Summer Reading

Many months ago, Kim handed me this Billy Crystal book with a comment that he thought I'd like it. I said, "Yeah, okay," and laid it on my dresser.

In past summers I have come to really enjoy a good read. I'm sure my parents are smiling about that in heaven because I was not a reader in the sense of picking up a book and reading it for pleasure. It took too much time and with my head in a book, I missed a lot that may have been going on around me. In fact it was with great pain and gnashing of teeth through first grade that I even learned to read at all. So, no, I wasn't a reader in that way. All that said, I would pick up a short novel as a junior high aged girl and read it providing there was nothing better to do. On those rare occasions if it was summer, I'd do my reading outside under the trees or laying in the middle of my bed with the blinds wide open. I suppose I wanted to make sure I didn't miss the house suddenly falling down.

Now, for some reason this summer it has been hard to settle down enough to read. Yes, I am retired, but summer is merely a mini-retirement for all teachers and I've not fully realized the state of retirement as of yet. Therefore, my lazying around the couch and computer all day long is really just an extension of my normal summer routine, retired or not. But I digress.

It is not for a lack of reading material that I can't get into a reading groove. I keep an accumulation of books to read on my cedar chest at the foot of my bed, a book or two on my nightstand, and 700 Sundays by Crystal on the dresser. The order and placement of the books around my room is sort of ranked as to when I expect to read them. Think of it like baseball players awaiting play in the game. My cedar chest is the bull pin from which I'll pluck my next read when the others are finished. The nightstand is the on deck circle and batter up for the current game. The dresser is where the rookies wait to be pulled up from the minor league. That is where the Billy Crystal book sat for months until one day on my way to the bathroom, I picked it up. Now, don't tell me you don't do that. I know you do. Even George Castanza did that when Seinfeld was in the bookstore with him. Nevertheless, the 700 Sundays has become a pretty good read and has earned a place on deck by my bed.

More on my latest summer read in a sequel post.