We lost power for a bit last week. Wind gusts of up to fifty miles per hour knocked the electricity off just as dinner finished cooking, which was great timing, but left us snarfing our $5 Aldi pizza in the dark. (I'm thankful I'd decided not to cook that night; trying to eat something like soup in the dark would've been more of an adventure than my stain-fighting abilities could handle.)
Nevertheless, I persisted, snuggling up with the battery-powered lantern to continue reading my book. Which got me thinking about all the other oddball places and situations in which I've spent my time turning pages.
- in the hospital, pregnant with my son and suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum (I kept having to put the book down; reading one of the heavier hardback Harry Potters with what's essentially your 14th IV in less than two weeks is, uh, painful, to say the least.)
- in the chair during three separate root canals (Hyperemesis gravidarum does no favors for your teeth, either.)
- outside during parades and cross-country matches in all sorts of weather
- before choir concerts, band concerts, and plays
- burning with fever and feeling terrible during bouts with the flu (I finished Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov during one bout; another had me blowing through the last two books of the Twilight series.)
- Parkside. Poolside. The side of the McDonald's playplace. All the places you take small children to play.
- multiple migraine-inducing places with loud music and flashing lights where sadists throw children's birthday parties
- so many car trips
- waiting in the car: for my son at school, my daughter at preschool, and my husband's train
- a beach and hotel room in Mexico, an airplane heading to Paris, another one heading home from Belgium
- on a hospital bed, waiting to receive sacroiliac joint injections
- during tornado warnings, floods, blizzards, searing heatwaves
- ALL THE WAITING ROOMS
You know how it is. Reading. All the time, in every place. Sometimes with a tiny hint of, 'Are people going to think I'm weird for reading here?', immediately followed with, 'Eh, who cares!' Constant comments from other people: "You're reading here?" "How can you concentrate here?" "Did you seriously bring a book?" "You must be the best-read person I've ever met." And my favorite, "You are always reading!!!"
Yes. Yes, I am.
Tell me about the places you've read. By the side of the road as you waited for a tow truck? At the zoo in front of the lion enclosure? In the shower with your kindle in a waterproof, see-through bag? (Don't think I haven't contemplated that.) I'd love to hear all the interesting, surprising places you've exercised your love of reading.
