celebrating books & the literary lifestyle

Category: My Stories

THE TIME I BOUGHT A HOUSE FOR ITS BOOKCASES

In 2005, I had no business buying a house. But I felt like that was the next logical step to make me into a responsible adult.

Much like today, the market was hot. Houses were overpriced, and you had to get an offer in immediately or the house wouldn’t be available the next day.

I strongly considered a house in another part of town. But they declined my offer. When I drive by that house, even today, I wonder how my life would have turned out differently if they had accepted my offer. Because I’m so glad they didn’t.

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A Post About a Chair

This post is from my own archives from a different, older blog. Watching This is Us and Rebecca’s memories of cradling Randall as the sun came up reminded me of savoring my own children in a certain chair.

(From 2014)

I am writing this so I can throw away an old chair.

When I moved to Dallas, Texas after college not knowing a soul in that city, I bought a small chair/loveseat set at Pier One for $500 total – a lot for me at the time, especially for something so itty bitty, but it fit perfectly in my first itty bitty apartment at 17878 Preston Road.  

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A PAT CONROY BOOK’S JOURNEY FULL CIRCLE

A family friend “Fred” often recorded his reflections in the back of his books. “MY BOOK, MY NOTES” he announced before noting reflections, disagreements, favorite paragraphs etc. I do this with a dog-ear to a page and on this blog but not to Fred’s detail.

Fred and my dad would exchange books, several at once. My friends do this too. Recently, my parents passed me a book of Fred’s they found while cleaning out shelves. They thought I might enjoy reading Fred’s notes in the back of The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son before I was to pass it along to Fred’s daughter. Fred had also noted in the front of the book that it had been a gift from her, Christmas ’13.

And yes I did enjoy Fred’s notes in the back – so much so that I ended up reading the book itself. I loved this book. How Conroy writes about both the horror and humor of his dysfunctional family is completely fascinating.

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