You probably think that I'm super popular and always have a million obligations on my social calendar: lunching with the ladies, romantic dinners with my many suitors, chic all-white (clothing, not people) parties with A list celebs. While these certainly comprise most of my lifestyle, you'd be surprised to know that I do spend time partaking in plebeian activities, as well. My favorite thing to do is sleep. My second favorite activity is eating. Number three is watching TV. And my fourth favorite pastime is reading. I feel like pastime should have two Ts. It looks too similar to an Italian dish, like pastrami.
As a tot, I read nonstop. Every Sunday, my grandpa and I went to Barnes & Noble. I got to choose three books & I was pretty much a straight series girl: Boxcar Children; Babysitters Club (every iteration, including the inferior Little Sister line); Encyclopedia Brown; Sweet Valley High; Chicken Soup for every kind of soul; Face on the Milk Carton (not sure if this counts as a series but they sure milked the kidnapping saga for all they could - get it? MILKED); the Alice series (did anyone else read this? I loved her but I always felt like I was the only one reading it). I read after school, all weekend, even before school some mornings (who was I?). In high school I still loved reading & made time for it. Then I went to college.
College was a marathon of required reading. Mainly it was uberintellectual hippie feminist ramblings about gender and race and oppression and I loved it all but man it killed my will to read. During the school year, I never read for fun. My brain was overloaded with required reading & writing papers, & any time I wasn't being collegiate-style intellectual, I was going about as far in the other direction as possible & watching some sort of Housewives (Desperate or Real, doesn't matter to me).
Then I came back to middle school.
Because I function at a 12 year old level right now, all my brain power goes to solving predicaments such as: How do I find the area of a trapezoid? What is a conjunction? How do I stop this kid from crying/screaming/refusing to do his work? Granted, I had to dig deep to remember the trapezoid formula, I embarrassingly confused conjunctions & interjections, & I will win some sort of national acclaim if I solve that last doozy. But it's a different reserve of my energy I am tapping into, which leaves a lot of empty space. So I can read again! Wheeee!
I'm hitting both the young adult and the real adult shelves, scooping up gems like The Hunger Games & To Kill a Mockingbird, as well as books that were on my Official List, like The Help & currently, Freedom. I cherish every DEAR day where, if the gods are on my side, or if I bribe the pups effectively with UNO, we all silently read for a solid 45 minutes. It's calm, it's productive, it's pure enjoyment - in short, it's nothing like the rest of the day. Kidding. Partially.
If you've read any great books, send them my way. I could always use some entertainment during the downtime on my private jet, which I use to transport myself to normal activities like safaris and weekending at Clooney's Italian villa. Or just the commercial airplanes that I use for things like going to DC to visit my friends or returning to the greatest locale of all, Kansas, both of which I will actually be doing THIS WEEKEND! Ahh, log another point for the East Coast: February break, up until now merely a myth to this midwesterner, is upon us.
PS. I just need to document this for posterity: BOTH of my 8th grade boys - by far the kids who like me least and think everything I do is excessively cheesy - brought me valentines today. It's like they shoot me down just to bring me back up again.
Love!
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