Reformation

Alas and alack, no Music Monday today. Despite only resuming MM recently, I'm already searching for and not finding inspiration, so if you think of any themes, please do let me know (not that you will, but it's barrenalbion at gmail dot com).

Instead, I shall inspire and delight you with tales of my rediscovered love of the printed word. I've always been an avid reader, but college, full-time work, and now a toddler hell bent on world domination have seriously dented any chance of me being a truly prolific reader. I'm envious of those of you who have some or all of those things going on, yet can still manage to read a book per week (or more). I'm prone to appalling laziness, and will often choose America's Next Top Model or a property programme over any one of the numerous books on my shelves.

Pathetic as it sounds, part of my lack of reading is due to insufficient light. We live in a small flat, and our lounge has a lovely, but truly impractical light fixture. The jumbled mass of delicate silver wires with small, tubular shafts really ties the room together, but it's not so good on the whole light-casting front. Shame. I have plenty of light options in our bedroom, but I don't really like alienating myself from The Dude when we have so little time to spend together anyway.

With this said, I now do a lot of my reading at bedtime, with my bedside lamp serving as a de facto interrogation light beaming right in The Dude's face while he's trying to sleep. I am also prone to 45 minute baths, or extended periods on the toilet, just so I can get some blessed reading done.

Molly committed a huge error when she introduced me to Goodreads, which has deprived me of many productive working hours in the last week. I want to add all the books on my shelves! I want to see what others are reading! I want to read reviews for every book I've ever read! Show me quotes! Quiz me! I.just.can't.get.enough. I'm more addicted to this stuff than I was to jabbing myself in the gut with my Puregon pen, so, suffice it to say, I must be in love.

I find reading quite a lonely hobby - once you finish a book, there isn't necessarily anyone to discuss it with. I talk to The Dude about what I read, but he'd need to stop scratching his balls and watching UFC long enough to take any notice of me pontificating on literature. The guy has an MBA and lectures for a living, but he's not much of a reader, the poor, simple soul.

Goodreads has discussion threads that I can just observe, or take part in. It's so nice to be able to see what other people think, rather than mulling over everything in my head as I'm going to sleep at night. People there can spell and know that "a lot" is two words. There are of course the arrogant, absurdly verbose twats like that pretentious hipster in your 20th Century American Lit class in college, but once those gasbags are bypassed, it's all good.

I finished Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" last week, and though I have "Cat's Eye" waiting, I've chosen to read Gary Shteyngart's "Absurdistan" in an effort to rid myself of my all-Atwood-all-the-time ways. I'm regretting it so far, but then I think that's largely because I've dug myself into this Atwoodian ditch and I can't see non-Atwoodian sky. I have a habit of finding an author I like and then reading nothing else until I've completed their oeuvre, and so by forcing myself to read another author right now I'm trying to break that habit. Unfortunately I've chosen a work by a male author with a frankly disgusting male protagonist, so I didn't even bother to ease myself into this transition gently. Does anyone else find it hard to read books by authors of the other gender if their protagonists are also male with a very strong male perspective?

Anyway, this is also my long-winded way of telling you to befriend me on Goodreads. No, I'm not asking, I'm telling. Because Goodreads is a mix of my online/secret life and the real one, I don't have a username obvious to readers of this blog. If you are on Goodreads and want me to find you, please send me an email (again, barrenalbion at gmail dot com). I will then look you up, add you to my friends list, and then we will be BFFs. I'll tell you if your butt looks big in those pants, and we can go and get manicures and pedicures together. I think you know this is what's best for you.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
My feed does not seem to be right in Bloglines. Major Bedhead, bless her, has been trying to tell me how to fix it, but I think I might be abnormally stupid because I can't figure it out. It seems fine in Google Reader, so where is Bloglines going wrong? Help! I miss my Bloglines people, and I think they think I'm dead. Please help me disabuse them of this disturbing notion.