Where do we go from here.....

 Tuesday afternoon. Not much happening.  Completed all my tasks in the morning. Paying the month's rent; changing the ostomy bag---finished all that early, Then what? The week spreads out in front of me. Very few tasks---next doctor's appointment on Monday. It's all open. But in this environment what does that mean? Oh, how I would give anything to go to a public library and spend twenty or thirty minutes browsing or figuring out what book I wanted to borrow. But that offwon't happen any time soon. Still, there are six books sitting adjacent to my bed that interest me. But I have read none of them. Why? For some reason it is getting harder and harder to read in the apartment. I spend much more time at this computer.  The place 

where I can read, and read easily is in the coffee shop-lobby of the hotel on 77th and Broadway. But today they kept their window open and it was cold. Are there any other reading spaces that I shoud know about? Barnes and Noble has a few tables open in their nearby bookstore, but I find reading in that little coffee shop confining and depressing. So as of now---the hotel is the only one.

This afternoon---bookstore browsing. There are 4 bookstores within walking distance of my apartment, thank goodness, and even if I refuse to buy any book that excites me (staying on a tight budget) I can imagine what must be in those pages. Then I ask myself this question: "Can't I afford just one book that interests me and spend  between $13.00 and 30.00?"  The answer is always "no" Thank heaven for the used bookstore between 81st and 80st on Broadway. I have bought several books there for $1.00 that have really worked for me. This is a store that I avoided scrupulously when the library a block and a half was opened, but in a way, of course, this has become my library. "Grab and Go" does not work for me now, so every day I check out the used books selling for one dollar in the front of the store---and sometimes I find some very interesting stuff.

One book that sits innocently on the one dollar rack is Fear of Flying by Erica Jong. This was one of the hottest books of the early seventies---I can't believe that it has sat on the one dollar shelf for so long.  The  adventures of the novel's heroine, one Isadorra Wing, sum up the changes in the way women viewed and  lived sex that had taken place in the years leading up to the time of the novel. Married to a psychotherapist, but unhappily, Isadorra has several affairs during a convention, and lets the reader know about her deepest fantasies. It is actually a very well written novel---very sharp and clever---it was very big and well thought of 46 years ago. Yet there it lies in the $1.00 bin, untouched. Why? Perhaps I will buy it and give it as a present to my friend Sarah, who has been so helpful to me during the pandemic and illness. I think she would find this look into the past very interesting.

That's all for now, my search for meaning in this time continues. Will report soon.