Right. So. It's been a long time.
I've spent the past few weeks doing all of those things that I love to do when I don't have something more substantial to do. I slept late. I read. I played many videogames. I watched a ton of movies and television. I thought about the future and I reflected on the past. And so on.
The trouble is that it's tough to stop doing these things when you've started. I would love to continue reading for hours upon hours every day until I get sick of it, as I inevitably will (as I do with everything). But in the end I never have the time. I spent almost a whole day playing videogames last week. I beat two of them in one day. I wish I could take the time to hit bottom with it. If I could just let myself be immersed in videogames for a week or two I would be so sick of them by the end that I would beg to go back to work.
It's a difference of happinesses, I think. These things occupy me. When I indulge in overwhelming quantities of reading, watching movies, playing videogames, and sleeping in, I am happy. For a time. But I am never satisfied. When I was writing my theses I was crazy and the pressure was intense, but I felt good doing it. And that feeling wasn't so fleeting as the feeling I get from beating a game or watching yet episode of The Office.
Now, don't get me wrong, I believe that reading (some) books is good for you. I believe that it can lead to satisfaction and durable, long-lasting happiness. In fact, I beleive that watching (some) movies can have a similar effect. As can playing (some) videogames. It's the overindulgence that gets to me. But I don't do well with pacing myself. When I was writing my theses I would do it in five or six hour shifts. Of course, then I would go home and watch some stupid movie or drink with my friends to unwind, but my point is that it was the same kind of immersion. I don't read just one book at a time.
My family does a reading competition every summer. We split into teams to handicap those with several jobs or a five-year-old reading level. I'm paired with my step-father this year. Any other year that would have been declared unfair (he used to do over 10,000 pages a summer), but he has a second job now that prohibits him from spending many waking hours at lesiure. My mom is with my brother, another previously prohibited pairing, okayed this year due to my brother's seeming lack of appetite for reading. My sisters are paired with my girlfriend, and the three of them are currently kicking our collective asses.
My oldest younger sister takes this competition very seriously. Whenever she has another book to add to the list she walks downstairs, book in hand, and takes her time writing the title, author, and amount of pages on her chart. Or she has me do it.
I don't ever remember losing. I'm sure I have, but I don't remember it. The losers buy the winners a book each.
I went to B&N yesterday. My grandfolks had gotten me a gift card there for graduation. I knew it was dangerous walking in. I had a $25 gift card. When I saw the buy two get one free section I knew I was doomed. I don't remember exactly how much I spent, but I do know that it was far too much considering how many books I still have to read and how unemployed I am.
I finally own The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I also picked up two books by an author I've been eyeing for some time now, The Yiddish Policemen's Union and Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon (author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay). And I picked up one that just looked like too much fun to pass up, Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis.
Yes, I learned my lesson. When I open my bookstore the first thing customers will see will be a table full of irresistable titles with some kind of discount involved.
I want to start working out again. I get carried away with everything incorporeal and then I forget that I have a body that needs to be used as well. I forget sleep, forget food, forget interaction for hours if not days. If I could only wake up sometime before noon and do something physical I would remember to be human again.
But then I'd need to go food shopping.
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