I’m having a lazy Sunday morning today after another long week. My stress level continues to bounce around from moderate to high, though has not gone through the roof again in the last week. I attribute this partly to the fact that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for a lot of the things that have been causing my stress – Girl Scout cookie sales, the barrage of work landing in my inbox, and some projects that I think I am just about ready to get off my plate.
But I also have to attribute the moderation of my stress level to taking a little time for myself. After having owned my iPad for a couple months now, I finally made another trip to Borders online and picked up a couple of books, including Stieg Larson’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” I love to read, but don’t do it nearly often enough these days. In fact, if I read a book a quarter (for pleasure and not for some project-related research), I’d be very surprised. The last good book I can remember reading is Dan Simmons “Drood,” a dark, fictional account of Charles Dickens’ years. It was a very loooooooong book, and very engrossing, and I spent quite a few nights staying up past midnight to read it.
I picked up “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” on a whim. It was only $5 for the ebook and I can’t recall the last time I was able to buy a book for just $5. I sat down last week to start it and found myself once again engrossed. I read at night before falling asleep and then started reading during the day, taking a little time here and there to finish a chapter or two. Finally, on Friday I spent most of the day just reading. I had an unexpected break in my schedule and decided to spend the day at home just writing and reading. I read off and on all day and finally finished the book around 9PM, then went online and bought the next one in the series. I haven’t started it yet; I’ve decided to read “The Lost City of Z” first. But I’m fairly certain once I finish “Z” I’ll be more than ready to head back into Larson’s world of investigative journalism, hackers and brutal crime.
So today’s contentment is good books, something I don’t indulge in nearly often enough. Hopefully I’ll figure out a way to slow down my schedule in the future to give myself a little more reading time. It’s the easiest form of escape I can find.
