Booksmart

I went home last night to surprise my dad for Father’s Day, and on my back to the city this evening took a handful of books with me. It is sad to go back to my old room and see all the bookshelves brimming with my favorites. I don’t live there anymore. I am sick of searching aimlessly through my shelves here in the city and coming up empty. So I carried home a little sampling of my favorites: a Salinger, a Vonnegut, a Barnes, a Plascencia, an Eggers, a Calvino, a Coetzee. Just the basics. But what I really want is two of everything, like my toothbrush I leave upstate for last minute weekends. Sometimes I need last minute books. And the library upstate isn’t open when I get these rushed urges to re-read On Beauty. And the library doesn’t like it when the pages fold forward from the steamy vapor of the bathtub.