Just One More Chapter...

I don't know which I love more.  Reading or writing.  I guess no one is forcing me to choose so I can be content with liking both equally.  I guess it just depends on my mood.  Reading is mindless for me.  A get away.  I don't read anything heavy.  I don't read to learn.  Anymore.  If I ever did in the first place.  More on that later.

I read for pure and simple pleasure.  I read fiction almost exclusively. Not science fiction (gag!) or trashy romance novels...although I've read my fair share of those.  Just good ol' fashioned fiction novels.  People and their lives.  Their stories.  Not all that different from what I do every day at work.  Listen to people's stories of their lives.  

But unlike work I don't have to retain the information I read when I read for pleasure.  In fact I often forget most of it after I read it.  I can't, and quite frankly don't want to, remember the details. I have enough to think about.  

Last year for Mother's Day the boys gave me a Kindle.  When the Kindle first came out I shunned it.  I thought I would miss the feel of a book.  Of turning pages.  Not unlike most new technology (cell phones, laptops, texting....just to name a few) I assume it's unnecessary and I won't like it.  It's the Spidle in me.  We are too good for new technology until it's been around for a few years.  Then we come to the dark side and become dependent on it just like everyone else while somehow feeling superior that we held out longer than others.  A ridiculous way of thinking.  Of this I am keenly aware! 

Anyway, I got a Kindle.  And I LOVE IT!!!  The best present I have received in as long as I can remember.  I have to limit myself lest I read at all hours of the day and night.  Skipping sleep, work, and parenting.  It could happen.  It's my drug. 

Last night I let myself just read to my little heart's content,  which ended up being 1 am and that's only because I finished my book.  I could have gone on for a few more hours.  This morning I woke up with what I call a book hangover.  I'm a big fan of books that make me cry.  I think it might be the one emotional outlet I allow myself in my otherwise "Ice Queen" world, as my husband lovingly calls it. 

I just let it flow.  Allowing the ugly cry every once in a while.  Connecting with or at least sympathizing with the main characters. Feeling their pain.  Riding the highs and lows with them.  Then wrapping it up.  Reading the last page.  Closing the book or rather now switching the book off and coming back to my own reality, which in comparison to what most characters are doing is pretty uneventful.  Fine by me.

Last night wasn't one of the ugly cries but I did have a nice chance to let go of some of the feelings I work so hard to keep in check the rest of week.  And oh it felt so good.  It was the kind where at first I start to tear up while trying to stay strong.  Then the realization that for all intensive purposes I am alone.  Jeremy is in a deep sleep beside me.  I am only occasionally reminded of his presence when he has a conversation with himself in his sleep.  The boys were sound asleep too.  So, I stopped trying to prevent the tears and just let them roll.  Occasionally wiping my eyes with the corner of my pillow case.  Then sniffing a little bit.  Then throwing caution to the wind and wiping my nose on my sheets.  It's OK.  Don't panic.  I knew today is laundry day.  It did finally get to the point that I had to get up for some toilet paper to blow my nose quietly.  Then I remember that Jeremy is in a dead sleep so I go for the ol' foghorn blow. 

I can feel a headache coming on from the stuffy nose and crying.  So I'm reading faster and faster knowing the end is so near.  I started the evening at about 73% of my book completed.  That's a new thing to get used to with the Kindle.  No more page numbers.  Just percentage of completion.  I think you can change it to page numbers but I kind of like the task of getting to 100%.  As I read, I can see the scale at the bottom slowly creeping towards 100%.  At the end of every chapter I think I should just put the book down and get some sleep.  But I don't.  I push forward.  Telling myself repeatedly "Just one more chapter.  OK.  Just one MORE chapter."  I'm such a rebel. 

And as that thought crosses my mind I realize it is both sad (seriously?  THIS is my rebellion?) and hilarious.  Hilarious because many times in my life reading at night has been a rebellion.  As I finished my book I started thinking of all the times that I actually got in trouble for reading.  Sounds funny to me now.  I wonder if my boys will ever be "in trouble" for reading.  And as I think of one time another pops in my head.  Then another.  Then another. Then I got out of bed and came down to write this blog. 

Nancy Drew books were my first love.  The first books I really remember reading and not being able to put down.  I remember trying to read them by flashlight at night and hearing my parents yell from the other room to go to bed. 

The same was true when I moved to my Aunt and Uncle's house when I was in middle school.  I had one of those fancy-dancy lamps that clip onto my headboard.  It was pink.  I was so cool.  Well fancy-dancy almost burned the house down.  I would put a pillow over it to dim the light so Karol couldn't tell I was still up reading.  One time it burned a hole through my pillow case.  Hey, I was 12.  Or maybe 13, but still....

Then there was the time that someone gave me a Dean Koontz book to read in 7th grade.  Seriously, who gave me that?  Anyway the librarian told my mom that his books were totally inappropriate for my age and she forbid me to read them.  I got another one somewhere because she caught me reading one again a few months later.  Seriously, these are my teenage rebellion stories?  This is so sad.  But when you train 35 hours a week and go to school full time, you aren't left with much opportunity for actual teenage rebellion. 

Then in college, reading remained one of my vices.  Given at this point I had developed a few other age appropriate misbehaviors but those are for another blog.  In another lifetime.  All of my good friends and teammates from that time know this story well.  We still get a laugh out of it.  I actually got in trouble from our coaches for reading an "outside reading book" on a bus trip home from a gymnastics meet.  What???  I was like 20 years old and in trouble for reading a book.  Apparently my grades were suffering (which meant having anything below a B) which would reflect poorly on our team as a whole.  We can't have that happen.  We have a reputation to uphold and that reputation does not include having a vast knowledge of Mary Higgins Clark or Danielle Steel.  I am sure on some levels their intention was honorable and in my best interest as opposed to theirs.  They could likely see a bigger picture than I could at the time.  A picture that included graduate school admissions requirements.  I should be grateful.  But mostly I still just find amusement that I got called out for reading a book of my own choosing as opposed to completing my Algebra homework.

And now I'm all grown up.  And sooooo mature, I might add.  And rarely encountering anything close to Algebra.  And no one to tell me to go to bed except the voice in my head reminding me how dead tired I will be the next day if I read just one more chapter....just one more chapter....just one  more chapter.....just one more chapter....zzzzzzzzzzz.