Sunday, November 18, 2007

No Time to Read?

Lately it seems that way. I never thought it'd happen to me. I'd heard that lame excuse offered up for years, from people who I knew FOR A FACT watched three hours of Law and Order: SVU or CSI Miami a night. I always saw it for what it was: lame. But increasingly, reading seems to be something that I "squeeze in" rather than something central to my life. What's it been replaced with? I'm not really sure. Well, blogging for one. Hanging out with my boyfriend. Trying to keep this apartment from looking like a hurricane just blew through it (maintaining a one-week-after-landfall appearance at all times!). Working. A lot. Cleaning up after houses catch on fire. And yeah, sometimes multiple episodes of CSI or SVU a night. Stuff like that, I guess. I don't really know. But I wish I had more time for the books.

When do you all like to read? I mostly read at night and on my days off. At lunch during work is good, on the rare occasion you go out alone or can get a co-worker to respect the fact that it's your FUCKING BREAK and not to give you phone messages or load you up with shit to do. I usually end each day by reading in bed at night, since I go to bed earlier than my guy while he's still looking for a job. I am on track to finish Thursday Next: First in Sequels by its due date, though!

Which reminds me, someone asked me about the "stupidity surplus" in that book. Tantalizing, eh? Well, I won't spoil anything by revealing that it's basically caused by too much common sense, in government or elsewhere. As Thursday explained, most governments let off their stupidity a little bit at a time (and some, I would argue, have been running a massive stupidity deficit since their first term in office, which ten generations of sages still wouldn't be able to pay off). The one that Thursday and her peers are living under hasn't done a stupid thing in years, leading to a massive surplus that could ruin the country if it all gets let off at once. They've been talking about various measures they could take to alleviate this problem, but it's already been proven that a National Walk Into a Lamppole Day isn't effective.

See, this is why these books are so great. You've gotta admit, that concept is fucking hilarious, and there's just one after another of these in all his books: Hamlet hiring a conflict resolution counselor, the Mispeling Vyrus that tendz to enfeckt all the wirds neerbuy, the apostrophe slug's that belch out exces's apostrophe's for paragraph's, even page's. But I'm going to wait until I finish the book to write my review.