My husband tends to use our bathroom as a mini library where he stores an assortment of reading material. Every time I use the bathroom I am then subjected to a microcosm of his reading tastes and proclivities and I wonder how 2 such opposite people share the same living space. We both love books and magazines, but that is where the similarities end.
I usually read only one book and one magazine at a time. I don't like to be reading too many things at once. This is not the case for Rob. I tend to treat my books quite well. I would never dream of dog-earring a page unless it was an extreme emergency. The other day when Zoe fell out of the tree she was climbing at the playground I still put my bookmark in place before rushing over to her. (She was fine and did not fall from very high.) I would never ever leave a book in the bathroom and subject it to the humidity of days of showers and the curious fingers of the child who shares our bathroom. I couldn't. I also tend to buy mostly one genre of book -- fiction. Occasionally I dip into biography and history, but I generally stick with fiction.
When I get a magazine I read it (or at least skim it) and then pass it to someone else or recycle it. I do not leave magazines lolling about for months at a time nor do I ever re-read them. Once in a blue moon I will save a particular issue of a magazine, but that is so rare that I only have 4 magazines (3 New Yorkers and one New York Times Magazine) saved and I have never re-read any of them.
Rob's reading material in our bathroom includes:
A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life -- warped hardcover with every 3rd page dog-eared
Latin Can Be Fun -- Seriously. And with the "Bargain" sticker still on it, of course
The February 2008 issue of Cigar Aficionado -- which has been in the bathroom since February 2008 and is barely holding together as a magazine anymore
The November 2008 issue of Outside Magazine -- see above
The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook with Zoe's drawings added to some of the illustrations
The most recent issue of Cook's Illustrated -- a magazine he subscribes to and yet I have never seen him cook one recipe from it.
The American Van Catalog -- also dog-eared which scares me since he is supposed to be getting rid of the van next month
The Selected Poems of D. H. Lawrence -- no complaints with that one
Interesting portrait of the man, isn't it?
3 comments:
Although I love the eclectic book collection (and I'm not one who is extremely fastidious with books), I must say that I get very, very annoyed by months-old magazines that lie around our house (almost always folded back to some article, so you can't tell what it is, although, chances are, it's a sporting or news magazine). I relegate them, when I find them lying around in places like the bathroom, to piles by his side of the bed that I don't have to see. I think you're very patient to leave them where they are.
The American Van Catalog? I can't even imagine what's in that thing!! I like magazines but DH threatened to make a box called "Sara's Pile of Crap" and put them in there. Now I tear out the pages I want to keep and put them in a file. No, I don't usually check back in my magazine file - lol!
Emily -- if there was any room left on Rob's side of the bed, I would put the magazines there, but the stack of books over there is dangerous as it is.
Sara -- oh yes American Van is special. Lucky for you they even have a website: http://www.americanvan.com/
Tearing out the magazine pages is a good idea. I do that too even though I eventually throw them out.
Post a Comment