On The Matter of Reading.

I finished a book yesterday. As in, sat down and read a book cover-to-cover. Most of this reading was done in a coffee shop adjoined to a book store, which made me feel very much like the Danielle-of-seven-or-eight-years-ago, when I would go to Barnes & Noble on a Sunday afternoon, stake out the comfiest of the couches, and (without actually purchasing it) read (in its entirety) whatever new novel the New Yorker was ranting about. If it was a particularly long novel, I would use a toothpick as a bookmark, so I could just pick up where I left off the next Sunday. Only once did the book I bookmarked ever get sold before I could finish it.

Anyway. I actually bought the book I read yesterday. But it was at a used bookstore, so I still feel like I was cheating someone out of something. Maybe like I was cheating Joe Meno, author of Hairstyles of the Damned (the book I bought/read), out of his cut from the sale of the book. Or maybe not. It was a good book, if not much too fast a read (it only took me two and a half hours to finish), but none of this is really the point.

The point is: I miss reading. I blogged a little about this over at URFCKD, but I kind of want to mention it here as well. To drive it home, maybe.

I used to be a voracious reader. It was my thing. Other people have music, and I like music (although, not as much lately), but music was never really my thing. And yeah, I watch a lot of movies, but I never considered myself a film buff; nor did I ever strive to establish myself as a film buff. I doodle, but I'm not an artist. I write (occasionally), but I'm not a writer.

I'm a reader.

I'm the kind of person who will--schedule allowing it--stay awake for three days, just to finish a novel in one sitting.

I'm the kind of person who, when imagining her dream house, has an entire floor devoted to books. My dream house has an actual library. With a card catalogue.

I'm the kind of person who falls in love with a person based on the caliber of his bookshelf. Always have been. I usually don't realize that I'm serious about a person until I start imagining our collections combined... his books, my books, the shelving it would require for such a union, which novels we'd have multiple copies of, etc. Seriously: some women imagine what her kids would look like were she to marry so-and-so; I wonder about what our library would look like.

Or, at least, I used to be that kind of person. Somewhere along the line, I stopped. Reading stopped being my thing. Maybe it had to do with school, and being forced to listen to absolute morons discuss novels I loved. Or maybe it was the fact that I had to get a job, and finding the time to scout out books I wanted to read seemed impossible. Not to mention finding the time to actually read the book once I'd decided on it. Maybe it's the fact that reading is a solitary activity; you can watch a movie and listen to music in a group, with people, but reading is really an alone-time activity. And maybe I'm afraid of alone-time... Maybe I'm now the kind of person who subconsiously needs to be with people all the time, and dreads having to spend any quantitive amount of time by herself...

Whatever the reason, movies and Nintendo and drinking are my things now (or, at least, have been for the past year.) They're just so much easier, so much less of an investment. They're cheaper (and I don't mean "cheaper" as a financial statement.)

And I feel cheaper for choosing them.

So, my New Year's resolution--and don't even get me started on how I used to be the kind of person who didn't make New Year's resolutions--will be to finish at least one book a week (unless I decide to finally finish Ulysses or something equally epic, in which case I will allow myself longer.) I'm not going to resolve to review the books once I've read them, because I won't, and I'm not going to set myself up for that failure. But I am going to resolve to start reading again. I'm going to try and be that girl who isn't afraid of spending time alone.

I used to be that girl. I can be her again.

Right?

(On a totally unrelated note, Goodwill had the most amazing selection of self-help books from the 70s and 80s yesterday. Any--or all--of them would have enhanced my collection greatly, and I was thisclose to buying them, but then... I remembered I have no place to put them, and they'd just be more crap I have to haul around until I do. Le sigh. And so, just like that, I've let a trove of precious gems slip through my fingers.)