for the last three days (actually I believe it may have been getting "worse" for a few weeks now) I have been addicted (I wish there was a better, more hungry-sounding word) to reading...but the last few days it's been at it's peak...reading anything I can get my hands on. Like a pregnant woman to ice cream and pickles. The ingredients in my face lotion, magazine articles about things I don't even care that much about, online news (and even some propaganda just for kicks)...but mostly a book. And now I've finished Lacuna and tonight I realized my home has not been caring for itself in my absence...sigh.
Stella has created a nest out of the slew of papers strewn in the corner of my living room. She has scratched them into a sloppy circle with a small space of carpet in the center, and there she stays all day. I come home for lunch and she's there...and she doesn't budge. Now, of course when it is TIME for me to be home for the night she meets me at the door and rolls over, waiting for me to find her "bunkie" and toss it into the bedroom for her to retrieve. Nevermind that she's a cat.
So this is what has happened to me in the grips of the latest Kingsolver--And I'm not sure the book was even that addicting. Good, no doubt (did seem a smidge weaker than her others, but still very good) but it became the simple act of reading that ended up consuming my afternoon today and kept me indoors when the temperature outside was perfect for going for a jog--The picture of my apartment in it's neglect and disarray. a salt shaker on my living room windowsill, bedroom pillow in the armchair, the half-unpacked suitcase from my WV trip LAST weekend sitting open and rummaged through outside my bathroom, no toilet paper, no dishwashing detergent (consequently not that many dishes needing to be washed as I haven't seemed to eat much here lately...a microwaved bowl of soup, reheated pasta, popcorn)...Roberts mother would be appalled, thank God I'm quarantined off from the rest of my life for the time being...anyone would be ashamed of such a state I'm in. I've been determined to clean for a week now...hasn't happened.
I'm sure I will go on a cleaning tear any day now. Maybe even any minute. It seems to always take me a week or so to regroup from going out of town. I should get better at it seeing as how I've been travelling so much lately, but then again maybe that's the reason...haven't been here long enough to regroup before I'm off again, leaving this resort island any chance I get to taste my old life or see familiar faces. Sounds pathetic I know...I should really dig in and live it up while I'm at the coast, but my word...for all it's tourism and social happenings, this place can get lonely.
When I closed the book -- I saved two chapters at the end and plotted not to read them so it was never over...an old habit of mine that hasn't showed up in years, (welcome back you strange little self defense mechanism) -- I went to my bookshelf to finger through and see if there was possibly one in there I hadn't read...stolen from my brother's collection or unburied from the dusty shelves of the SC house...nothing caught my eye. So I called my mother back, then called Rob back, then sat back in my arm chair...and decided to blog.
Now, a grocery list...perhaps if I purchase the cleaning supplies I will feel obligated to use them...ah...psychology...and I'm off to bed. Adios.
