There's something extraordinarily releasing about paying your library fines. Perhaps because they are the least pressing of all fines the thought of them slides to the very back of one's brain. There they lie, quietly chanting their existence, so quiet the sound is easy to drown but never forgotten. Their reminder, however, is so rhythmic and so steady that your overdue library fines seem to dive underneath your skin, spreading throughout the body fluidly and evenly, demoralizing your existence and lessening you as a person. The quiet simplicity of the library ordeal is so unique that it simply will not stand to be left unpaid, so it proceeds to even the debt by robbing one of integrity and decency. There's not a creature lower than the non-library-fines-payer. The situation is so universally despicable, it's almost an adjective. "What's she like?” "Oh, she's the type that racks up library fees and doesn't pay them". Disgusting, I tell you. They take the one aspect of this society that doesn't seem to be driven by blatant consumerism and denies the foundation of the few rights a library is entitled to, simply because this squalid individual can. The act of refusing to pay a library fine is an unconscious indolence that is simultaneously so deliberate it borders on racism. The characteristics of a library define it as an edifice much different than a store or shop; its impetus is education, its tool kindness. It is true that, when unsuccessful, this kindness morphs into harassment through mail and the phone so severe the inhumanity can be sickening, I will not deny this. This is not a battle, however, but a crusade. Not an effort for the presidents and founders to reach the top of the monetary hierarchy, but an attempt to elevate society through schooling and intellectual edification. It is a race against decadence, one of the last hopes for our race. Join us! Release yourself and fight for the cause! PAY YOUR FINES! FOR THE LOVE OF HEAVEN AND ALL THAT IS HOLY, PAY THE FREAKING FEES!

I just did. Thirty-two hundred, forty three cents to this noble foundation. I could have blown it on a shirt, and waited until the Anderson-Foothill library dispatched their lawyers and mercenaries to make me give what I owe. But I did not. I walked right up to that library and slapped the currency down on the desk. I will be bound no more! I will not live for this, this momentarily enthralling procrastination. How sweet the liberation, how seductive this new-found deliverance is on my lips, in my soul, in my body, filling every cavity and organ. It's beautiful.

Anyway, play practice was fun today. I'm just enjoying my character so very much. I'm acting with John, too, and he is such a sweetie. Today Elisse was kind enough to inform me that my "husband" actually has no charm, and I'm silly for thinking this. Clearly she has no experience looking from the modeling perspective (considering this guy looks exactly like Julien Hedquist), but feels the right to correct my opinion all the same. But apparently she does know him from debate, so I'm stupid for not letting her aristocratic biases rule my judgment. I mean, what's wrong with me? Even though she does have my blog address, I'm not going to censor this. I do not write for her, or anybody else.

Tonight Jane and I might go see "girl with the Pearl Earring". I don't like Scarlet Johansson, but the movie's supposed to be good. We'll see; walking home in the rain wasn't the best thing for my head cold, and I'm beginning to feel slightly dotty (hence the pontification above).

Speaking of dotty, I talked with the bat today. She bounced up to me, clearly very excited. Upon inquiring about her cheerful demeanor, she informed me that she had a joke to tell me. Truthfully, I was intrigued. The bat usually doesn't leave her cave, especially for something like this. The women is surprisingly unpredictable, considering her current life consists of three basic activities (eating, sleeping, and staring into the abyss with her mouth open, slightly sagging to the left of her face). So she tells me:

"I heard this funny on the Carolyn Rhea show.” (I thought the word “funny” was an adjective. I must have been wrong.) “So a man is sitting at the dinner table eating with his son. He asks his son, who was raised in the city “do you know what a pig is?”. So he went in another room, then the secretary turned to the cat and said, “Only during coffee break”.”

She giggled and sputtered for about half a minute before realizing my face was one of worry, not the amused gaiety she apparently had expected.

I don’t get it, I said

“Well, I had to leave some of it out. Some of the joke was inappropriate, and not for the ears of a child.” She said this smugly, as if the pieces of the joke that together formed the meaning were all secrets that she would guard valiantly till death (which, I swear, will be any minute now. I don’t know what sustains her, I really don’t).

After saying this, she sighed, and then shuffled back to her room. What would my life be without the bat?

I don’t know why so many of us hide behind the sensational daydream that is sanity. The bat is perfectly fine without such balderdash. Perhaps that’s what nourishes this woman, the sheer fact that she is possibly one of the barmiest people alive. How philosophical.

Well, I’m going to go see what I’m doing tonight. I don’t know if I’m up to a movie, I’m feeling progressively worse. Maybe I’ll just curl up with a cup of tea and some crumb cake, and watch the news. I feel severely uninformed, perhaps I’ll do that. We’ll see.

But I haven’t yet told you, my dearest reader, about my day. I shall do this before I depart. Let me see, I:
1. Took a Spanish test, which I’m quite sure I failed. The imperfect and preterit tense? What is this twaddle? I shan’t bother with it a moment longer.
2. Skipped seminary to type up a resume for an interview that, I found out shortly after, was not today.
3. I worked on my poetry only to have Elisse eventually do it for me.
4. Went to Tesoro and bought a preposterous amount of junk food, only to share it with Frank the debate coach, who has dangerously high cholesterol.
5. Went to Physics and decided that New Zealand is one of the most adorable people in the High School. The heroine and cruel behavior details only make him sexier.
6. Went to play practice. Clearly the fate of a pill-popping perfectionist is the one for me; I’m perfect at this. I’m so excited!
7. Traveled to the library, payed my dues and went shopping.
8. Came home and blogged.

I know- I’m thrilled to have such an eventful life, too. Farewell, dearest reader. I’m off for a long weekend. Whoopee!