A Pants Day

I was quite impressed with The Book of One Thousand and One Nights today. After the orgy(in the book, not my life) I had low expectations. But luckily, I was proved wrong.

The three women I left to their orgy are master puppeteers in an international conspiracy. They are imprisoning princes from 7 different countries. Whoa! I could not believe it. The international conspiracy story is common now, but in the ancient middle east! I thought the international conspiracy storyline probably emerged around the time of World War I, then gained popularity during the Cold War. Shows how little I know. I also would have thought "the master puppeteer" gimmick appeared around the industrial age when the corporation emerged. Also surprising, the dirt-bag politician. The dirt-bag politician is common throughout history. However, in American history it remained hush hush until Pres. Bill Clinton. Scherzade is so edgy- she tells it like it is. I had no idea that in reading The Book of One Thousand and One Nights I would find a new heroine.


Today was more than just a good reading day though. Today was an all around success. I woke up at 10 AM today and put on jeans. I did not take them off until 9 pm, and that was only to put on pants suitable for working out. Do you understand the gravity of this? I put on pants. Also, I did not watch The Martha Stewart show today. I was too busy studying for my assessment on Wednesday for this job in Madison. If you aren't already overwhelmed by my personal victories, read on. I invented a new expression today, "pants day." A pants day is an exceptionally productive day, a day filled with pride, a day when you feel limitless, a day when the earth seems to buzz with possibility.

Another part of my pants day- I developed a plan for reading the particularly difficult works in the Canon of western/ world literature. The way I'm reading The Book Of One Thousand and One Nights has been successful. I only read around 20 pages a day and I have plenty of time to read less arduous books. I will employ this strategy to read Milton's Paradise Lost, after I'm done with my current project. How thrilling to read Paradise Lost! People often criticize the Canon, but I see the purpose. It is exciting to read something that has been read for hundreds of years. It makes me feel like I'm part of a club that transcends time and geography and the world itself as we all find ourselves lost in a fictitious world. I once heard an author on Book TV say something to this effect: Literature is more intimate than life itself. If life is air, literature is oxygen. Literature is that essential thing. The reason to breathe. That which sustains life.

I wish I could write something like that, but I'm perfectly content to live in a world where someone is capable of such eloquence, even if I am not that person. I can't remember the author, but I think she says more in those few sentences about the value of literature than I will ever be able to express.

In making this journey to find a job I've realized there are many things more important to me than having a resume that will get me noticed. The thing I'm most proud of is my membership in the most intimate, compassionate, beautiful, tragic club in the world, the club of literature. Perhaps I can put that under "community involvement" on my resume.

I hope any readers out there will join me and pick up a book and feel that connection. Or, find something else that makes you feel that connection. If you are still reading this, thank you so much for continuing to read this rough-around-the-edges post.

Good night, and I wish you a week full of pants days.