Why I Love to Read

Anyone who has ever talked to me for more than about five minutes knows I love to read. What most people don't know is exactly how much I do it. Of course it varies depending on various factors: how much I'm working, whether I've got a project I'm working on, if my books are accessible or not (I once spent three months sleeping on a makeshift bed constructed of an air mattress and eight boxes of books; true story), all kinds of things. But at the least, I usually do two or three books a week, plus a magazine or two. I have been known, at times, to read a book a day.

And frankly, it's not really a hobby that's easy to explain to people. When I moved to Utah, my sister who lived there already found my first apartment, and she was baffled by my need to bring hundreds of books with me. I couldn't find the words to make her understand why the books go where I go.

So now, several years later, I'm living with my parents in what was supposed to be a temporary stint (and is at two years and counting.) My library is in storage at my sister's house, and I have tried various ways of filling the hole in my life. One of these is, obviously, to acquire more books, and since I work in a bookstore and have access to advanced reader copies, stripped paperbacks and a serious discount, I have certainly done my share of that. (It should also be noted here that my sister, the same one who didn't understand the need to haul several hundred books from place to place, aids and abets my addiction by giving me things like about seventy-five Sweet Valley High books she found at a garage sale. I have plans to track down the other forty-odd titles so I have a complete set. As you do).

Anyway, in January I was given a new way to cope with my deprivation when my store won a contest and every employee was given a Nook Tablet. I had never thought of purchasing one for myself, largely because I couldn't afford it, but it was nice to have. And since then I have used it in various degrees of frequency. I subscribed to a few magazines, bought (or got for free) about fifty ebooks, loaded up a bunch of music and dozens of pictures of my nieces and nephew, and added some games for them. It's a handy toy and I have affectionately named it Arthur.

Last week I was packing for a four-day family reunion in Island Park, which is across the state. Normally for a trip of that duration, I would have packed...five or six books, just to make sure. But we (my mom, my younger sister and I) were making the trip in my mother's Mustang, which meant that space was at a premium. So I brought my Nook along. And it turned out to be very useful-I listened to music, read a few magazines and played games with my niece and nephew, who are endlessly entertained by the thing. What I didn't do was much serious reading because there just wasn't time; we rented an enormous house with pool and Ping Pong tables, visited Yellowstone (including seeing Old Faithful, which was a first for me) and stayed up way later than we should have playing board games. It was a great weekend.

But in the way that all vacations are, it was exhausting, and I looked forward to nothing more than getting home and getting some much-delayed rest. Unfortunately, that was delayed by my mother's car deciding that ten miles out of Burley was an ideal location to develop an almost-flat tire and then refuse to start up again. An hour and a half of standing on a freeway in July. followed by the final two-and-a-half hours travel, and I arrived home Sunday evening tired, hot, sweaty and crumpled. And all I wanted was to go to sleep. Since my body doesn't really seem to like sleeping unless the conditions are absolutely perfect, and I couldn't find my Nook charging cable to finish the magazine I'd been reading, I opted instead to flop down on my bed and read the first book I saw, called The Meryl Streep Movie Club, an ARC I had picked up at work a while back and hadn't gotten to yet.

About two hours later, I emerged from it with a realization: I felt better. Not hot, not cranky, not filled up with thought of my vacation or going back to work or what I should get done the next day. I also discovered that, fond as I am of Arthur Nook, it isn't possible for me to have that same level of immersion in an electronic device. Reading books is an escape, a way to take myself out of my life and dive into someone else's, to come away with renewed perspective and appreciation for all my blessings, to learn things I didn't know before and get additional information about things I did.

And that, I think, is why I love to read. Because by taking a vacation from myself, I come to know that self much better. And every book I read, good or bad, enjoyable or not, changes me a little. So it is in this lifelong love affair with the written word that I have become who I am, and by disengaging from the world and from my own head, even for a short while, that I figure out who that is.

You cannot possibly be serious

Remember about a year ago, when I posted this, and in it mentioned the Titanic of a breakup I had and that I didn't know whether the guy was an utter moron or a complete jerk? Today I got some more information, and I STILL don't know. But to understand this properly, a bit of background.

The story is this: Guy (whom I am not, for reasons that baffle even me, going to call by name) was my best friend. We did lots of things together, spent lots of time together, to the point that everyone assumed we were dating. We'd talked about it a bit, but decided that we just didn't feel that way. Until I had two truly horrific almost-relationships with guys who were both utter morons and complete jerks-more on that another time-and suddenly my friend's strong dedication to the gospel and sweet temperament seemed a lot more appealing. And I found myself being interested. But I had promised after our thoroughly awkward should-we-or-shouldn't-we conversation that I wouldn't bring it up again.

So quite some time goes by, and through a series of circumstances, I found myself almost devoid of friends and living in a place I could barely stand to be in. So I spent pretty much all my time at work or his house, watching movies, cooking meals, helping him with a big project he had going, thinking he was seeing me the same way. And eventually my altered feelings come out, and he basically says no thanks. Which was hard. And not long after that he apparently decided that being friends didn't really matter to him either, and said no thanks to that as well. Which was harder. And then other things happened and I moved away without saying goodbye, partly because I was angry and hoping he would suffer from that and partly because I couldn't handle it.

