Thumbing Through Pages vs. Twiddling His Thumbs

After experiencing a royally wretched first half of my day (being stuck in traffic after having a medium iced latte, finally getting to my destination only to find out that there is no way in - the elevator was not functioning and all doors were locked) I make my way back home to ensure more traffic, trying to remind myself that this hiccup is trivial compared to the monumentally serious things going on in the world. Granted, I am still fuming and on the verge of tears when I speed by a man leaning up against his car reading a book. He is right by the Paramount lot parking structure. I decide to pull over by the Santa Monica Boulevard Elementary School and walk over to him.

This man is reading Model Behavior by Jay McInerney, a book he borrowed from the public library. He tells me it's about a writer who is dating a model. Prior to reading Model Behavior, he had read McInerney's short stories which led him to pick up this novel. The last novel he read was Ironweed by William J. Kennedy, set during the Great Depression.



I asked this man what he was doing reading a book against his car. He was actually waiting for a friend. Always armed with a book, he is able to pass the time for 15 minutes or so whenever he has to wait for a period of time. "I can't stand those idle moments. It frustrates me when reading time is taken away from me so I try to have a book handy to avoid having to twiddle my thumbs as I wait for friends, wait in line, and what not." His friend approached and popped open the trunk to dump in his stuff. "Yeah, that guy HATES books." His comrade rolled his eyes at this and shook his head as if in agreement. And off we went in our separate directions.