Gluttonous Reading

It has been a long time since I’ve ignored what I “ought” to be doing and dive into a book. I would occasionally treat myself to gulping down a new release by a favorite author on the day it was released. We’re talking once every other year at best if a book is released when I don’t have too much I really must get done that day. (And dammit, I am tired of the October Daye novels being released the day after Labor Day when I almost always have to be working. Looking at you, DAW. You did it again this year with The Unkindest Tide…)

Audiobooks, you see, mean that I usually don’t have to in order to enjoy a story. I can listen to a story and clean the house or cook a meal or knit a sweater. For the most part, that has been a blessing.

Except… I’m finding myself needing to read in a way I haven’t for quite literally decades. Reading like I did when I was a child and a teenager — walking around with a book, resenting mealtimes, because I was reading, dammit, reading in the bath and then getting far too hot and sprawling on my bed in a towel to cool off while I read some more. Guzzling a book in a day or less.

I’m not fighting it, because I’m pretty sure this is going to circle back to my writing eventually. And maybe I’ll have to corral it a bit because I am a grownup with Responsibilities.

So…

I’m looking for new material.

Generally, a book that sucks me in presents the reader with a Different World with New Customs. That doesn’t necessarily mean science fiction or fantasy (I loved The Chosen, after all) but that’s definitely where I find it most.

Any suggestions? The lusher and richer the worldbuilding – especially the social structure, the better.

You Win. I’m Too Tired to Fight It

I’m back to lifting weights and while I’m not as weak as I feared, I’m not as strong as I hoped. I am very sore this morning, but not as sore as I’ve been when getting cocky about how strong I was after a hiatus in lifting.

My dumbbell set is enough to carry me for about six months, I think. Then I need to decide whether or not to join a gym or buy a bench with a bar. I’m really leaning to buying the bar. The things that keep me out of the pool are a million times worse in the weight room and I’m tired of fighting it. While I need to burn some energy on my body and health, the microaggressions on being The Fat Lady Who Works Out and Never Gets Skinny are too much.

I’m tired.

I’m tired of newbies trying to make a Project out of me.

Way to go assuming my intelligence and intrinsic motivation there, cupcake.

I’m tired of the weight loss talk in the locker room.

If you’re working out an extra hour because you put whipped cream on a single slice of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, you don’t have the problem you think you have.

I’m tired of health being seen as a virtue.

Yes, healthy habits can be helpful. Overall health is often a crap shoot and luck plays a significantly bigger factor than you think. Ask anyone who had healthy habits and is slammed with a chronic condition.

Thing is?

I miss swimming. I’m eyeing a local college gym (I can join because my husband and I work for an affiliate organization) that is amazingly cheap, but does have crap swimming hours. Thing is, my own schedule would allow for me to swim there. I may still go back and just allow myself the indulgence of snarling at anyone who dares speak to me. I don’t really want to behave that way, but while I’m fine with flinching before diving into cool water, I’m less sanguine about flinching at the talk constantly surrounding me in the locker room.

But, ya know, I miss this: