• Archive of "books" Category

    My Not So Secret Affair with the Written Word

    December 28, 2007 // 2 Comments »

    Posted in books, family life, habits, marriage

    Brian has yet to learn that I should never be taken into an establishment that sells books so I frequently find myself in positions where I am trying to convince myself to only buy five books instead of five hundred while Brian looks confused that he can’t just walk in, buy what he needs and leave. Which is what happened Sunday afternoon as we were trying to finish up our Christmas shopping. Brian had finally thought of the perfect gift for his father’s girlfriend which helped us to finish our holiday shopping in a bookstore. As he hunted through Borders as a man on a mission, I browsed the beautiful aisles filled with books I have yet to read. Each unread book was a friend I had yet to meet.

    I read the way some people eat or play video games. I live for a good book. I can ignore my husband for hours on end if the content is compelling and it is not unusual to find me hiding in a strange location with a book. I rarely bring books to my job because I don’t trust myself to not sneak off and hide in the building with my latest page turner in tow.

    I purchased four books on Sunday afternoon. Brian had reached the “enough” point with my roaming and since we had taken separate cars, he moved on to the next errand. I still needed to ponder what “excessive” really meant in a bookstore. All of my purchases were impulse buys but that was to be expected. I was able to rationalize by telling myself that since the writers are all striking in Hollywood, there really isn’t anything good on TV except Law and Order: SVU reruns and I’m not sure Brian will be tolerating that for much longer.

    Which brings me to my big question: if I didn’t really watch TV anymore, would my book purchases still be excessive? What if Brian and I read at night instead of tuning into a million different TV shows? Would our lives improve for the better? Or would we find that Saturday mornings were used to catch up on TV? What if Brian read instead of internet surfed?

    I’m not sure if I’m quite at a point where I’m interested in unplugging my TV but I think I need to cut it back at this point. Brian and I regularly watch over 3 hours of television a day. Considering I watched less than one half hour of television a day at the time Brian and I were engaged, it raises flags about the change in my behavior. I think maybe the most I can commit to is trying to cut back to an hour of TV a day. It is, at least, a start.