On People

Why do I bend my fingers back at the knuckles like that? So weird.

So I was reminded this morning that I never (hyperbolically) blog anymore, which is true, although in my defense, sooooo much of the stuff I want to talk about in my brain is stuff that I simply cannot post or write about publicly, which is why stuff like friends-locked LiveJournal has not gone into the graveyard of the internet quite yet. 

Also, every time I try to type "LiveJournal", my fingers write "LiverJournal", and it makes me laugh. Sometimes I think my fingers are dyslexic. It's been getting worse over the years, but that's another post for another day...

Today is about a new book I got from the Staff Suggestions shelf. If you're not checking out the staff suggestions shelf at your library, I don't know what to tell you, apart from start doing it. Seriously. You don't know what you're missing, and the reason you don't know is because you're not looking in the right places. They're right there. Right in front of you. Start looking.

This book is called Drink by Ann Dowsett Johnston. I haven't started reading it yet, but according to the dust jacket, it's about the closing gender gap in alcoholism. Actually, the jacket starts off by describing how feminism and women's rights have moved women forward in positive ways, and then says "but also they started boozing it up like crazy". Dust jackets aren't always accurate, so I'm hoping the book isn't trying to imply that putting more power and equality into women's lives drives them to drink. But, as I said, I haven't read it yet, and this isn't the point of this blog entry anyway.

I noticed a pattern lately in my non-fiction reading. I care about reading about people, and why people do the things they do. People are so, so weird and fascinating to me. Eleanor Roosevelt said 

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people

 Alright, fine. I understand what she's saying, but I think you can't take it so simply. I like the ideas behind people. The why and how of people. My ideas aren't great ideas and I'll probably just be an armchair philosopher my whole life, but it's fascinating to me.

When I was in high school, for summer reading we got to pick from a list and I didn't know any of the books and didn't know what to do. My dad took the list and went to the bookstore for me. He came back with Catch 22 (definitely one of the best books I've ever read), In Cold Blood (real great book for an impressionable, imaginative child living in the countryside. THANKS), and these two: Games People Play by Eric Berne, and The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman. These were not on the list, but I think he saw them and thought I should have them.

I read them both, or at least, I started reading them. It was a little bit above me in terms of language and academics, but I recall being very impressed by the ideas I found there. High school is like this big, unwinnable game, after all, and it was comforting to know that we were all just playing weird games with each other without even realizing it or understanding what we were doing.

These two got put into the stack of "To Read" today. My mind is grown-up now, and can really dig in.