i don't tend to read during the day, unless i'm in transit or it's saturday or sunday. though the sort of work i do certainly benefits from my sucking up books, i tend to feel like anything i do during the week that isn't directly related to pitching or writing (or, you know, chores) is stealing from myself, o freelancing (one of the few reasons i miss office work). the reading i allow myself before bed, then, can get ridiculous: i try to set a cutoff of three or even four o’clock if something is really marvelous, but i don't always honor it, since i know i won't have more time for a whole day. joe doesn't usually wake up as i read, unless i'm being really theatrical about sitting up to pet the cat sleeping on his feet, but he's been stirring lately, mumbling that it's time for me to go to sleep. when i was little, i was under the impression that growing up meant never having to turn out the light.
so i'm reading this space opera, and while i'm not at all sure that it's any good, it is propulsive, and i knew at some point last week that i would only have a bit left when i turned in for the night (and that the next installment was still in transit from a remote library branch). that was unacceptable, and i hadn't bought anything from our local indie bookstore (which is only about a mile away) in a few weeks, so i laced up my running shoes and headed out. i called my dad en route, as is our tradition: he's a different kind of freelancer, and we've discovered that the best way to talk is to rattle each other's cages as we're in transit. when i reached the store i told him i'd phone him back in five minutes, and when the store didn't have book two and it looked like the strand would be open for another hour or so, i dialed again and headed uptown. success! all of the books, and i called him one more time as i turned south from union square. joe was nearly asleep when i got home, and i told him that dad and i had made a formal pact to reconvene at our family's little cabin in big bear for his seventieth birthday in a few years. my phone informed me that i'd walked eight miles, then illuminated my pages for a few hours as i read, sat up to scratch the cat, read. this adulthood is alright.
