february 3rd by alyssa g

Helllllllo blogosphere! Welcome to February 3, 2013.
Today is the day of the Super Bowl... aka the televised Beyonce concert.

I don't know how you all are spending this fine afternoon, but I am reporting from my grandparents' house.

Sometimes when I'm bored, although my grandmother always makes a point to remind me that "only boring people get bored," I wander up to their office to look at the bookshelf.
I'm going to attempt to describe this bookshelf...
First, its pretty small, but it stores an impressive amount of books. There are more than two hundred, which is where I stopped counting. On the left side of the bookshelf, there are mostly works of fiction. There is some Hemingway, some Fitzgerald, some Faulkner, some Steinbeck, some Tolstoy, Plath, and some Kafka (cringe..?). There are probably ten books on the art of the haiku poem placed beside twenty copies of the dictionary/thesaurus/atlas. There's a vast array of books on history. I think it's a safe guess to say that there are two shelves devoted wholly to Japan and its languages, customs, religions, children stories, flower arrangements, and arts. The bottom shelf is full of books about counseling and psychology. I like the book called thoughts without a thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective. My favorite section of the bookshelf is the middle section. There is a copy of the Holy Qur'an next to a Lutheran bible next to a book called Misquoting Jesus next to a book called Zen Way-Jesus Way next to a book on Hinduism next to yet another book about Japan. Next to another book about Japan.

The only word that I can use to describe this collection seems to be "worldly." I feel smarter just sitting in front of the bookshelf. I also feel rather inadequate, but mostly I feel inspired to explore the world. Yesterday was my grandpa's 77th birthday. He has been to 50 countries on all seven continents (give or take a few), lived and taught in Japan, and in a few months, is planning to go to Portugal. For now, I travel the world vicariously through their photos and through these books. In the future, I hope to have a collection that compares to this one. ... awwww.

The funny thing to me is that as I sit in awe at these books, both of my grandparents are sitting downstairs reading on their iPads.