Good Reading Glasses

"The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision

and strengthens our most fatal tendency --

the belief that the here and now is all there is."

-- Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

Reading Glasses and  a really good book 5-6-14

"I have two pairs of reading glasses.

One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction.

I've read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it's the same."

-- Steven Wright

I'm at that age where I have to hold anything I want to read at arm's length and squint real hard at it. 

Labels at the grocery store. The program at a show. Wine lists and menus. A baseball schedule. 

When it's still a blur, I've begun doing this thing where I'll ask my husband or one of my kids to "tell me what this says." Or, I'll just give up. So what if the jam is full of poison chemicals and corn syrup? Toss it in the cart! Who needs menus and wine lists? I can just order one of the specials that the waiter described and ask him to to bring me a glass of whatever he recommends to go with it. And that program? Who needs it? It's just a bunch of ads. Pay attention to the show, dammit!

Yes, I wear glasses, which do a Cracker Jack job of focusing my vision most of the time. But my regular glasses are no longer up to the task of reading and other close-up work. My optometrist has gently thrown around the b-word --bifocals -- but I balk at the thought. I feel like it's a slippery slope.

I'm afraid that once I go bifocal I'll start wearing beige sneakers and sun visors and sweatshirts with embroidered applique, and worrying how long I can talk on a long distance phone call, and doing crosswords on the toilet, and soaking my teeth in a jar at night, and calling people "Sonny," and tucking tissues up my sleeve, and no longer plucking my chin whiskers, and drinking Ensure, and liking Fox News, and repeating myself, and tucking tissues up my sleeve.

I'm just not ready to go there yet.

So in addition to my regular glasses, I have my "cheaters" -- inexpensive plastic magnifiers from the drug store that pump up the print size so I can see what I'm reading, and keep the b-word at bay. 

So far, they do a good enough job.  I don't need a huge magnification number yet. And even though I've had to switch up a couple of times, there are still lots and lots of stronger ones for me to try before I run out of possibilities. Best of all, they are not bifocals, so I can still cling to the illusion that I am not rapidly schussing down the slippery slope. 

Sonny, that's a good thing.

A Book I Can't Put Down

"Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading,

his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind."

-- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

Octopus bathtub toy with its nose in a good book 1-31-14

"It is what you read when you don't have to 

that determines what you will be

when you can't help it."

-- Oscar Wilde

"You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read.

People that like to read are always a little fucked up."

-- Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

So, yesterday.

I was in my workroom, trying to think up a good thing for today's blog post. I was picking stuff up, and then putting it back down. Ideas weren't flowing. I was stymied.

Until I picked up this book that has been lying on my over-cluttered drafting table for a few weeks.

The book was a Christmas gift from my very good friend, Jill. It's something she read, loved, and felt compelled to pass along to me. When someone recommends a book they loved, that's one thing. But when someone bothers to buy you your very own copy of a book they loved, and then writes a personal and meaningful inscription inside the book's front cover, and then mails the book to you ... well, that's a whole other kettle of fish. 

Anyway, back to being stymied.

I opened the book and read the first section. It made me laugh. It was about a woman who dug up a letter that her 10-year-old self had written to her 25-year-old self, and there was a lot of very funny stuff about dogs.

I still didn't have an idea for today's blog, so I said to myself, "Self, you may read one more section of this book, and then you must buckle down and get back to business."

So I read another section, this time about a borderline-retarded dog. Just to clarify ... I am not a dog lover. I don't even like dogs all that much. I don't have one and don't plan to ever have one. But this "simple dog" reminded me so much of my mother's dog, that I couldn't stop reading, or laughing.

My knees were getting sore from standing and reading, and my chair had stuff stacked on it, so I took the book downstairs and sat in the recliner with an ice pack on my knees. And I said to myself, "Self, you must ice your knees, and instead of watching TV, you may read some more of this book, and then -- seriously this time -- you must buckle down and get back to business."

An hour later, the ice pack had gone all floppy and melted to room temperature, and I was still reading.

There was this section about depression that was so funny and so fucking honest and made so damn much sense. I have suffered with depression, which means I have read about depression, but this was the first time anyone had really described exactly what it feels like to have depression. It was brilliant. It wasn't getting my blog post done for me, but it was fucking brilliant.

It was almost time to pick up my child from school, so I said to myself "Self, you may read until it's time to pick up your child from school, and then you must stop this silly nonsense, buckle down and get back to business."

I know shit is getting real when I start talking to myself in italics.

Somehow I extracted the book from my hands and picked up my child from school. When I got home, I dove right back into the recliner, and back into the book. I didn't even take off my hat. And I said to myself, "Self, hats are a good thing. Maybe you could blog about hats. You may read one more section of this book, and then you must buckle down and get back to business. And hats."

And then I just binge-read until I got to the end of the book. All 369 pages. I couldn't stop myself. 

The book has pictures, so it moved along more quickly than a non-illustrated 369-page book. But still.

When I finally put the book down, after I had ingested all its contents, I felt satisfied and full and and happy and sad and known, and, well, good.

And I said to myself "Self, that certainly was a good book. But now you must buckle down and ..."

Wait just a gosh darn minute.

Sometimes I just need to shutthefuckup.

(If you want to read the book that did this to me, it's called Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh. If, while reading it, you neglect your responsibilities and your family, it's Jill's fault.)