It's all in the books...

I've got a college degree. Heck, I've got a couple of 'em. They're ok. They look good in a frame and they're like an e ticket that gets you on the good rides at D-Land. Truth is - I recommend them to everyone - but to get one, you have got to buy the books.

The library is the big lie in college. They tell you that all the books you need are available for checkout, but the ones that you want are always gone and the ones they have are only for use inside the quiet four walls of the ivory tower. I can't read an entire book sitting in the library media center; I have to be near the TV, a glance out the window, a short walk to the kitchen stuffed with comfort food when I realize that I won't be sleeping tonight because I have procrastinated too long by staring out the window when I should be reading.

Truth is: I'm a slow reader.

I get distracted. I start reading about a topic and off my mind goes writing its own ending. Sometimes I catch myself mid daydream realizing that it was inspired by the book but has nothing to do with the subject between the covers. I could pick up a copy of Moby Dick and end up fantasizing that I'm on a toboggan trail in the Everglades being chased by a pack of wild boar  all because Melville mentioned bacon as Ahab broke through the ice.

Not my wife though.

That woman could read nose down in a book on the back of a Harley swerving in and out of rush hour traffic in the rain and never look up. It is unbelievable. She once came home on a Friday night with a new book that would have taken me literally weeks to force my way through: When I woke up on Saturday morning she had all but forgotten to sleep but that book was devoured. Like any sweet-hearted gal, my girl loves a sappy love story or a novel about women stickin' it to the man, but those books are nothing compared to her newly acquired library of "What's Goin Down in Your Belly with Your Baby," books.

It is like she is studying to be a babyologist. I have never seen a student take to a subject like this with her newly found thirst for knowledge about the life growing inside her.

This quest for understanding drives her to read every word of every page like she were consuming her last meal. Unlike an inmate's last request for a bucket of Kentucky Fried that will be eaten alone in the corner of his cell, this newly found body of knowledge apparently must be shared.

Every page is filled with descriptive accounts of the size of her placenta and accurately measured volumes of blood charging through her uterine walls. There are charts and pictures and arrows pointing to body parts no man was ever supposed to know about. Sure I took 8th grade sex ed, but I didn't pay attention to the inside parts. But here they are...and they are the fascination that holds my wife's attention day and night as she studies for her role as birth mother in September.

She is riveted. She reads for a while, finds something that she just has to share and then hangs it out there in the universe and looks longingly to me to respond that I too am just as engaged in this fascinating information.

Now, truth be known, I love the ocean. So, I get it. I can flip through a surfer magazine and find a picture that makes me think, "This has to be shared with the world," and on the rare occasion that I have ventured across the room to say, "Honey, you have got to see this," I have received the most courteous faux interest my wife could muster.

Apparently courtesy nods are appropriate for surf mags but not recommended for baby books.

"Did you know the baby is as big as a peach?"
"Did you know she is growing fingernails?"
"Did you know the baby can recognize my voice now?"

Cool. Really? Neat.

I am not good at this.

She tilts her head, the way she does when neither of us is sure what I am thinking, and she looks at me as if to ask if I am even listening. She is such an angel, rather than assume I am stupid enough to actually not be interested in the research regarding fetal sleep patterns and how music may interupt them, she goes ahead and offers me a second volley of information so that I might take another swing at it.

Honestly. I once met a horticulture major in college who was overflowing with information about the use of nitrates in fertilizer and the affect on the growing plant. This guy could talk endlessly. And although I never really cared about his plants - I was captivated by his excitement.

This is what its like living with my wife's books.

I can't read them. I'm just not that good of a reader. I know that I would start on chapter one, and by the end of the page, I'd be on stage jamming in a Reggae band with my unborn son in my mind. And although my college educated wife, a brilliant instructor by trade, could walk me through the book chart by chart, in a way that would prepare me for a standardized test on the subject, I just don't get the excitement. Not about the book anyway. The information is interesting, don't get me wrong, but what does keep my interest is her.

I went to college. I read the books. But they never interested me the way these books interest her. It is like watching a little girl with her first doll house. To me her excitement is far more exciting than the information that excites her. The light in her eyes, the perma-smirk on her smile that says...look what I am doing...I'm growing a baby. The college degrees may look good on your walls, but that's all you got from your books; when I finish my books - my journey will begin.

So, although I try my best to listen, and I think I have her fooled, the intrigue on my face has nothing to do with the facts and everything to do with the delivery. She is just fun to watch.