Presents

I've just finished Larry King's Truth Be Told. It was given to me as a present last year by an appreciative contact whose story I had written. He thought I would value a memoir by a journalist.

This is how bad a journalist I am: I put it away on my shelf and in the meantime, went through my usual bizarre cocktail of reading matter (from the really kooky stuff to the really mundane that I forced myself to finish, just cos) but never touched this. It was there, on the shelf, smiling enticingly at me, but because the contact had said...journalists read this stuff, I didn't. I never like doing what I'm expected to do.

And then today, I picked it up. I had finished my last book just last night (Jon Kabat Zinn's Wherever You Go, There You Are) and was ready for something new. Something fresh. Maybe Margaret Atwood? I had not one, but two books to read. Both presents. But this was a present too.

Hmmm. I picked up Larry King. And didn't put it down until I finished it. I read in intervals throughout the day (stopping for a lunch at my aunt's), driving, walking along Bangsar pavements, buying a bathroom scale, yikes! taking the dogs for a walk, and other miscellaneous things that you cannot read a book and do).

But then I picked it up again straight after each of these. And read. And kept reading. Ashley, the hairdresser told me I had splendid powers of concentration. He watched me read without stopping for two straight hours.

"You want to cut short? No? Just trim? OK. You keeping long ah? Maybe later can come back and perm...."

Truth be told, I just loved it. It was so easy to read. Even when he was talking about really complex issues. And there was humour laced throughout. A sort of Mel Brooks-type dry wit.

Truth be told, I had never watched a single Larry King Live interview, in all those 25 years, so I was not attracted to the book. Now I wish I had.

It was a lovely day; a day of presents.

Only when I got into the book, did I understand and appreciate the present my contact/interviewee had given me. And if I remember, he sent me the loveliest thank you note, the only one I have received so far in this paper. I don't know what I did with it. I should have kept it.

And when I went for lunch, I received another present, Antonia Fraser's Must You Go? about her relationship with Harold Pinter. My aunt had read a story about it in one of her magazines and I happening to light upon her with an oven emergency, I baked what I had to, and the two of us took off for Kinokuniya to look for the book in question (it not being there, she ordered two, one copy for me, for my birthday....it's wonderful that I'm still receiving birthday presents in January).

Then when I got home, Chubs was here, having brought the D-man home from church and I asked if he wanted his presents now...I had ordered them off eBay and they had arrived already....and them being the old Jennings books (not the new editions, mind you, the old ones) he would like to enjoy them sooner. Of course he did. So he opened the two presents I had wrapped yesterday, stretched himself out on the sofa to read, and that was that.

A day of presents.

A day of presence.

Some days are like that.