Tag Archives: reading

Blame the Book

First, a confession. I took the day off.

Not from work, of course. I went to my place of employment and did what they pay me to do (remember: not a work blog). But I wrote nothing. No novel, no blog post, no letter, not even a grocery list. I read a book.

In my defense, it’s a library book that I have to finish and get back to the library. And it is a history book, so I am educating myself. Becoming more erudite and informed. Oh, who am I kidding? It’s easier to read than to write, so today I read.

The fact is, I love to read even more than I love to write. If I don’t have anything else to read, I’ll read the backs of cereal boxes. But I almost always have something else to read. Libraries, used book sales, garage sales, thrift stores and even Barnes and Noble supply me with my drug of choice (um, that’s reading) (I didn’t need to clarify that, did I?).

I actually read less now than I used to. I used to read to the exclusion of interacting with people. I have this problem of getting absorbed in a book. I used to read and watch TV at the same time. That would drive anybody else in the room nuts when I would constantly ask what I had missed on the TV show because I was reading.

“Get your nose out of that book!” was a phrase I often heard. When I bothered to listen.

In addition to interacting with people, I use free time at work to write. I didn’t used to do that so much with the result that I used to write a whole lot less than I write now. Read more, wrote less; read less, write more (in that sentence the first “read” is past tense, the second is present) (have you ever noticed it’s the SAME WORD?).

So this has been my Friday Lame Post. My miserable excuse for not writing a better post. I feel it will be understood by others who suffer from a similar addiction.

I Can’t Facebook It

I have been composing a Facebook status in my head that goes something like this:

Let’s see who reads my posts all the way through. Still reading? If so, that is where you and I differ, because I usually stop reading when thus challenged. This post should go on to be sentimental about friends, or self-righteous about some disease or judging others, or even silly about we just got arrested. Then it would get manipulative and sneer at uncaring people who “just keep scrolling.” For heavens’ sake, what’s wrong with scrolling? If we didn’t scroll, we couldn’t read very many posts now, could we? Anybody still reading? Or have you gone back to scrolling (like I would have). Of those still reading, I suppose some of you are huffing, “Well I DO care about Facebook friends and cancer patients and all those other issues, I am NOT self-righteous and I would NEVER manipulate anybody!”

That is pretty much as far as I’ve gotten. I can’t think of a zippy conclusion. In fact, I only really like the first three sentences.

Oh, let’s be honest, I’m not going to post anything like that on Facebook. I really just typed it in here, because I needed a post for Non-Sequitur Thursday. A Facebook post that I do not intend to put on Facebook is non-sequitur enough for me. Hope to see you on Lame Post Friday.