About six months later, I had a funny thing happen that only he would be able to understand, and I thought, "What the heck-I'm over it, right? I've moved on. I'll just be a bigger person and text him and tell him. No big deal, no demands, not trying to have any kind of contact, just here's this funny story, huzzah." So I did. And in response got...

Nothing.

WELL. That was probably what I needed to kill any hope that we could ever be even civil again. So I did what you do-I blocked him on Facebook, got a new phone number, thought a bunch of ugly things and decided he didn't deserve any more space in my life. But I have a lot of memories of him, and at the very least it's inconvenient to force myself into other thoughts every time he pops into my head. I finally managed to accept them for what they were and got to the point where I could go several days without thinking of him-and where I didn't wince every time I did.

Then I came home from work and checked my email, and SURPRISE! "I'd like to add you to my professional network" on something I've never heard of called Linkedin. And it turns out I am still REALLY ANGRY, because my initial reaction to that was, "Yes, well, I'd like to jab you repeatedly with rusty forks." I mean, OF ALL THE NERVE. I'm now trying to decide on the best response, which I'm guessing is nothing; just delete it and move on. Possibly something polite...ish, like "No thank you. Please do not contact me again." Anything more involved/angry just lengthens the contact and reinforces his (admittedly valueless) opinion of me. After all, I really don't want to look petty and mean and like I've been holding hard to this grudge for over a year and a half.

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND. The guy tossed our friendship aside without so much as a "thanks for the memories" and I never got to tell him exactly what that did to me. So is this my chance? I don't know. I don't know why he sent it, I don't know what he expects and I don't know what I'm going to do in response. But I'd love some ideas.

My work just broke up with me

So yesterday I went to work and found out that the promotion I applied for, the one for which I am ideally suited and would do a positively bang-up job at, the one I have been basically doing for the last four months except for the title and the hours and the pay raise, THAT one, went to someone else.

...

I am flabbergasted by this.

While they were in the process of flabbergasting me, the powers that be made a point of telling me how absolutely fabulous I am-incredible work ethic, takes iniative, passionate about the department, the whole nine yards-in an obvious attempt to make me feel better about myself , probably so I won't go bonkers and smash in the windows or something.

I got home and called my best friend to vent about the situation. Suddenly my sister sitting in the room said, "You know what? Your work just broke up with you." And I said, "They DID. That's exactly what just happened. Right down to the 'It's not you, it's us' bit. But since I still work there, they obviously still want to be friends." And then she pointed out that what they actually want is to be friends with benefits, since they want me to continue the relationship we already have without the fuss and bother of making it official.

Those cretins.

And so yet again I am deprived of sleep by an utter moron who is too blind to see what a great thing we could have together. Only I don't even have the satisfaction of a hard thwack across the face with a dueling pistol. (What? That's how I handle all my breakups.)

In silver-lining land, I DID just type this on my phone. Which is frankly pretty freaking cool. Marvin, never break my heart, promise? (Yes, my phone's name is Marvin. No, I don't name all my possessions-just the electronics. Yes, his name is Marvin because he's an Android. No, I'm not going to explain the joke.)

"I was working with luminous fish and I thought 'Hey. Loom.'"

I'm back! Did you miss me? I have neglected you shamefully, for which I apologize. I'll try to do better.

Herein, a list of books I've read that I haven't talked about yet; also a couple of movies I've seen.

Run by Ann Patchett. An absolutely stellar book-so much so that I now recommend her as an author without having read any of her others.

Sixkill by Robert B. Parker. His last Spenser novel (Parker died in January of last year) has, because of this, a rather melancholy feel, and the sense of something missing or left undone. It's a fine book, a perfectly adequate episode in the Spenser series, but I can't help wondering what the end of the series would have felt like if the author had known it would end. Hawk's absence, in particular, made me wish for something more.

I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman. Another author whose books I've started recommending based on only one title. This book is breathtaking-also fairly intense, so fair warning-and evokes, for me, the feeling of Mary Higgins Clark's finest work-although Lippman tends to feel more...immediate, I'd say, probably the result of being from a younger generation.

Dolci di Love and House of Daughters by Sarah-Kate Lynch. These are perfectly fine books, but not life-altering. Dolci is, I think, the better book-House just had too much that I was unwilling to believe. Interesting thoughts about families and what we do for love.

And now for two movies. Something Borrowed...Okay, even by generous "chick-flick" standards this movie is appalling. The respective actors do their best with what they're given-Kate Hudson is alarmingly convincing as the self-absorbed prima donna, and John Krasinksi has to be counting his blessings that he got to play the only sane role in the whole horrifying mess-but this movie is just too awful for words.

Fortunately, Water for Elephants is lovely. And it's nice to see that Robert Pattinson CAN actually act-after the Twilight movies, I have been unconvinced of that. At heart, this is a simple love-triangle story, but one with layers and meaning and depth.

