Always Bring a Book

Hello,

I am K. I couldn’t possibly let Jen do all the posting, but let me say she has been wonderful when it comes to this website. For the most part, I feel you will see most of the posts will be from her. I will try to be as active as she is, but I make no promises.

As you saw, the title of this is Always Bring a Book. This is very important to me given how my day went today. I am, as some would say, a “big reader.” True, I do love reading, but I read so slow that I cannot read as many books as some of my friends can in a year. I started It by Stephen King in the beginning of this month (after the 2017 movie release I feel like everyone is reading it now) and I haven’t even hit page 50 yet. With birthdays, a wedding, my full time job, and my love of sleep, picking up the novel is not a priority most days. With over 1,000 pages, it’s also very intimidating.

But I digress. I used to always carry my books with me wherever I went. Who knew when you would need to occupy your time? A long wait at the doctor’s office? No problem! Let me just continue reading my book. A train ride into the city? Let’s make a dent in this story! However, I always got frustrated at the wear and tear on the book: frayed edges, bent pages, water stains from being next to my water bottle, etc.

“But K, isn’t that what Kindles are for?” Yes – if I could find mine. It’s somewhere in my house packed away. I’ll come across it one day, but it’s mostly for crappy books I did not want to pay a lot of money for or those free downloads of questionable writing skills.

I stopped carrying my books with me because of this, and also because my current read, as stated before, is massive. I really regretted that today. For 7 hours, about 75% of my work day after factoring out my 1 hour lunch break, our system was down at work. 6 hours of taking minimal amounts of phone calls, writing down information to upload into the system when it came back up, and shooting the breeze with co-workers. I was sitting there thinking, “If only I had my book…”

Of course, no one really said anything when people pulled out their cellphones and scrolled through their social media. What else could they do? My phone was almost dead by the time the the system came up (2 hours before I left work) and I had listened to as many podcast episodes as my brain could handle.

Don’t be like me. Save yourself and your sanity. Always bring a book (or Kindle, Nook, a tablet, or any other e-reader).

-K.