Look, it’s me! And I’m reading a book! A real one, with pages!
Don’t believe me, huh? Well, I can see why, as I haven’t so much as picked up any reading material that didn’t have a glossy cover and ads for perfumes I can’t afford since Lu was born. I swear, I used to be literate. I used to read all the time. As I child, I spent hours in my room reading alone. OK, maybe it was because my dorky tendencies didn’t really leave me with many options for a social life, but it was also because I loved the escape.
I read books about hobbits and mythical fawns. I read about worlds that didn’t exist, things, creatures that couldn’t exist (right?). I didn’t want to be boring and normal and so achingly average, so I read and took myself to new, incredible places. And when I would fall in love with a book, I would never be able to put it down. I would stay up all hours of the night, completely drowning myself in these imaginary worlds, to the point where I would even dream about them as if they were real.
I was kind of a nerdy kid.
After college, as I was a journalism major, I was completely burned out on reading anything. I spent most of my free time watching movies or enjoying real-life pastimes, like hanging out with friends. How novel of me! My only real obsession came when I read my first Harry Potter book as a camp counselor one summer. I had nothing else to do, and the kids in my bunk had Harry Potter books coming out of their eyeballs, so I decided to read one in my spare time.
I was hooked, immediately. I knew the books were not meant for me, but for children of a much younger age. Guess what? I didn’t really care! I fell in love with the characters and the writing and I couldn’t put it down. I devoured three of the books in five days, and was almost inconsolable when I realized that the fourth book wasn’t even released yet. After that fateful summer, I became one of those creepy adults waiting in line at Barnes & Noble at midnight with a thousand little kids wearing black glasses and capes. Most of my friends, and especially my boyfriend, thought I was off my rocker. That, by the way, is when I discovered the power of Amazon and I never waited in that long line again. I try and keep my neuroses as quiet as possible.
Since the last Harry Potter book came out last year, I have spent my rare reading time going through my old stack of novels from when I was a kid. I re-read a few of them, but with work, the child, the husband, the photography, and the life, I haven’t really had the free moments to really dive into a story. What little time I did have was mostly spent sitting catatonic on my bed watching bad movies, which didn’t require much use of my exhausted brain.
I heard about the Twilight books as most geeky twenty-something’s did, “it’s the next Harry Potter, but with vampires.” I didn’t give it much thought. Even when I saw that the man who was to play the main character in the movie adaptation had played a former Harry Potter character himself, I had no real inclination to pick up the book. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t have time for that silliness.
But when Trent and I made a trip to Target last week (the first in ages, I might add) I saw Twilight sitting on the childrens geeks young adults reading shelf and figured $8 wasn’t too much to spend. Besides, Trent was throwing every golf item he could find in to our cart, so I could get something for myself as well, damnit!
Holy. Effing. Crap.
If I had known how much I would like this book, and how many hours I have spent in the last four days not only reading it, but the sequel, New Moon, I would have turned from that young adult section and ran screaming to the romantic comedy movies. Because although these books have drawn me in to a point of dreaming about fictional characters again, you can’t multitask while reading! If a movie is on, I can also edit photos, check my email and do a hundred other things while watching. I have spent FOUR DAYS locked in my bedroom after Lu goes to sleep, laundry untouched, emails unread, websites un-updated, buried in these stories.
Basically, I’m telling you to go get these books. They’ll make you young again. Except for the dark circles under your eyes from being up until 3 a.m. reading. But that’s why Jesus invented concealer.
