Photoessay #814 - Reading

Check out the new chair that I purchased just for reading. I'm aiming to call this new room the library. So far I have the chair. And last night I actually sat in it and read some. A work in progress.

But, that IS a NEW chair, nobody has owned it before us. Now, we hate shopping, please anything before that. But when I went to Penneys, it seemed the logical thing to consider a recliner. Yikes, I'm not that old, right? Plus, they seemed so huge and none of them felt very good on my back which I consider my #1 criteria. We purchased this leather chair at Costco and it advertises special lumbar and back support. It felt good on my back. Dennis installed a reading light that we already had right behind me, it's great. I also put my grandmother's rocker (antique but worthless) and a smal ltable with some amateur wood inlay work that came from a landlord who, circa 1975, offered my roommate and I the furniture in the house if we would move out two weeks early.

But I value the reading most of all. Always my favorite thing to do. One childhood story has my parents purchasing a full set of the World Book Encyclopedia (that's what good parents did in the ealry 60s). I loved it and got right to work (I was in second grade). I got down Volume A, got myself comfy and proceeded to read the entire thing. Why was everyone surprised? Wasn't that what it was for?

In 1968, I discovered the New Yorker magazine. Some friend of my moms gave use some old issues (no idea why) and I started reading that. I was hooked, I begged for a subscription. But somewhere in there, I realized that I didn't have to have somebody give me a subscription, I could just subscribe myself! Yes! I've read ever since. But I'm just catching up now after 27 years of childrearing. I've often been multiple years behind. Until recently my issues were pre-Monica. You know, the presidential intern scandal?

But I have not read that many books, I've never quite recovered from the libary not stamping the due date in the back of the book. But now, as I look at what I want to do with my time, now that my kids maybe, possibly may be grown up and my job looking like it very well may go away. I'm committing to writing and reading. My neighbor, when talking about a book she had read said "Oh, right, I forgot that you are not a reader" Taken aback, I almost retorted "Of COURSE, I'm a reader!!" But I considered, how much was I really reading? OK, we're going to change that right now.

This small 'library' in a small bedroom upstairs still needs work. The second shot is the view from my new reading chair.