Yeah...I didn't read that either!

Reading....Can I still do it???

I was in my personal haven (the bathroom with the door locked) tonight, and realized how long it has been since I’ve read an actual book.

No..I wasn’t actually reading on the “turlit” as Archie Bunker used to say, but I was thinking about it.

I use the “bathroom” for a lot of reasons, more for my mental health than bodily functions. But I’m digressing.

I was thinking about how much I used to read.

I used to have piles and piles of partially read books, and almost all of them, I would finish.

Now...not so much.

Yes, I still have the piles and piles of books. That part hasn’t changed.

But now they are all in the invariable unread state. I love to peruse book stores, and I buy books.

I love love books, but I take them home, and put them in piles.

Not only have I popped out two very small meatloaf’s in the last five years, I’ve lost my ability to concentrate on anything longer than, as Jeff Goldblume said in the movie “The Big Chill”, ‘than the average person can read during the average crap’.

I used to think that line was very funny....like who couldn’t read a book? I read books, many books a week. Now I can’t get through a freaking people article. Maybe I should just chalk it up to life with little kids, that and working full time. But damn, I think maybe I’ve just acquired a really bad habit.

I remember, years ago, when I would go into someone's house for the first time, and notice the lack of books. I would think to myself (yes, always to myself) what kind of person doesn’t have books in their house? Now I’m beginning to understand it.

This all started when my husband began his spring clean of our garage. We still have a bunch of moving boxes in the garage, because when we moved here, we moved half of his parents house with us.

He still hasn’t been able to bring himself to decide on what to get rid of and what to keep, and I know it’s hard, it’s all he physically has left of his parents.

So instead, he is focusing on my several boxes of books. He keeps telling me I need to get rid of my old books.

I can’t. I weeded them down when I moved here, and I haven’t put them out because I’m afraid my kids will rip them up. They aren’t worth much, but to me, they represent my life.

There is my anthology of John Steinbeck stories....well loved and tattered.

There is my weird Playboy book of Sci Fi Stories from the 70’s I think that I have kept for one story alone.

There is my college Children's’ Lit book, and my Text from Women's studies. There is my History of religions text, and my sociology text books.

There are quite a few very worn, well loved Danielle Steele books, my Clan of the Cave Bear series, and my dad’s favorite Louis Lamour books.

My boxes of books, they make no sense to anyone, except to me.

Each one is a treasure, and I have not held on to very many treasures in my life,

I’ve always been more of a dumper...get it out of here kind of person. With my books though, now that is a different story. Especially my old, tattered, slightly moldy smelling books.

I am about to lose it if he tells me to go through the books again. I don’t NEED to go through them, damn it!!

I know what are in those boxes and I refuse to lose them. I would be losing parts of myself I refuse to lose.

The funny thing is, my husband is a reader too.

He has out read me in the last 5 years by a long shot, but he reads something once, and it’s done.

He doesn’t get it when I tell him I know I’ll want to read something again.

How do I describe the pleasure that I get out of reading “The Chrysanthemum” by Steinbeck a million times?

Or that when I’m really upset, settling into a Danielle Steele book I’ve had since I was twelve is like my mind’s version of comfort food, not really healthy reading, but comforting all the same.

So what’s a busy mom to do? There are so many things I don’t do anymore, which one do I choose when I have 5 extra minutes?

Do I find a pottery studio again, or go get a black lab puppy? Find a really good blues concert somewhere, somehow? Sometimes it all seems so impossible.

The last 5 years have been full of more change than I ever thought I would have to go through. It’s like I’m changing the “old me” into the “new me” in very strange ways. I mean who the hell realizes she is gay after getting married, having two preemie babies, losing a parent and disconnecting with my best friend??

Well, maybe that makes more sense as I read it for the second time. Maybe it’s severe life changes that make you confront the “real” you.

So if anyone out there is reading, I hope this is making sense.

And please someone tell me why I’m watching “The Girls Next Door” on TV. They are so whiny, shallow and brain dead. What is the appeal anyway??? I guess sleeping with an 80 year old wrinkly man makes them special. Thanks, but no Thanks.

Peace,

OC