the atrophying of my brain
I don't read enough books these days. It started way back in the first trimester of my pregnancy, when I was constantly queasy and couldn't concentrate on anything. I took to watching television or many many DVDs because I couldn't muster the focus needed for a book. And somehow that was enough to make me, a dedicated lifelong reader, fall out of the habit. I still read, of course, but not nearly so much as I used to. And now that Anton is here, I'm not really doing any better. I have a tendency to use every spare moment for either housework or the internet. I know why I do it--the internet is a social outlet for me and I need a certain level of it to feel as though I'm getting enough interaction--but I don't need to dedicate nearly as much time to it as I do. When I catch myself refreshing pages to see if anything new has popped up in the last five minutes, then it's time to pull back a bit.
Despite my decreased reading rate, I somehow have SIXTY unread books in the house. I bought most of them in Oxfam when I was volunteering there, and a few are actually ones I saved from the bin because they're a bit tatty and Oxfam is relentless about their condition. (An aside: have a lightly battered but totally usable and not gross-looking book you'd like to donate? Take it to the Irish Cancer Society shop or some other local place, because Oxfam will likely tear the cover off and bin it. I like Oxfam and their mission but this disturbs me.) So I've decided that in the next year, I am going to try to read these sixty books and I will donate them as I go. Only things that I find I love so much that I could never, ever be without them will be allowed to stay. Not only will this make me happier and better read, it should clear out a TON of space in the living room.
This is not a particularly challenging target. I know lots of people who read far far more than this and still manage to be productive members of society. It's toward the upper end of my personal achievements in recent years, though. Since 2004 I've been keeping a list of all the books I read and the best I've done is 65. I feel like that's pretty good, or at least respectable, when you factor in all the TV series and internet sites I also keep up with. But in 2010 so far I've finished three books. THREE. I'm halfway through another three, but two of them I've been working on since before I gave birth, so I'm not exactly whizzing along. Anyway, the idea is that by setting it up as a proper goal and making it public so that a few people can ask me about it if they like (I see this being a topic for me and lazy_hoor) I will make myself DO IT instead of spending yet another hour reading gossip nonsense on the internet. If I don't make it I won't mind, so long as I feel I put forth some actual effort.
Despite my decreased reading rate, I somehow have SIXTY unread books in the house. I bought most of them in Oxfam when I was volunteering there, and a few are actually ones I saved from the bin because they're a bit tatty and Oxfam is relentless about their condition. (An aside: have a lightly battered but totally usable and not gross-looking book you'd like to donate? Take it to the Irish Cancer Society shop or some other local place, because Oxfam will likely tear the cover off and bin it. I like Oxfam and their mission but this disturbs me.) So I've decided that in the next year, I am going to try to read these sixty books and I will donate them as I go. Only things that I find I love so much that I could never, ever be without them will be allowed to stay. Not only will this make me happier and better read, it should clear out a TON of space in the living room.
This is not a particularly challenging target. I know lots of people who read far far more than this and still manage to be productive members of society. It's toward the upper end of my personal achievements in recent years, though. Since 2004 I've been keeping a list of all the books I read and the best I've done is 65. I feel like that's pretty good, or at least respectable, when you factor in all the TV series and internet sites I also keep up with. But in 2010 so far I've finished three books. THREE. I'm halfway through another three, but two of them I've been working on since before I gave birth, so I'm not exactly whizzing along. Anyway, the idea is that by setting it up as a proper goal and making it public so that a few people can ask me about it if they like (I see this being a topic for me and lazy_hoor) I will make myself DO IT instead of spending yet another hour reading gossip nonsense on the internet. If I don't make it I won't mind, so long as I feel I put forth some actual effort.