I’m shivering slightly in the busy South Coast Plaza Barnes & Noble, into which they continually pump icy air to prevent customers from falling asleep in their oversized chairs, underneath a pile of fresh, new books you can read without ever paying for. Thus its local title: the University of B & N. Every now and then, you see a middle-aged guy nod off in one of these loungers with a copy of Anna Karenina on his chest, creating the quaint tableau of yet another failed attempt to tackle one of those books that civilization has deemed essential to a pithy mystique.

I am one of the guilty tonight, managing to flirt with narcolepsy despite the arctic temperatures, page 25 of The Hours receiving a thin stream of my drool. Which isn’t to say the book isn’t good, or even enthralling in another frame of mind. It’s just that I seem to have this 25-page threshold, one that no amount of intellectual guilt can erode.

I am simply too lazy to read.

I get up to peruse the brightly colored books that have been carefully stacked on tables bearing signs that read “Books for Dad,” “Books for Teachers,” and such. From across the aisles I see “Books to Bring a Smile to Your Face” and – hello! I am desperately in need of a smile. I am in one of those moods again where the world, life and everything bores me to the point of tooth-grinding anxiety. I have been long trying to root out the cause of this severe boredom; are its origins geographic? Merely a matter of finally leaving behind the din of Cal State student-philosophizing and souped-up Civic-revving?  Or is it something I’ll never escape, never drive far enough away from? Some element of discontent that will follow me even into the corpse pose following a long yoga session, into my love’s arms, into the moments when, I am told, I should find peace.

I search the tables for the answer, though I know it’s not here— I’ve learned from the self-help section in four different bookstores that there is a lucrative market for people who need to hear what they already know. But I’m desperate for some distraction from my own head, so I persevere.

Next to me, a lightly perfumed woman is flipping over neon pink and green books, scanning the synopses for something that is compelling enough to pursue further. I watch her for too long because she glances at me. I smile nonchalantly to avoid looking creepy.

“They all sound like the same book, don’t they? Looks like literature has gone the way of TV shows and movies, huh?” I am plugging myself into a stranger for the briefest moment, waiting for her to accept and give something back—a collective insight—reassurance that I am not alone in my disenchantment with It All. She replies with a forced snicker, more like a snort actually – a pitiful sound that says “I’m only making this noise because the preferred alternative is a bitchy silence.”

I catch the familiar Orange County-stench of a rotten personality; this woman’s stiff, Botoxed face belies an otherwise visible strain under a stranger’s attempt at human bonding.  I wait on them all day long at the café, where they refuse to honor my witty greetings with any sort of acknowledgement, rather muttering “I’ll have an iced tea” without looking up from the menu.

Before I can loathe either this woman or myself (for even trying), she is gone. Swaying towards the escalators, to her Lexus, to an eggshell-white gated community on the bluffs where she can try to shake the trauma of plebian contact.

I loathe her anyway, and everyone like her, and my hate consumes any good feelings I used to have about the world, people and myself.

But it has little to do with them. I have simply reached my 25-page threshold.

I wanna take a crap on the chests of all people who waste their lives with self-help books… it would really help me

and them

i’m at about the same part in my book.  had to put it down for the day.  usually tho, i only make it about 25 pages into any book and put it down, forever.  i’m really bad about reading.  somethings got to get a grip on me and not let go for me to keep up with it.  good article btw :)

<sniff sniff> Stop it, you’re making me homesick!