I have several books on my to-do list (including both the books on which these movies were based-in the case of Something Borrowed, I just have to know!) More to come when that's finished.

"Leo. Yeoman Fitzwallace."

Sometimes I despair of human beings.

Tonight at work the customers were being exceptionally delightful (meaning I spent most of the evening wishing I could stab most of them in the eyes with barbecue forks) and to top it all off, I had this winner of an experience:

A couple was looking for books with audio CDs for their children-in particular they wanted "Pirates of the Caribbean" books. After being told we didn't have (and couldn't get) any, the man wanted to know if there were any non-children's audiobooks of "Pirates of the Caribbean". I tried to explain that movies don't usually come in audiobook format, but he was unconvinced. So to shut him up, I did a search on the computer.

Me: No, I'm sorry, there isn't anything available. The closest I could come would be an audiobook of "Treasure Island".
Him: "Treasure Island"...is that a pirate book?

"I believe I would eat this book rather than read it."

Just finished another book in Sue Grafton's alphabet series. I've read most of them, but in rather cattywampus fashion. I like these books-they're reliably interesting, quite often funny and usually a surprise at the end. Eventually I will get them all, but while my books are in storage I can't remember what I have for sure.

In addition to discussing books I've read, I have decided to add movies I've seen recently. Last night I went to Country Strong, and boy howdy, is that movie bad. The music was fun, Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw handled their parts ably, and Garrett Hedlund is ridiculously good-looking (in addition to singing well) but the movie is just AWFUL. Poorly written, confusingly edited and badly thought out-wait for the dollar theater if you see it at all. (I'm trying to avoid ruining the story, so if you want to hear a more detailed review, come talk to me. Believe me, I have my reasons.)

Finally, two titles that amused me today:
I Am Not A Serial Killer (which I find comforting)
Darker Shades of Dead (which is what I assume happens after you've been buried. Yes? No?)

"You prefer the lyrics. I don't trust you."

(Post title for my other sister, just because.)

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but my everyday life keeps intruding, as it so often does. I have recently become aware of some things in my life that I take for granted, and I wanted to get them listed so I would (perhaps) be more aware of my extraordinary blessings.

• The ability to stand, sit, lay down, walk and change position without pain in my back (after I somehow injured it, doing any of these things caused an amazing amount of pain for about a month-hurrah for that being over!)
• Having a job
• Getting more hours at my job
• Receiving a calling that I love and have always wanted
• The realization that sometimes Heavenly Father does give us exactly what we want and it is exactly what we hoped it would be

Also, today's installment of "What I've Read Recently":

The Teashop Girls by Laura Schaefer. I don't drink tea and I still found the various tea facts interesting. The story is amusing, the characters are nice enough (if a bit two-dimensional) and it is occasionally very funny. First book by this author, so maybe she just needs some more...any word I think of here sounds condescending. She just needs MORE. Of something.

Xenocide; Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card. Okay, I love Ender's Game. I love Ender's Shadow and all its sequels. I love Card's Women of Genesis series. And reading the Ender series in its entirety was absolutely a good idea, because I had a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas, and I didn't come away HATING them the way I did the first time. However. I still don't love these books, and it is, of course, partly because I am not a huge sci-fi fan. Partly it is because these books generally feel overwritten and overwrought: the foreign languages, the philosophical references, the huge cast of characters making it virtually impossible for their voices to remain consistent, etc. But mostly I feel Orson Scott Card is at his best when he isn't trying to show off how smart he is, and his pomposity makes it hard to focus on his genius. This is never clearer than in the afterword to Children of the Mind, where I wanted to sit him down and say, "Look. You're brilliant. You've written a ton of bestsellers and won a bunch of awards and proved that you know your way around a book, okay? We GET it. Now, would you please, just BE great and stop TALKING about it so much? Thanks."

The Brooklyn Nine by Alan M. Gatz. There is a really terrific book in here somewhere, but this isn't it. A family in nine generations told through the history of baseball, its main problem is that it was written for the wrong audience. As a middle-reader, it simply does not have the space it needs to reach its potential, and each "inning" feels truncated, when it doesn't feel totally superfluous. Rewritten as a real saga, with another couple hundred pages of story, I might really enjoy it.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I do not have the words I need to describe this utterly breathtaking book. Suffice it to say that it is one of the few times in my adult life where a book lived up to the hype. And then I found out that The Help is Kathryn Stockett's first book, and she did it exactly right.

Also a new feature: I have a two-and-a-half-year-old niece, who is so delightfully funny that I thought I should share. When she was smaller I called her "Tanker" because of her ability to eat like you would not believe, so that is how I shall refer to her here. Anyway, she was brought to her mother (my sister) toward the end of Relief Society the other day because she claimed she needed to go potty.

My sister: Do you need to go potty?
Tanker: Nope. I'm just done with nursery.

PS I did finish that Charlaine Harris book, and I still think what I thunk before.