All posts tagged: reading

Generational Transmogrification: I am turning into my Grandma.

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Earlier this week, I lounged on the sofa with a crackly plastic wrapped novel from the library, feet propped on the footstool, glass of iced tea to hand. My reading glasses were propped on the end of my nose. With my right hand I played the page turning game: flip flip flip past the corner of each page yet to be read – can I flip through all of the pages before I finish reading the page I am on? It is an annoying, compulsive habit I’ve had as long as I remember. On my lap sat a bowl of popcorn. On the floor next to me a started but recently abandoned knitting project. The few completed rows of my new sweater looked good nestled next to the big ball of yarn in the bowl. Then I had déjà vu. Except it wasn’t déjà vu, it was memory, long-buried, unsought. I had been a part this scene before and not because I spend part of every day lounging and reading. I stopped my page flipping, …

Nothing Gets Done When I Have a Big Stack of New Library Books

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A person should never, ever visit the library on a Thursday, not if they want to have any kind of a productive weekend. I had Big Plans for last weekend. I was going to burn some paint off the woodwork in the bathroom. Mulch down the few garden beds still exposed to the burning drought-sun. Maybe clean the house. Mow the dry, brown vegetation patch that used to be the lawn. Watch a movie. Knit. Ride bikes. All kinds of things. Instead I read. Two romance novels, a couple of period mysteries, a fantasy novel, some modern literature, and a little bit of history.  I read on the sofa with my feet propped on the dog-worn ottoman. Read in the back yard on my new vintage-style woven-strap lounger. Perched with a book at the kitchen table – just for a moment was the intent but I creaked when I finally stood up. I read in bed. At my desk. On the front porch. On the back deck while burgers grilled. I may have spoken to …

Nice to see you. What books did you bring?

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Wide Eyed Funks visit one another every now and again, even though leaving the comforts and libraries of home is difficult for us. We are happy to see each other even if the joy of the family visit is tempered by the knowledge that a certain amount of reading time is going to be sacrificed for actual human interaction. It is, at best, bittersweet. We have developed a solution to the problem. And what I can’t decide is this: is our solution – mutually enacted, endlessly repeated –  conscious or unconscious? When a visit to or from a Funk household is impending, the book stack begins. What might the visitor like to read, what might be passed on to the host from the far-flung family collections? Once the visit begins, the discussions about “what have you been reading” are far more interesting than accomplishments, work activities, household life events, yah yah yah. That stuff comes and goes. The books, they linger. And, the best part, since everyone has new books to read, no one is left …