Most of the people in my life take a dim view of this...what would you call it? Monomania? Eccentricity? My sister is perhaps the most diplomatic. We both know that I have a tendency to lose my tether to reality when I close myself off like this. But then she’ll joke that I’m really just another boring bibliomaniac and what I really need is a little fresh air. She always was a wiz with words. She actually informed me that a book she read by Nicholas Basbanes (appropriately called Among the Gently Mad) states that the first documented use of the word bibliomania came in 1750 when The Fourth Earl of Chesterfield sent a letter to his illegitimate son warning him that this consuming diversion with books should be avoided like “the bubonic plague.” Ho Hum.
I peel off my clothes and throw them on the floor. As I’m walking to the tub, I glance at the floor-to-ceiling mirror that covers the south wall of my bathroom. Oh God. Wait a minute. You know how you look in the mirror and you look the same and you look the same and all of sudden you look ten years older? It’s fitting that at age thirty-five I should notice this now. My waist is thicker, my breasts saggier, the beginnings of--shit, is that cellulite on the backs of my thighs? Why is it that you think this age thing won’t happen to you? Oh, and look at the backs of my elbows! They look like old-lady wrinkled elbows with a sharp, bony protrusion.
I’ve never been able to figure out my looks. I’ve been told I’m striking. But what does that mean? It’s something people say when they can’t give you the usual compliments, like “you’re beautiful.” It could be my height that puts them off. I’m almost