Library card workout

I may have a little bit of an obsessive personality.  That is to say, when I decide I love something, I really love it.  Examples:

• I have a favorite restaurant in every city, and one thing I order at each one.  There is no reason to go anywhere else, or try anything new.  
• I started dancing in April or May of my freshman year of high school.  A year later I was dancing 3 or 4 hours a day after school, auditioning for summer dance intensives, and planning my life as a dancer. 
• I knew Travis was my husband the day after our first date.  
• How many times have I blogged about Sasquatch?

I like to think that I'm pretty good at choosing my favorite things.  You might accuse me of being boring, but not unhealthy.  I currently go to Jazzercise five days a week, which might cause me to start singing Shakira in the grocery store, but is probably not on anyone's list of harmful activities.  On that note, my big kick since moving back to Spokane is going to the library.  The public library a few blocks from my work has a very respectable Books on CD section, which initially drew me in.  During travel season, I went through about 2 books a week.  But now I've discovered book books.  I say "discovered," because, though I have always loved to read, I haven't been much of a reader the past few years.  

• I fell victim to the "required reading" curse in college, and had trouble finding the will to read for pleasure again afterword. 
• When I did read for fun during or after college, I often tried to read the books friends recommended, so as to learn and grow.  I worked really hard at pushing my way through books like The Count of Monte Cristo and Blue Like Jazz.  These might be your favorite books, and I feel terrible for saying this, but I did not enjoy reading them, even if I was learning and growing.
• Then there was the headache fog, in which reading became painful, if not impossible.   

But after listening to all those books on CD this fall, I was hooked.  I borrowed a few more from the library after travel season ended before I realized that my car doesn't have a CD player, and it was weird to sit around my house in the evenings listening to books (via headphones) on my computer.  So I went back and swapped the CDs for books.  Turns out, reading is no longer compulsory, and as long as I don't have one of the very worst headaches, a book can be a good distraction.

And it's fun!  I am resolving not to feel guilty for:

• quitting a book 50 pages in if it has no likeable characters, or 
• skipping a section if it's boring, or 
• reading books from the section marked TEEN.  

I am also only reading books recommended to me that actually sound interesting to me (and still sound interesting after I've read the plot synopsis on wikipedia). 

I have read a lot of delightful books this year, most of which are not close to being revered as classics or "modern classics" or "the classics of the future."  Every time I break my resolve and read a book because I feel like I should, or stick with one that "everyone loves," it saps a little bit of reading pleasure (How oh how is it that E.M. Forster thought the joyless Howard's End was his best novel, and not the way-less-annoying A Room With a View?).  That is why it is important to remain firm.  (And by remain firm, I mean read whatever you want).

And that is why I have to make so many darn trips to the library, since I only end up reading about one in five of the many books I bring home.  Good thing there two large library systems at my disposal (city and county), that I am a member of both, and that one has a branch near my work and one has a branch near our home.  Good thing I have a puppy that likes to nuzzle my knees while I sit on our big red couch for hours on end.  And good thing it is Travis, and not me, who has to spend all his free time reading biology textbooks!