I admit that most days, I stay in my house. It isn’t because I am afraid, more because I am comfortable and lazy. I have been telling myself for weeks that I need to get out of my comfort zone and out of the house and find a place to hunker down and write. A friend suggested the library and I knew it would be perfect; quiet, surrounded by books and no food allowed. But I didn’t go; I stayed in the house and watched tv and ate too much and abused myself for being fat and lazy and useless. Why I found this a better option is a total fucking mystery to me, but the weeks floated by and the pounds added up and I found myself moving at the pace of “Days of our Lives”. I could clearly see the corner I needed to turn, but I was making sure the approach was as slow as possible.
Today, I turned the corner. I packed up my brand new bag made from recycled materials and headed out to my local library. The library is about a four block walk from my house, down Sunset Blvd. On the journey I passed a flamboyant man taking Polaroids of a motel frequented by hookers, a homeless person painstakingly organizing the contents of his shopping cart, and a throng of wide-eyed star fuckers searching for Charlie Sheen outside a famous strip joint.
When I got to the library I was met with an entrance free of loitering gang members, which I took as a good sign. Maybe this library thing was actually going to work. I walked in and it was quiet; wonderful. It was also full of people reading and working at the desks and surfing the net on the library’s computers. It was perfect. I was thrilled. I headed to the children’s section.
Why the children’s section? Well, for one it is in the back of the library and I wanted to be far away from the temptation of the exit. I also like the smaller desks and chairs because my feet actually touch the floor. Yes, I am that short. And, I figured if there was going to be noise, I would prefer happy kid noise to grumbling grown up noise.
So, here I am in the kids section of my local library and I am actually writing. I think I could make a habit of this.