Dirty secret.

I'm not sure I even like bookstores. Any more. They used to be so thrilling - Mom and I would put the entire family vacation on pause to stop at a used bookstore; I happily did a lot of dreaded essay-grading tucked into a corner of Barnes & Noble; my first date with P included a trip to Book People!

But now... They make me uncomfortable. First of all, the thought of buying a book makes me feel guilty because I could just get it for free at the library. And then there's the fact that I'm a slow reader, and I'm already working through something else, so I might never get to a new book anyway. And I can't stand the thought of one more worthless paperback that I'll never read again crowding our shelves and forcing me to figure out how best to get rid of it. And most of all, I don't get along well in bookstores anymore because the tall, endless shelves of crisp, beautiful, alluring, unread books just remind me of how much I'll never, ever manage to read. It's just hopeless. And depressing.

So now you know. If you see me loitering in the stationary, you know.