If you know anything about me, you know that I read a lot. And when I read I usually use any random piece of paper as a bookmark. This is very convenient at the time. However, it becomes a royal pain in the ass when you try to find that damn piece of paper.
I've been trying to find an appointment card from my Endocrinologist. I figured that I had left it in a book I was reading at the time she gave it to me. But that also poses a problem considering at any given time, I may be reading 2-5 books. Then I remembered she gave it to me after I had moved back home so I might have stashed it in another book, thinking I'd remember to take it out later (apparently, I don't know myself very well).
So in the course of trying to find that damn appointment card, I looked through every single book I own. All 311 of them (according to my latest Delicious Library count). In my fervent search, I found lots of other random pieces of paper I had used for bookmarks. They are as follows:
A notecard with a quote from the song "Artist in the Ambulance" by Thrice--No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Two paint cards (the kind you get at a hardware store when you want the right color), one orange, one green--Math Through the Ages by William P. Berlinghoff & Fernando Q. Gouvêa
A piece of paper that says, "I don't know if you despise me or if your general apathy and sarcasm towards everything just happens to include me." This was a thought I had about a classmate, Dallin Bundy--Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels & Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A ticket to a Utah Grizzles game when I went on a date with Zeph Fargergen (real name, I'm not kidding)--Serial Killers and Mass Murderers by Nigel Cawthorne
A laminated card with Fyodor Dostoyevsky's picture on one side and a 2008 Russian calendar on the other--God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
An actual bookmark from the Yellowstone Association--East of Eden by John Steinbeck (this book also had chocolate pudding stains from when I was foolish enough to bring it to the Alpha Phi Annual Pudding Wrestling Activity)
A folded Post-It note that says, "Don't let the bastards win. -Bennion Rhead Cannon." Ben was my granddad and that was his motto--Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
A 10% off coupon for the grand opening of Aeropostale--The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
A picture of my friend, Brian Chamberlain--Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Brian was the guy who got me to read Atlas Shrugged
A small brown paper bag from Yellowstone--The Field Guide to Geology
A receipt in Russian--Ben Hur by Lew Wallace. Ben Hur cost 113 rubles, just so you know.
A DVS shoes sticker--The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
A Borders receipt--Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Interestingly enough, the receipt isn't for Catch-22. It's for The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
An actual bookmark from Yellowstone with the words, "In wilderness lies the hope of the world" along with a picture of Old Faithful--Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
A picture of an ex-boyfriend, David Martin--Dracula by Bram Stoker (if you knew about my relationship with David, you'd know why his picture being the bookmark for Dracula is so wonderfully coincidental.)
A business card for a professional massage therapist--Ghostgirl by Tonya Hurley
A real bookmark from Braun Books--Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner. (It's weird because I didn't even buy Freakonomics at Braun Books)
A tithing envelope from 2 bishops ago--Believing Christ by Stephen E. Robinson
An index card that says, "Kelly Cannon hates Walt Whitman"--The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume B.
Two connected movie stubs from The Chronicles of Narnia--Nothing Feels Good by Andy Greenwald (This book isn't actually mine. I borrowed it from my friend Josh Spongberg and never returned it)
A Russian Metro card--War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
An entry ticket to the Kennedy Space Center--How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
An empty paper thing that band-aids are kept in--Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott
A cardstock notecard that held a Alpha Phi Red Dress Pin--Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Another Russian Metro Card--The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A real bookmark of a picture of Albert Einstein--The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Yet another Russian Metro card--Confession of an English Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey
A beat up index card that says, "I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me." (a quote by Beatrice from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing)--The Karamazov Brothers by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The wedding announcement for my friend Davey Morrison-Dillard--The House of the Dead & Poor Folk by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A picture of a statue of William Shakespeare in Cedar City-- Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
An appointment card from the Vet for my dog Ralphie-- The Next American Essay edited by John D'Agata
In addition to all of these were business cards I had made myself when I was terribly bored, tiny fake money from the last Alpha Phi/Sigma Chi Italian Wedding, and those little cards you stick in your graduation announcements that say your full name and your class year.
I couldn't believe all of the bookmarks I had found. Some of them obviously were random but they all signified the time and/or place I read that book. Some were unintentionally hilarious (Dracula & David. HA!), some were a little sad (Atlas Shrugged and Brian), some brought a little memory and a smile (Kelly Cannon Hates Walt Whitman...) and some didn't make any sense (a receipt for Sylvia Plath in my Catch-22???) but they all told a little story of their own. Each bookmark was a story that also kept my place in another story. Most of the time I just stuck that piece of paper in there without a second thought. But now, looking back, I'm glad I chose that particular piece of paper.
Oh, and if you're wondering, no. I never did find that damn appointment card.
Love you.
Mean it.
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