Empty Places in my Head

It's the empty places in my head that always cause trouble. This morning as I drowsily shifted from my back to my left side, I felt a slow, sludgy shift happening. Some viscous liquid was slowly settling from the back of my head to the left side. I hate congestion. Congestion is just one step away from a sinus infection. And all because there are holes inside my head, waiting to fill with crud.

Earlier this week, I became aware of a different kind of empty place in my head. To wit, my brain seemed to be made of swiss cheese as I found my memory of even recent events paper thin. People would ask me questions and I'd look at them and say, "Wait. What were we talking about?" This is a very disconcerting feeling, to feel like my brain may have taken a vacation.

It may have been this sickening feeling of mental slowdown (shutdown?) that inspired my trip to the library yesterday. I looked up my GoodReads "to read" list and wrote down almost every one of the novels that I've been looking forward to. Then I searched the library catalogs to see what was available. I also wrote down some author's names that generally prove rewarding. And so it was that I came home from the library with two arms full of:

* War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

* The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

* Middlemarch by George Eliot

* My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

* The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

* The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

* Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

* Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

* The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck

...and... since every meal of hearty protein and fiber deserves a bit of sticky-sweet dessert....

* Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty & the Beast by Robin McKinley

I haven't totaled up the pages here yet, but it appears to be about 5000 at first glance. I know it's impossible to read all of this before the library demands I remember the "borrow" policy that they so forcefully insist on. It's impossible with my current responsibilities.

Impossible doesn't daunt me, though.

I left the library with a huge grin smothering my face. If I'm lucky, those empty places in my head will start to fill up with cerebral goodness instead of a winter cold. I'll remember what I was talking about two minutes before.