Sleeping Books
To read/study, then to write, then to spend one’s time in leisure – these are the activities that make up a worthwhile day, month, year, life, at least for this bit of clay.
Awfully tired tonight, I am (indeed, I usually am before I go to bed). I have this romantic notion – in the same vein as wanting to write with a pen or sitting out in the cold so I could read my Joyce biography in front of the Harbour Bridge – that it would be admirable/desirable to fall asleep with a book in my hand (the implication being that I was so exhausted, but was so determined to continue reading, but nature won in the end). I’ve no idea why I have this notion – perhaps because my subconscious holds out the hope that some rather attractive woman will creep into my bedroom late at night or just before I awake, and see the book in my hand, and think me more alluring and mysterious and intelligent and poetic because of it. There’s certainly no benefit for me in having the book in my hand. Well, the one benefit is that I don’t have to roll over and put the book away neatly, thus waking myself up a little bit. But, being so nervous about damaging my books, I worry I’ll crease the cover or drop it awkwardly…
Neurotic, I know, I know.
