Bravo Jesus Colon

Why, you ask, am I awake at this ungodly hour writing my second post of the day? In all reality, I really couldn't tell you. I only slept for four hours last night, but you know how sometimes your body's too tired to let you go to sleep? Tonight's one of those nights. But I was half-heartedly reading for class tomorrow and came across something called "Books That Never Get Returned." What a masterpiece. I couldn't help but share.


This excerpt is from Jesus Colon's A Puerto Rican in New York:
"There is nothing so difficult as returning a book. My wife's maxim is, 'A book loaned is a book lost.' I would not go as far as that. I would say though that if I could have been present when Francis Bacon wrote: 'Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested,' I would have suggested that he add: 'and some books are to be read and returned.'
"On this question of returning books we have borrowed, we should not make any exceptions. It has happened to me. It happens to you. It happens to all of us--lenders and borrowers of books."

Oh God bless the man. If anyone is reading this, can I have my books back? And sister, I realize that there is a possibility I still have your copy of Enchantment. Worry not, I continue the search.

The real tragedy is that if I don't get my copies back, I lose my "marginalia" as Billy Collins puts it. But Billy's poetry has been loaned out along with Harry Potter's fourth year at Hogwarts. Holden Caulfield's teenage angst is nowhere to be found in my bedroom (which out of context makes me sound lucky I think), and also a beautiful story about a little girl that steals books during WWII is MIA. That one's called The Book Thief-- appropriate title, no? You little book thieves. Actually I'm pretty sure Scout, Jem, and Boo are in someone's hot little hands as well. Perhaps I need a better system. Or to stop loaning books to ex-boyfriends.