

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling:
Michael, they are taking you away
For you stole Trevelyn's corn
So our young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.

[Chorus]
Low lie the Fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly.
Our love was on the wing, we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Athenry.

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young man calling:
Nothing matters, Mary, when you’re free,
Against the Famine and the Crown
I rebelled, they cut me down.
Now you must raise our child with dignity.
[Chorus]

By a lonely harbor wall
She watched the last star falling
As the prison ship sailed out against the sky.
Now she'll wait and hope and pray
For her love in Botany Bay.
It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry.

Cheery, yah?

Tonight, Terzo sleepily asks, “What does a prison ship look like? Does it have smokestacks?”

Me (to myself: Please, please shut up so you don’t wake the baby so I will tell you anything you want to hear): Yes. Yes, it does have smokestacks.

T: "How many?"

Me (How the FUCK should I know? so I pluck a not-so random number out of the air (the Titanic, always a compelling topic of conversation here, had 4, but only 3 functioned; ipso facto, my random number choice): Three.

T, perking up a bit [No, no, PLEASE go to sleep]: "So it looks like the Queen Mary?"[And I have no fucking clue, so don't ask me how he knows about the Queen Mary. If it's a ship that sank or had anything to do with a ship that sank (the QM was a Cunard line ship), my guys know ALL about it. But who am I to shut down their morbid fascinations? says the Plague Queen.)

Me: Sure. (And why the hell not?)

T: "Ok, keep singing, but skip some words. I’m tired."

Thank God he didn’t bother asking about lifeboats.

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*Rose, in "Titanic"

"You are so bizarre, even for a human."

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*Alice Cullen, New Moon