paper, please

I love paperback books.

And I like to get them used.

I like used paperbacks that are just used enough to be floppy and easy to hold/fold back/read, but not so floppy that their pages are falling out of their binding (yet). I like to see and read books that have been read and enjoyed by others. Scuff marks, bent bindings and dogeared pages are signs of affection, I think, and it makes me happy to see such affection.

An unread book - especially a good unread book - makes me sad. An paperback whose cover is uncreased at the binding, a book whose pages are crisp and unbent ... it's a waste of paper and ink. Books were meant to be read, and an unread book is a conversation that was never listened to; a fantastic adventure that was never experienced. It's the (non)reader's loss, but a loss all the same.

Hardback books (or clothbound books, for those who worked in bookstores and are binding lingo-savvy ... ahem) are fine, and they look nice on shelves and make their readers look distinguished ... but they come with annoying dustjackets that have to either be left on the book and carefully handled so as to not be wrinkled or ripped, or they have to be removed and kept in a safe place so they can later be returned to their books.

I have a bad habit of forgetting to put the dustjacket back on the book, and so it happens that bookless jackets are found under my bed; beneath my sofa; tucked between other books on shelves; squished, folded and stuffed into other books or notebooks ... or they're just never found again, and I have jacketless, dust-collecting hardback books sitting with naked, mute-colored spines staring at me from my shelf.

Also, hardback books - while difficult to break in - are too quick to let go of their pages. My copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" can't have been read more than three times, yet its pages are coming loose, and I was much kinder to it than I am to many of my paperback books. And I managed to keep (and return) its dustjacket. It seems ungrateful of the book, then, for it to be spitting pages out at me as I attempt to read it.

Which is why I like paperback books.

Clearly I'm weirder than I thought

Eggplant makes my hands itch when I prepare it.

And I'm apparently the only person in the cyber world who has this reaction. Several Google searches involving variations of "eggplant" and "itch" have confirmed that I am, in fact, much more odd that I imagined ten minutes ago.

Not when I eat it. Not my lips. Not my throat. Not the roof of my mouth. Not my ears. (Seriously? Ears?)

Just my hands. When I prepare it.

Weenie

You know how you watch movies or shows or read stories about people who just toughed something out and showed everyone around them that they could do it? In this instance, I'm thinking "GI Jane." I remember watching that and thinking, "yeah -- chicks are tough! Take that, stupid boys!"

And, by virtue of being a "chick" myself, I figured I must be just as strong. I think of myself as tough. I don't wince when the hair stylist combs through my tangled hair (I have a tough head). I don't cry when I get a steam burn while cooking (becuase I'm tough). And I wore gas-permeable (hard) contact lenses for three years in junior high school and learned to not freak out when they moved off the center of my eye ... because I'm tough. Duh.

But last night, I discovered that I'm not very tough.

In fact ... I'm a weenie.

I had just finished watching SNL, and since I had never turned off the oven from baking eggplant earlier in the night, I figured I'd also tackle my butternut squash and have one less thing to cook on Sunday.

So, at midnight, I pulled out the cutting board, the knife and the squash. And I began to cut the squash in what was intended to be halves. By the end of the night, I didn't care much what the squash looked like.

A crash, and a sense of indescribable agony ... and I was certain that I had somehow dropped the knife that was still buried in the butternut squash, because my big toe felt like it had been magled and needed to be amputated, if it hadn't already been so.

Swearing a combination of words that I didn't know could go together, I looked at my foot ... and at the cutting board that had slid off the counter and had angled itself to land on its edge ... on my big toe.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stand. I hopped into the living room, flapping my arms (because that helps a lot) and then just crumpled to the floor, not breathing but still somehow whisper-screaming my pain, wanting to pound my floor with my hands and yet not wanting to frighten my new downstairs neighbors. So I just lay there on the floor, wanting desperately to cry, but unable to summon any tears (those came a few minutes later -- and in very great quantities), gasping in whatever air I could, and looking at my rapidly blackening toenail.

It's been a long time since I've hurt myself bad enough to cry, but once I was able to cry last night, I was sobbing. This was one mofo of an owie.

The kicker: My freezer won't freeze ice. It takes days and days, and by the time ice has actually frozen in the little trays, the water has also absorbed every funky odor my fridge can emanate. So I gave up keeping unusable ice in the freezer.

So I had no ice.

I just had my bathtub and the cold water tap.

And I wanted my mom(my).

Besides having the very appreciated sympathy that a mom(my) is supposed to have, I knew she was the only person in my world who could understand and appreciate what I was feeling, having shattered her big toe three years ago when a frozen, 20-pound turkey fell on it. So I sat on the edge of the tub, my foot submerged in the coldest water my faucet could produce, sobbing my agony into my cell phone while my mom listened and gave sympathy and encouragement. It wasn't as good as being able to get a hug, but it counted.

The throbbing pain didn't cease 'til around 6 this morning -- pain that felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing my toe; pain that kept me mercilessly awake, crying and cursing my pillows for not being fluffy enough to keep my foot propped up enough to keep the pain away enough so I could sleep ... needless to say, I didn't make church this morning.

All of that to confess to you, my readers, that I am not GI Jane tough.

I'm a weenie.

A weenie with a big, black toe.

Road kill

Yesterday, there were two calls to the cops for injured squirrels.

I'm not kidding.

Squirrels.

You could hear the dispatcher struggling to not laugh on the scanner.

Today -- a deceased porcupine. That's how the call went out -- deceased. Not dead. Not run over. Deceased.

And I can't point a finger too emphatically, because I remember that I called the police when I hit a cat on Fourth Street (the cat was still alive and howling like a sonofagun), but still ... a squirrel? Seriously? When the situation was resolved, the responding officer, also clearly trying to not laugh, reported that the squirrel had been transported to the animal shelter and that he was not occupied any longer ...

For the record, hitting an animal and reporting it warrants a questioning of your sobriety. Just so you know, when you hit a squirrel and call 911 to report it ...

In unrelated news: It was difficult last week to take Hurrican Norbert seriously. You can't take anything named Norbert seriously. And it kept reminding me of Norbert(a) the Norwegian Ridgeback from Harry Potter.