my hair is being pulled by the stars. . . .Anais Nin

When I discovered Anais Nin in college, I special ordered all her books from Conkey's, the bookstore that supplied all books for our classes but also was a regular book store.

Gosh, in those days, paperbacks cost thirty five cents. And I guess it is true that college kids, at least in those days (early seventies) had spending money. I thought nothing of ordering books that were not for courses, just for recreational reading.

I inhaled all of Nin's work and all the work of many authors. I would discover an author and just buy everything available that was written by them.  Nowadays, I get restless reading a bunch of books by the same writer all at once. I like to change up writers, one book to the next. Young and obsessed with literature, I loved reading a writer's entire oeuvre.

Of course, in those days, I could do all my college homework and still inhale entire novels in a day.

A guy I dated often criticized my speed reading. He said I could not possibly have understood The Brothers Karamazov because I had read it too fast. We were in the same course and I read that one for a class.  Yet when I questioned him about that novel, he did not know nearly as much about it as me. If I read something, I usually remember it forever.

I have all that legal reading I did to become a lawyer seared in my brain, still accessible. It amazes me how much I remember.

Anais Nin. I should get some of her books out of the library and revisit her. She often wrote very sensually and sometimes actually wrote erotica. Some patron paid her by the word for pornographic erotica, she needed the money. Even when paid by the word, Nin wrote gorgeous works.