Bedside Manner: San Diego, California

Bedside. San Diego, California—or was this Los Angeles? It could have been Tucson. It’s definitely not Phoenix. In Phoenix, I stayed in a nice hotel with a carpeted floor and a bed so tall, I nearly needed a step stool to get in to it.

This snapshot of my current reading material is almost as telling as the postcards and other photos I collected on my recent multi-city trip. It reminds me of several things. First that I was, indeed traveling. Second, that it was a business and pleasure trip. Third, that I’m still that kid who checked out too many books at the library, never able to finish what I’d checked out before it was time to return them.

Magazines are my guilty pleasure. Bust is a great magazine—well put together, not overdone with the “girly” stuff with enough serious pieces to keep my attention. I thought it was cool that such a young, hip magazine had a cover story about Helen Mirren. More magazine is more my demographic, but I actually have a subscription to Bust (and Bitch magazine, it’s less glossy, more snarky cousin). Trips are when I get to read all the magazines I’ve hoarded and my excuse to try new magazines I’ve been curious about (e.g., More.) Plus, they’re easy to carry on the plane. And because they don’t require the commitment of a book, they make me feel like I’m actually on vacation.

I don’t read in bed. Never have. For all the pillows I would need to be comfortable, I might as well be in chair, which is where I prefer to read at home. On the road, books are for the airport, unexpected delays, afternoons in coffee shops or quiet moments where I’m staying as a house guest. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much quiet time on this trip. My first stop was at my brother’s house to visit his new, blended family. There was too much laughing, and eating, and driving, and talking about old times to read, and besides—it’s hard to read in a house where books aren’t already living. Strange, considering that my brother and I grew up with books. Because of my new, 16-year-old niece’s graciousness, I was staying in her bedroom, a room appointed with photos, cute knick-knacks, a TV with DVD player (connected to cable, no less), and all the other things you might expect. But no night stand or reading lamp for book reading. The only set of books in the room—the whole house, I think—were a collection of the Twilight books and those were on a high shelf barely at arms length, more like another piece of decor. I felt a little sad over this. My new niece and I got along well, considering I was invading her space. But chatting over books, I guess, is not going to be in our future.

I finally got a chance to dip into Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna in Los Angeles. I had not been much of a fan, but this book (the recent winner of the Orange Prize) piqued my interest. The story of a young boy, growing up with his mother in Mexico, who has married a Mexican under questionable circumstances is intriguing because I’m interested in the young male voice, how Kingsolver plays with narrative time, and curious to see how she handles the use of Spanish in her work. Oh, and the prose is really lovely. That’s as much as I can tell you. Between being wined and dined in Los Angeles by a dear friend, then speaking at the Latino Book and Family Festival in Los Angeles, my time with the book was estranged. So very peculiar to be surrounded by books but unable to engage with them.

By the time I got to Tucson, it was more wining and dining, long talks into the night, and working on the road. I thought I might crack into the Latino Religions and Civic Activism in the United States, the non-fiction book I carried with me. I think it’s important to have both fiction and fiction on a trip, just in case. This one is research for my next novel. That’s as much as I can say about that, except to say that I did not get to crack that one open at all. Sigh.

So, now, the books move to the top of the tall tower of books I keep wanting to read. I'm thinking that I'd like to have a reading vacation. Arrive a day or two later, just so I can catch up on my reading. I daydream about that. I really do.