My First Library

6 May
Monday PM

I predict by the end of the day this pen will be completely dried out. It's nice, with a micro tip and a stylish blue-black flow, but it's not really a day-to-day instrument. As writing instruments go.

Alright, I'm stalling. I want to write, I swear. But I can't collect my thoughts enough to do it. Really what I want is to continue uninterrupted this Hepburn bio (eerie and completely unexpected how much of my younger self I'm seeing in these engrossing pre-Tracy chapters of the Great Kate's life) but they're not paying me to sit around reading library books now are they. I'll bet though that I could do just that if I were working at a library. Well maybe on quiet days.

I miss quiet days. And if they call me, or send me a letter or email, or however they do it, and tell me they're definitely interested, and I passed all the library-type tests and whatnot, would they let me choose the location? Blackstone is just up the street. But I've been going there since grammar school. Since in fact the day Miss Harte (slim, short, That Girl flip) took me there to get my very first library card. Afterwards, like girlfriends, we got in her junky little Volkswagen clown car and she took me shopping and we had 3 each of Baskin-Robbins 33 flavors. Then we got our nails done.

Alright, that last part was a flat-out lie. Sorry, just kidding around. Technically it wasn't just me Miss Harte took to Blackstone library. It was almost her whole 4th grade class and I'm thinking we took a school bus to get there. We all got a tour of the place, upper and lower level, and were asked by the lady who ran the place (tall, glasses, pelican nose) what kind of stories we liked. As you can see, the library has a book for every interest. What are some of yours? Idiotically, everyone talked at once and I don't have a clue what I said. But she smiled, indulgently, and talked to us for quite a little while, long enough for me to notice Miss Harte's expertly pretty, pearl-pink nails, and after we each got our very own individual library cards with our individual names elegantly typed on them; thin, sandpaper colored things with rounded edges. Then we were encouraged to look around us and see what we might like to check out and take home. For this first trip we were allowed one book each.

It was fun at first, everybody scattering and giggling and rushing gleefully around like demented mice in a book-lined maze. Until Miss Harte, who practically never gets mad, raised her soft voice and started sharply scolding people, reminding us where we were and why we were there. I found this oversized book filled with some really ghastly pictures. That was the one I decided to check out, my very first library book, Great Disasters. On the cover was a faded picture of a huge oval-looking thing suspended above the ground, the bottom half of it engulfed in a cloud of fire.

At the circulation desk Miss Harte looked at it and then at me. Are you sure about this, she said, one eyebrow rising up. I hesitated. Why was she asking? Was it really so weird? What kind of books were the other girls checking out? I stared at the arch of her eyebrow, and the perfect nails holding  my book.

"Definitely," I said, taking it back from her. With a sense of real accomplishment, I handed over my new card to the pelican at the desk. "Thank you," I said politely.