Over the past few years, I’ve turned my attention away from a beautiful muse with so much to offer, she was overflowing like a mythological world flood.
Her name was Reading Books, and our relationship all but died. I mean, in 2013, I may have read through most of three books, but never finished one. Despite books by my bedside table, I resorted to a slide down Facebook’s walls or down a blog or two before bed.
I don’t know what to pinpoint as the culprit for losing my love for reading. A lot of the books I read up unto the point of our breakup were religious or non-religious in nature. In fact, many of the books were recommendations made by my brother.
It wasn’t like no one tried intervening. A friend of mine who works in a real, live bookstore tried to keep the love alive, by hand delivering early copies of books from my favorite author, Chuck Palaniuk. I would start them, and get bored. Sometimes too quickly.
The internet is a tawdry temptress, and sometimes you feel “read” if you’ve got 16,000 bookmarks for constantly updating content and blogs.
But you know what revitalized my love for Reading Books again?
My wife Tina and her love affair with the Public Library. Over the past year, she’s contrasted my abstinence with a flourishing, sexy reading fest of a couple three books a month. Sometimes more.
In the car, there’s this constant, “Can you drive by the library, I need to pick up a new Book.”
I was green with jealousy. Green.
What’s this bitch doing with all these new, hardcover books with crackily plastic wrapped around them? The whore! I thought.
Or, to make me red with anger, she borrowed books straight onto her iPad via the Chicago Public Library website. Anything new, she could get either an old fashioned rub and tub via a page turning book. Or she could get a bit of a “how’s your daddy” from a virtual rental.
Before Christmas, I was determined to get in on that action, and jobs or business kept getting in the way. Once, we walked to the library, only to find out our branch is closed on Sundays. I blame the Catholics for preventing me from educating myself!
Finally, about three weeks ago, I said, “I’m fucking getting my library card renewed!”
I’ve already flown through two books, and scanned a couple photography books. Albeit, Dan Brown isn’t the level of literature I’d like to get back into regular reading, but it’s a start. You don’t hire the top hooker on the first go ’round, from what I hear anyway.
And I can read on my iPad, iPhone, and likely my computer if I wanted to.
And where I leave off on my iPad, I can pick up on my iPhone. And any notes or highlights, I can review them later. And words that evade my intellect, I can google on the spot. And places, I can wikipedia. I can see a visual for a description that I have no context for outside of the words.
Reading ebooks is a sexy, rich, multiple orgasmic experience.
And you should give her a whirl … at least a roll in the hay.
Le Café Wittypoots 