Heather Anne

Usually when I lose things (flat things) I find them inside the book I was reading when the (flat) thing(s) went missing. It's my way, because when I'm engaged in a story, I lose sight of other stuff. (Reality.) Despite my love of books, I am pretty (physically) irreverent with them. (I scar them.) I underline clever sentences. I dog ear pages. Also, I make notes. (Opinions.) (Facts.) (Arguments.) (Quotes.) But not just notes about the book; no, I also make notes about other things I've read (or heard) and want to remember. I jot reminders at the tops of pages. (Get milk and dog food!)

Inside the back cover of Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation, which I am reading at the moment, I wrote down some of Jacob's best lines from the most recent TWoP Gossip Girl recap. ("When Blair and Chuck made love, I made a big deal about it: once you start taking off clothes, if you're brave enough not to stop, you see the person for real. The film falls off the projector, and it stops being a story you tell yourself and starts being a story nobody tells at all.") ("The things that they give each other: the appearance, the burlesque of Christmas over the environmental issues interfering with real Christmas: this is how their relationship should work, 24/7/365.25: I will give you the fantasy that we can't really have. Because of the Palace, because of global warming, I will give you the fantasies we have in common.") ("Mostly I love how fiercely they love each other, where Serena can just sweetly rest her head on Blair's shoulder and wait for her to finish her demonic shit without even asking.") In fact, I have taken to keeping a pen handy every time I read Jacob's Gossip Girl recaps because he's Robert Penn Warren-good with words and Harper Lee-sincere in a way that is equal parts hilarious and poignant, and it's easily my favorite writing on the Internet.

I just pulled All the King's Men off of my bookshelf to further illustrate this point. (The point being that I mar my books, not that Jacob of TWoP is Pulitzer-worthy.) (He kind of is.) The first dog-eared page: "She kept on looking at me, not saying anything, with that look which always said, 'You've got something I want, something I need, something I have to have,' and said, too, 'I've got something for you, I won't tell you what, not yet, but I've got something for you, too.' The hollow in the cheeks: the hungry business. The glittering eyes: the promising business. And both at the same time. It was quite a trick." And I have scribbled in the margin, in deep, blue pen, "There is no virtue like necessity." I guess I was reading Richard II at the same time.

Just now I was lying in bed, scribbling a note in Assassination Vacation that said, "Sarah Vowell is an amazing wordsmith and a great historian, but as a statistician, she kind of sucks" when I noticed a piece of paper poking out of the copy of Anna Karenina that is stacked beside my bed. Turns out the paper was just a faded receipt, but inside the cover of the book, in my untidy scrawl, were the words, "Zac Efron is spelled Zac Efron. What a lovely face for such a weird name." Apparently I was researching (looking up on Wackopedia) High School Musical while reading Tolstoy. (Vronsky would have supported that. Levin? Absolutely not.)