Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors, and this quote from him, which I read in an article in the NY Times (A Literary Ledgent Fights for a Local Library), has just endeared him to me that much more:

“Libraries raised me, I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

While I don't actually make much use of the library, instead electing to borrow books from friends, or spend what little spare cash I have on acquiring books to keep for my own, in a way building my own library, I understand the importance the library plays in the lives of people who either can't budget to buy their own books, or aren't privileged enough to be surrounded by people who also enjoy reading. Also, while my reasoning for lack of faith in the colleges and universities, I can agree with both his reasoning for lack of faith in them, as well as identify with the sentiment due to my own experiences.

Also mentioned in this article is his dislike of the internet. This makes me sad, as to some degree the internet serves the same role that libraries do, making information much more available to the masses. I can understand that it's sometimes hard to sort the signal from the noise, but the same problem can arise in the library too. I used to spend time in the Castro Valley library, when I was growing up, but it didn't take me long to get frustrated there as once I started looking for good science fiction, all of it was only available by transfer from other libraries, and most of what I was looking for was usually checked out from the other branches anyways. I didn't have the patience to wait for these books to come in, so I sought other sources for my reading material.

They're currently building a new library for Castro Valley, and so far the building looks pretty cool, so I may actually go check it out when it opens. Who knows, I may even start spending more time in the library again if their book selection has improved and expanded since I last gave them a chance. However, I am a lover of books. I don't like reading them and letting them go. I like collecting them. I like being able to go back and pick them up at random to find quotes, or to be able to hand them over to a friend to share the love, knowing that I'll get my book back having introduced it to someone new, and to have shared its knowledge.

I hope to one day eventually have a proper library room in whatever house I settle into long term. A comfortable room with big plush chairs, a nice window to let just the right amount of afternoon light in to read by, and floor to ceiling bookcases. Being the dork I am, there will likely be a library room computer, with a way to catalog all my books in it, possibly using a :cuecat as a barcode scanner.

I <3 The Winslow.

I suspect that part of the way I manage to be so emotionally divested in life, and don't mistake this for a lack of anger and passion, just a lack of attachment, is that I throw so much of my emotion into my writing when I can corner the muse and get her to sing for me. Right now I'm working through a difficult part in Diziara's life, what ultimately amounts to her turning point that lead her to the path that landed her in starfleet and as a stone cold lunatic bitch. This character, I've been working with since high school, and as I have mentioned many times in this journal, came to realize she represents my id. My id could have manifested in any universe, in any form, but I suspect part of what lead me to having her manifest in the trek universe was that when I started working with her, I didn't feel secure enough in my writing skills to work outside of a universe that had not been established before I started to play there.

Those of you who play in the game with me where I'm currently running Dizi, or those of you who keep a spare eye on it when you can, I am not talking about the current plot line we're working through... that's fluff, it's giving us excuses to abuse the Andorian Bastard of a chief tactical officer, a way to pull in a new character that's not native to the 24th century, and a chance for Diziara to justify her 20th Century Earth History minor from the Academy. I have a whole folder on my computer with a collection of vignettes of history for Diziara, most of it isn't likely to be seen by much of anyone else other than me, as some of the scenes are ones that I was either hashing out before making a post to a game, or before writing an entry in her journal, and others represent views of events in her life that she doesn't even remember herself, but none the less impact the rest of her life, the rumors spoken about her, and what information may eventually surface from her subconscious.

This important bit, it's the death of the man she loved. She was about a month and a half away from marrying him, she was on cloud nine, and something that is as normal as breathing to her manages to take him away from her. From the creation of the character, Travis has always been a looming figure in her past, unrealized potential, happiness snatched away, and a snapping point for her. However, the fact that I'd never actually written out the events that took him away from her always left the pain their nebulous, intangible, and almost trivial to think about. Sure, certain aspects of her personality, certain motives behind her actions sprung forth from this point in her life, but it still felt intangible. Well, now the muse has seen fit to give me a clearer vision of this event, to allow me to attempt to capture this scene in words, and now it feels painfully real.

A part of me knows that I should not care this much about characters who amount to little more than fiction, but another part knows that it was my choice to do this to them, and it's almost like a double blow, that detail. It makes me wonder what sort of person I am that I have to torture my id with such abuse. What sort of person I am that in order for my id to represent me, I have to justify some aspect of my personality with such a tragic event, something that I have never been through myself.

Well, that is annoying. I hadn't realized that since I'd upgraded to Kubuntu 9.04 that Amarok hadn't been submititng my recently listened tracks. Amarok was already annoying me because certain functionality I depended upon in it wasn't there in this version two development, but they'd decided to stop including the old version one-something when they did the last release. Annoying.

I did find a recommendation on how to fix it, and I'm attempting it right now. We'll see if it works or not.