Reading

When I was in grad school I had to read The Life of Johnson in one week.  The unabridged version. (It’s about 6 inches thick.)

I set my alarm every day for 5 A.M and read until my eyes bled.

And that was just for one class. I had equally extensive readings in two others.

My whole life was reading.  Reading and writing papers.  Every moment of my existence I read.  And read.  And read.

Now, I don’t read as much.  I do “social media” instead.  I have this blog.  I’m on Facebook.  I Twitter.  Something had to give, and I let it be reading.

And that is tragic. It makes me weep.  And I feel ashamed.

But one of the resolutions I came back with this vacation is that I am going to start reading again, in a big way.  I am starting by telling you right here, you hear?  And I am going to ask you to hold me accountable, if that’s okay.

I will tell you what I’ve been reading and you can check out my Good Reads page (I’ll update it tomorrow, it’s getting late), and you can join it yourself if you feel so inclined.  That would be cool.

On this vacation I kinda re-lived my grad school days, except I read under a beach umbrella in a bikini rather than in a wool sweater in a cold rental house in CT.

This is how I structured my days at the beach:

I watched the sun rise,

Ate breakfast,

Set up my umbrella

and read until lunch.

After lunch I read until dinner.

After dinner I drank beer, (and sometimes margaritas, and sometimes champagne.)

The next day, I did the same thing.  And the next day, and the next day, until it was time to go home.

I read Seth Godin’s Small Is The New Big.

I read Roland Merullo’s Golfing With God

I read Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.

Today I started Richard Brodie’s Virus of the Mind.

I feel back on track.

Oh, and for me, there can’t be reading without writing: