Books, Books and Not a Line to Read

Jules has inspired me to take a look at my overflowing bookcases. I have at least twenty volumes of never-read, dust-catching titles now lying neatly stacked on the hearth ( no fire today). As I walk by, one catches my eye. Can I part with a wonderful little book called "How did I get to be 40 & other atrocities" by Judith Viorst? Picking it up, I remember why I grabbed it off a garage sale table. A sample below:

What am I doing with a mid-life crisis?
This morning I was seventeen.
I have barely begun the beguine and it’s
Good-night ladies
Already.

While I’ve been wondering who to be
When I grow up someday,
My acne has vanished away and now
I use vanishing cream for wrinkles– Already.

Why do I seem to remember Pearl Harbor?
Surely I must be too young.
When did the boys I once clung to
Start losing their hair?
Why can’t I take barefoot walks in the park
Without having my joints becoming stiff?
There is poetry still in me and it
Doesn’t seem fair.

While I was thinking I was just a girl
My future turned into my past.
The time for wild kisses goes fast and it’s
Time for Sanka.... Already?

Although, to personalize it, I might change Pearl Harbor to My Lai. Judith is a little older than me, but her wisdom is timeless. And this one:

The Sensuous Woman

I'm giving up nice and becoming a sensuous woman,
The kind of a woman who wouldn't wear bedsocks to bed.
I'm giving up going to places like Saks and the cleaners
And going wherever my appetites lead me instead.
I've bought all these books that are teaching me how to discover
Erogenous zones that would make my Aunt Ida drop dead.
And as soon as I've found them, I'll go be
A sensuous woman.

I'm giving up good and becoming a seething inferno,
One of those forces of nature mere mortals can't tame.
Beneath my beige knit (polyester) such cravings will smolder
That Uncle Jerome, if he heard, would pass out from the shame.
The books say that even a middle-class girl from New Jersey
Can fan, if she practices, practically anyone's flame.
And as soon as I've practiced, I'll go be
A seething inferno.

I'm giving up sweet and becoming a creature of passion,
A wild thing that nobody can full possess.
I'm leaving behind me a lot of wrecked lives, plus some
heartache.
(You think that a creature of passion would settle for less?)
My cousin Elaine, let me tell you, does not even know from
The animal needs that the books say I need to express.
And as soon as I need them, I'll go be
A creature of passion.

I'm giving up G and becoming an X-rated woman,
With black satin sheets and an overhead mirror or two.
I've still got some years, between car pools and Medicare
payments,
To do all those things I've been warned all my life not to do.
The books say I'll learn to stop worrying what my Aunt Ida
And Uncle Jerome, and my mother, would think if they knew.
As soon as I've stopped, I will go be
A sensuous woman.
-Judith Viorst

OOOHHH, and how can I part with a little paperback jewel entitled, "True Magick - a Beginner's Guide" which teaches me to seek my inner "high warrior"? Sigh, the stack has dwindled some. Oh well, two or three out of twenty won't matter much in terms of bookcase space, will it?