Reading

I can write. I can read. But I cannot write html code, so I cannot put a reading list on the side of this blog. So, instead, I’m just going to write a periodic entry about my reading adventures. Kind of a summer reading thing.

Last week I read Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven. Excellent book, well-researched and interesting, too. I learned stuff I never knew about the founders of the Mormon religion. Of course, I had to actually pay attention and think hard sometimes, so that’s why my next book was The Nanny Diaries.

I read it in two days–two days of ignoring the bits of popcorn on the family room floor, two days of closing the laundry room door on the ever-growing pile of laundry, two days of not looking down at the unclean kitchen floor. This is the kind of book that makes me think, “I could do this. I could write this book.” There are some books–Poisonwood Bible, for instance–that leave me convinced that I could never, ever pen a novel. But these other novels? I could do it. All I need is time, time, time.

I even have an idea.

My husband thinks I fritter away so much time that if I just applied myself I could write a best-seller and he could buy a bigger, better house. I just smile and nod at him, because he’s insane. Even if I wrote a book and had it published, that doesn’t mean we’ll be rolling in crisp dollar bills a la Demi Moore in “An Indecent Proposal.”

And just because all the idle moments in my day add up to a couple of hours does not mean I have long stretches of time, thinking time, daydreaming time, essential time where I could rearrange characters and situations and dialogue in my head without kids constantly trampling through my thoughts. I’m half-crazed as it is now by the never-ending interruptions God gave me.

Oh, and that reminds me. I have a little writing assignment. I really should get to that instead of letting this time trickle through my fingers like sand in the sandbox.

(Just in the time it took me to write this, I answered the phone, told YoungestBoy that I would NOT cut the bottom off a frozen water bottle so he could play with the bottle-shaped ice, told my other boys to eat a sandwich if they are still hungry after popcorn and Mountain Dew, cut the bottom off the water bottle to keep YoungestBoy from slicing his fingers off with a butter knife, answered questions from the boys at least five times and decided it’s official. My week of PMS has begun.)