Wow.

This is amazing. I know I have just outed myself (again) as a total geek, but there is just something about a library. I can almost smell the rooms in these photos. This is my version of internet porn.

I remember as a kid going to the library with my older sisters. I am forever in their (and my mother's) debt for giving me such a love for reading. Of course, The 0ak L@wn Public Library doesn't quite measure up to the architectural marvel of these buildings, but it does have it's own brand of Mike Brady School Of Architecture charm. Books have gotten me through some of the worst things I have ever faced. If I could give anything as a gift to the general public it would be my love of books. (Of course, I would have plenty left over for myself, because my love knows no bounds...)

I have a really, really fantastic bookshelf in my house. It is actually meant to hold dishes, I believe, and it came out of an old building in Evanston, Illinois. I bought it in 1999 at a salvage company on South Halsted Street in Chicago for next to nothing, delivery included. It is solid oak, walnut stained, and by far the coolest purchase I have made as an adult. It is, as they say here in the American South, "slap full" of books (and dishes, for that matter. And rock show posters, and photographs...) and it reminds me of the massive, solid-looking wooden shelves in these pictures. Perhaps this is why I am so attached to it. It is difficult to move (though sa bum nim had much less trouble than anyone else who ever tried - kam sa ham ni da, sir), impractical for a person who has moved as often as I have in the past ten years, and certainly not "worth" the trouble, but just thinking about it makes me want to go get the furniture polish. I think I want to be buried in it. Have you ever owned a piece of furniture that made you feel like this? Or am I insane? Are those two things mutually exclusive?

Yesterday we rented a brush mower, which we carried to the house with the help of our friend Adam (thanks Adam!). Always have at least one friend with a truck, people. It's key. (Since I have been the friend with the truck I feel like I have built up a bit of truck karma at this point, but I am always grateful and surprised by the generosity of the truck people.) Jared and D-Mac came to help us bring it back this morning. It was earlier than I had ever seen either of them- after actually going to sleep, anyway. In any case, for the first time in about four years the bulk of our acreage is visible. Kilgore is pissed because he likes to poop in private and we cut down his blackberry hedge. The yard looks huge. The possibilities are endless, and I work with plants almost every day. Shit. Oh yeah, and then there's the weather...