When I was your age, television was called books

[cosmolinguist]

I am in the middle of* a wonderful book, but I'm finding it as difficult to settle down and read it as I find it to write the review of Glamourpuss that Andrew wants from me, or lessen the chaos in the living room, or clean enough of the kitchen to make myself some food, or throw yet another load of laundry in the washing machine.

Why's it such a chore to sit back and read a book? Even a really good one, which I'm already certain this is. In Why am I finding the internet so compelling, even when I'm caught up on my e-mails and there's no one online who wants to talk to me?

When I was little, I used to imagine being a writer of books. I imagined my handwriting getting good enough to belong alongside the neat serifs in all those typefaces (which may well be one of the reasons my handwriting can be so neurotically neat to this day). I imagined getting the blank book and filling it up neatly, page after page, until I held something like I was reading before I went off into this daydream.

I later found out that no one can write so neatly, and books aren't bound before they're written (this is a lesson I have yet to learn: the many mostly-empty journals strewn about my bedroom — and my life — attest to this). I could write with the same alphabet but it wouldn't look the same, and it wouldn't feel the same.

I swear, one of the reasons I like the internet so much is that I have only to type in the right sequence of letters, http://minnesattva.livejournal.com/ , to find myself on the internet. If I type another string of letters in the same place I might find, well, anything. One of my college professors, or a celebrity I actually like, or someone I've managed to fall in love with, or even some of those books I read, and many I still want to read.

It's all there, along with me. And it's exactly the thing what I was hoping for and finding lacking in those books I daydreamed over as a kid: not finished yet.


* Actually pathetically near the beginning of; I got all the way from page twenty-three to page twenty-six so far today. Out of 777 pages.

Comments

[white_hart]

I'm the same with sitting down to read. I think it's partly that I like to be able to immerse myself in a book, and all too often I know that there are things to be done and I don't want to have to stop every few minutes, while the internet comes in handy bite-sized chunks. I mostly read on the bus and in bed, where there isn't anything else to be done until I get to my stop or feel too sleepy.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm definitely very pleased that my commute gives me time for books. I've fallen head-over-heels for audio books, which are good for the parts where I'm walking or looking for the bus or when it's dark. I'm now listening to a giant Shakespeare biography that I'd surely never get through in dead-tree form, but as it is I'm feeling like I have a long-standing affair with it, for maybe an hour a day to and from work.

[ecdysiasm.livejournal.com]

Ah, I have the same issue -- I love to read, but I can't just sit down and do it. It only works for me if I'm always in the middle of eight or nine books at a time, and that inevitably means that books that drift to the bottom of the pile can take as much as a year or more to finish!

[cosmolinguist]

I'm the same, and it doesn't help that I've lost the book I was reading most, when I was nearly done with it! And it's the first part of something that has two other books after it! It's thrown me off.

[ulffriend.livejournal.com]

I always have several going at the same time too, which makes for some weird cross-polination in what you think you're reading sometimes!

And I LOVE the title of your entry. That's one of my favorite movie quotes ever.

[cosmolinguist]

I do love the cross-pollination. It was especially fun when it used to happen for things I had to read for college.

It's one of my favorite movies. I haven't seen it in years, but I had a roommate who loved it and I think its many memorable quotes are now encoded on my DNA.

[ulffriend.livejournal.com]

Re: the movie, it's the same for us. Even now, when someone is leaving after a visit and we're waving good-bye, my husband and I (or my sister and I, or my friend and I) will look at each other and say, "Bye bye, boys! Have fun storming the castle." And of course, "You keep using that word...I do not think it means what you think it means." Like "Young Frankenstein", the whole movie is imminently quotable. :)

[signal-moon.livejournal.com]

I'm terrible for not being able to concentrate for long periods on books. It's a recent thing too (by recent I mean, the past few years). I used to spend days at a time doing nothing but reading, eating and sleeping.

These days I spend a lot of time listening to music, I mean really listening. But no one seems impressed when you say "oh, I've listened to probably 300 CDs this year". Sad world. And it's not even fucking ROUND!

[lostpositive.livejournal.com]

I'd be impressed I am impressed! :)

[cosmolinguist]

Yes, please tell me about this music you are listening to!

[rainmerlot.livejournal.com]

I don't think I could do audio books. I am just so happy when I have a book in my hand.

[cosmolinguist]

I am still happy with regular books too! I do not feel the need to choose one or the other. :)

[patrick-vecchio.livejournal.com]

That's the journal entry title of the year.

[cosmolinguist]

It's not just a journal entry title, it's also one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies. :)