December 22, 2005 | Season's Greetings
I decided to read on the plane, because I couldn't sleep. I pulled out my collection of short stories and turned the book over, and noticed the round, black USED sticker. The book was in pretty good shape for being used, I thought. I opened it up, and started reading. It went quick, due to the shortness of the stories, and before long, near the center of the book, I turned a page and saw a receipt. That must be mine, from when I bought the book. I looked again. It was a Border's receipt, from 2003. I bought the book a couple months ago at the independent book shop a couple blocks away. I smiled. I thought it was kind of neat to have a glimpse of the previous life of this inanimate object which was now keeping me company on my long journey home.
Also weird in a good way, K! and I bought each other the exact same christmas present. And it wasn't one of those 'we were shopping together and both saw it and realy liked it but didn't buy it' sort of things. We both bought them from completely different places, and didn't buy one for ourselves which is something we sometimes do. I must say, the girl has good taste.
Things I still need to do: make jewelry, and wrap all the presents I was so good about buying before I left for Austin.
One more thing...the ugly green chair's birthday is coming up. December 31st, 2005 will be the FIVE year anniversary of my first post ever. I bet you didn't know I'd been around that long, didja? On or around that day I'll attempt to tell you how and maybe even why I started doing this.
Until then, happy holidays!
ah! surprises in the books! a few years ago I started a little tradition: putting things in books on purpose. I try to use the store receipt as the bookmark, and add a couple other ephemera as well. I love discovering these items when I return to the book after a long time. Recently, I found an old bank note from Poland (I'm Polish and a lot of my books are from that country). This note is from before the conversion of currency which occurred about 5 years ago, and it is no longer used. I also found a sheet of Christmas toilet paper, an old French Christmas card (not even addressed to me), an antique postcard with a ship... and a few other items.
Last month, on the plane to Europe, I was reading this book about an American lady who moved to Paris. This book contains now a sticker from an airplane bottle of wine, and... notes about a peculiar woman sitting next to me. Normally, i have more respect for books, but this one was a cheap paperback, so why not.
Ah, words, words. It's difficult to write just a few when the subject is so much fun.
Merry Christmas - and I'm looking forward to finding out how your blog started!
Kasia
Getting a sense of where a book has been is the reason I like the idea of book crossing. Of course, I've yet to tag any of my books and set them free. A weird combination of being a packrat and lazy and too attached to all of my books, even the ones I don't think I'm gonna read again.
The Santa picture is too cute for words.
Also, wow. Five years. That's great.