Kindling and Such

I’ve been reading like mad in between bouts of one or another annoying health problem. Nothing deadly, just annoying. I finally managed to get a Kindle, the amazon.com e-reader. I had my doubts at first, which is why I wasn’t one of the ones to get it when it first came out. Since then, I’ve been waiting impatiently in line for them to make new ones. I mean, how long can it take? Suddenly I was seized by a wild and dangerous move: e-bay. I have never used e-bay, but I did find an unopened Kindle posted, and got it, as described. It’s great. It compares to the iPod, which I need to maintain my sanity. Music is that important to me. It also has the advantage of clearing out the house of thousands of books. I’m not going to get rid of all of them, no. Not anything with lots of pictures, not anything that looks simply beautiful on a shelf, and not anything I’d want to annotate (you can make annotations on a Kindle, but it’s a pain). Since Wednesday, I’ve sold ten books and got about $75 in my bank account and lots of books off the shelves (that haven’t sold yet). Those that won’t sell at amazon.com can probably be sold to local used book stores. Of course, not everything in my library is in Kindle format, but enough is to make it usable. Books decorate a room, but after a point, when they’re piled on shelves, on floors, on surfaces, they become somewhat oppressive. Anyway, enough about my new toy.

I have successfully (so far) grown fingernails so that I can use them to play the guitar properly. This near-impossible feat shows how much I want to play the guitar. The fact that I’ve spent more time reading than practicing is another issue. My hands look like they belong on another person. When I was a little girl, Memaw promised me five dollars and a manicure set if I’d just quit biting my nails. (She was a nurse and saw it more as a health hazard than disgusting and unladylike.) Sadly, Memaw is not around to see my new fingernails. I could go without the rewards now; I’d just like to see her happy about it.

This weekend I will be practicing my guitar to death if I am a good girl. That contingency will make for a pretty big if, but I do want to play the thing. It’s just frustrating to start almost anything to realize how much harder it is than it looks!