tales from the sickie: boobtube boogaloo

One of the many things about recovering from surgery and the flu that I don’t like is my lack of will to read a book, like my attention span is broken or I haven’t the energy to keep at the task. The TV has been in heavy use all month. It doesn’t really please me, but to my credit my viewing habits in these situations usually consist of heavy doses of Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Film Four (after 9 PM) and BBC World (well, and a little Paramount Comedy when the 50 millionth rerun of the same Animal Cops or Mythbusters episode comes on) and not typical daytime cack. There are so many books I have on hold. That virtual bookshelf application on my Facebook shows I'm reading simultaneously about 8 books, I think. I just don’t have the will to read them one sluggish paragraph at a time right now.

this is me, feeding from the electronic teat

To add to my load of neglected books, my love bought me David Sedaris’ When You Are Engulfed In Flames, which has been heaped on to my pile of libri carcasses. I’ll have to take it on a fast approaching trip stateside with me where there will be no TV, thank god, packed in along with The Shock Doctrine and Consider The Lobster. Well, ok, maybe a hard-backed copy of The Shock Doctrine is a tall order for travel size-wise, best leave that one at home.

The Sedaris book is a must, though. It’s like homework. The book was presented to me with an unmarked envelope which held two tickets to go to our best bookshop to meet David Sedaris. I know, it’s not like we’re going to be mixing with him in a small, intimate group or anything, and it’s not like we’re going to have to talk to anyone knowledgeably about the book, but it seems the least I can do to have read it before turning up.

So I must focus. FOCUS. Read, and don’t stop until you’re done.

The Guardian did a feature recently on the intimidation of reading these days and in many ways I can relate. I don’t know why it’s so hard to find the will to pick up a book sometimes, but it is. I justify it with the knowledge that I read the paper every day, sometimes two of them. And not just skimming. When I have the time I really read most of what’s in there, which is more than some people can claim. So I don’t feel as badly as I should about neglecting my long term literary love affairs because at least the flings I’m having on the side is connecting me with the world instead of excluding it.

I used to read all the time when I was a kid. I was unstoppable, so unstoppable in fact that one particularly difficult school year I would read books in class, not even bothering to sneak-read under my desk or hide my rude and insolent behaviour, and I didn’t give a monkey’s what the teacher thought. I would spend as much time as I could in these alternate universes and savour the cycle of becoming acquainted, living with and then parting ways with the characters in each novel. I’d feel remorse at the end of every one. Of course, we never had a TV in the house when I was growing up, so that might have helped. I remember how kids would gape at me, open mouthed, when I told them that. “I couldn’t live without a TV. We have one in every room.” Now, when I tell people I grew up without a TV, people say things like “Hmm!” or “That’s interesting”, and then they ask how I could possibly know anything about this TV show or that TV show from our childhood. Osmosis, really. That, and going over to friend’s houses after school helped. Of course I know about G Force, Heman, Punky Brewster, Smurfs. I wasn’t in a bubble, you know.

I love books now like I did as a child when I allow myself to get in there, even if I am less enthusiastic and more critical about the work that I read. Even when I don’t like who I’m spending time with, I still miss them and their world when I’m done with them. Maybe I should let my dog eat the remote to the TV. That might help.

I'm trying... really I am.