Stone Life

Today is one of those days. I am wearing the same clothes that I have been in for days now, and I have begun to wear a hole in the couch from where I have been sitting for eight or more hours a day with a pile of books beside me. The reading load is pretty intense, and I am currently mired in Freud, Jung, Lacan, and a host of other psychoanalytic theorists, but I had to stop to share a bit of joy. I was assigned a reading at the last minute from a book I did not buy at the beginning of the semester, and I had begun to search for an online copy, when I remembered that we have an ever-expanding library that might contain just such a short story. So, sure enough, I found a collection of Poe short stories, and of course this one was there. That may be my favorite part about collecting books…you never know exactly what you have and when you will need it. My joys are simple and small today.