wrapped up in books

Currently, my worst habit seems to be reading multiple books at the same time.

"That can't be worst," one might think. "There are many worse habits to have, ones that you've alluded to in the past. There's that penchant for scotch, that craving of cake, and a certain strangeness about you that indicates you're never quite doing what you want to be doing with your life. Those seem like bad habits to me."

Those are pretty bad habits, I guess; they worsen by the day. Still, they're the habits I've always had, and the evils you know are always a damn sight simpler than the ones you don't. As a child, I was a staunchly monogamous reader - cover to cover, usually in an afternoon, picking and choosing from my pile of library treasures as though it were a game.

Now, by contrast, I am shameless; I start books, and then I see more of them roll into my library pickup queue. Then, I hit bookstores and find a third set of selections waiting to be purchased; above it all, I start reading texts on useful things like "how to run a half-marathon," which is the sort of information I hate admitting I need. Somewhere down the line, then, I realize I'm reading Anna Karenina (still), a marathon-training book , two philosophy texts, and one of Mary Karr's memoirs all at the same time, and everything inside of me just halts and wonders what exactly my intentions are towards these texts.

The answer is, to be honest, totally unclear. I have yet to uncover the hidden reason why it's suddenly hard for me to work one at a time; I suspect it has something to do with how scared I am of anything that's not an immediately easy read. Still, I wonder, what bridges the gap between the "good" and the "difficult"? Just as my favorite modern rock bands strike simple chords in the guises of Lucero and Against Me!, so too my favorite philosophers speak in plain, ordinary language. Does this make me a simple person, or does it underline the fact that I think it's far more difficult to make people understand conplex concepts in everyday language than it is to speak in what amounts to tongues?

Somewhere in this answer lies the secret to my newly developed and slightly shameful reading habits, I feel; somewhere in me, I'm taking what I know to be true and trying desperately to prove it through language that takes me more time to get through than I'm willing to admit. This afternoon, in a tiny sunny Brooklyn park, I finished one book.

Tonight, I glance at my bedside and see the two I have picked to proceed it, and I know with certainty that my life in books will remain skewed until summer hits with a that sudden precise decision that indicates I will read nothing unbeachworthy till the weather gets old and musty.