I've read a lot in the last two weeks: parts of six or seven non-fiction books about a variety of topics (herbs, Japanese history, the founding fathers, sewing, building a house, sustainable living, and finding a career), one novel (Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston), the beginning of another novel (Swimming by Joanna Hershon), the local newspaper each morning, and six different magazines (about running, herbs, health, and current events), which brings me to my point. I think I have ADD. Not really - or not any more than any other American. But the thing is, that book I was reading about finding a career - I don't really want a career, by the way - was called the Rennaissance Soul by Barbara Lowenstein. Lowenstein theorizes that a type of person exists called a Renaissance Soul, someone who is not interested in honing life into one steady career or one narrow academic subject. Renaissance souls are dabblers; people who might be branded "jacks of all trades, masters of none;" people who might change their college majors six or seven times or desperately want to leave lucrative jobs to try new things; people who have panic attacks when they think about spending thirty years at one job.

I can definitely relate to that. I've always been well-rounded (as they used to call it in elementary school), good at math and science and reading and writing and art. No teacher ever told me that I should be an artist or a scientist or a mathematician, because no subject really stood out from the others as my "gift." I'm still as likely to want to read about politics as art, history as biology, health as nature. I'm not exactly jealous of those steady career types, although I can see the perks. Some of the lifers I work with in the public sector will be retiring in a few years with fat pensions and benefits. They definitely have stamina that I don't have, the ability to be bored and burned out and still show up and do it again, day after day, and that stamina is (or was once) rewarded in our society. However, I am not exactly envious of those sorts. I think they are supressing their inner Renaissance souls more than they'd like to ponder upon. I'm more envious of people who are academic and directed, people who are willing to narrow all of their interests into one tiny subject and become experts. I know that I will never be an expert in anything, because I'm too curious about everything.

I work at a library. When I'm not hacking away at my writing or running or reading or doing one of the million other things I try to cram into a day, I am a reference assistant at a big library (not a librarian mind you). I'm not as proud as I should be about this, because, you know, libraries are pretty great. Especially mine. Lots of books and computers and DVDs, a place for homeless people to catch some winks during the day, a refuge for all the insane street-wanderers as well and the punk teens and the new mothers and the retired grandfathers and all the lonely types. Plus library people are edgy. We read banned books, we thumb our nose at the patriot act, we're recycling and anti-consumerist by our very nature, and we'll answer just about any question in the stratosphere, no matter how bizarre. Whenever someone says they don't go to the library because they buy all their books, I have to assume they don't read much and that they don't know how cool the library is. But if you're one of those book-buying types, keep it up. The publishing industry needs your dollars to keep the big wheels of the book biz turning. Then you can donate your books to the library! The only thing is, I sort of wish we could change the word library to something else, because that word has taken on a dowdy connotation. Maybe we could call our public libraries bookapaloozas or something, something fun, so peoples' eyes would light up when I say I work at one.