I miss the days when library books had cards inside the covers to stamp when you checked them out.

Sure, scanning a bar code to check out a book is convenient. It’s quick.

But the process is also wasteful. Now, instead of one piece of paper that stays inside the book and is used over and over, a new piece of paper is printed every time a book is checked out. Garbage. Garbage. Garbage.

Now there is no way of knowing how many people checked out the same book before you. Part of its soul is missing. Part of your soul is neglected in the process. Now you’re just an isolated reader. You don’t know who held that book in the past. In the future no one will even know that it had passed through your hands. It’s like you don’t exist. Further proof: you can renew your books online so you don’t have to interact with a human.

Maybe I should sign my name and write the date on this card. There must be some way to validate my existence.

Idomeneus speared Erymas in the mouth; the bronze point of the spear went clean through it beneath the brain, crashing in among the white bones and smashing them up. His teeth were all of them knocked out and the blood came gushing in a stream from both his eyes; it also came gurgling up from his mouth and nostrils, and the darkness of death enfolded him round about.

-The Iliad

That is some pretty gruesome stuff!

Then fate fell upon Diores, son of Amarynceus, for he was struck by a jagged stone near the ankle of his right leg. He that hurled it was Peirous, son of Imbrasus, captain of the Thracians, who had come from Aenus; the bones and both the tendons were crushed by the pitiless stone.

-The Iliad

That would be his peroneus brevus and peroneus longus tendons, most likely.

I can relate. See: “Return to Peroneus Brevis Hill”.

When a girlfriend gives you a book of poetry and you finally read it 11 years after breaking up with her…