Sunday, May 02, 2004
8:12 AM
My life is really a mess. Well, it’s not really a mess. I'm having a wonderful time. My schedule is a mess. My responsibilities are being shirked away as if they were worthless items that belonged in the dump. Clearly they aren’t. But what about everything that is important to me, my family, my church, my work as a travel writer, my perennial garden, doing the hides…oh there it is again, that never-ceasing pressure to tan those stupid hides. I cant’ go there, cant’ think about what a mess I’ve made of that great plan. Rotting hides in the water, moulding hides in the barrels that aren’t big enough to either turn them or to fit them all in under the water. No I definitely don’t want to go there.
It’s so easy to just print out a really good story and sit back and read it, take it to the hammock in the shade at the end of the lane and lie there, escaping into that other world of romance and intrigue. But of course I don’t have to print one out at all. No, I can just sit at my computer and read story after story after story. I know the plot line. I know the way things are going to turn out, but each story is built on some bit of a fork in the road, the ‘what ifs’ that the episodes have in them. What if he told her now? What if he didn’t tell her? What if he lost his memory somewhere else than in Metropolis? What if, what if, what if.
The darnest thing is that these stories are so spellbinding, so insightful, so well written. I cant’ stop myself. I can Know, and plan what I’ll do today, but in the end, the days are just like I want them to be, filled with my fantasy heroes, following their paths, their choices, their investigations and all the romance in between.
Why can I be so hooked on this stuff? I don’t read romance, ever. I don’t watch TV, except I used to watch Lois and Clark and Columbo years ago when it was on and when I had a TV. Okay, so I watched Dallas after someone shot JR. I don’t know why. Then I got to liking it. I also liked CSI. I guess the crime investigation is just as interesting as the budding, morally upstanding romance, the true love, the patience, the forgiveness, the pain. See, there I go again. I'm lost. Hopelessly lost. My days are built around the time I can sit at the computer and read from the
www.lcfanfic.com site. How can there be over 2000 of them. This addiction is oh so cruel. I’ll lose all semblance of a normal life if I don’t stop being content with sitting in my office reading, uninterested in going outside, figuring I know what’s out there.
Okay, so I do go out there sometimes. I do. I really do. Just the other day I took a walk. Okay, so I took Lois and Clark along with me. It was much more interesting to read about where Clark landed after he’d collided with the asteroid, about the woman who’d taken him in and the way that fate crossed the paths of Lois and Clark eventually.
It made walking in the woods all alone so much better. I don’t like being alone every day, day after day, walking in the world’s most beautiful place, just looking at and listening to the nature that surrounds me. I was into that for awhile, okay, so for a few years. But now I'm over that. I now go there and feel alone, I’ve seen it all, heard it all, answered all my questions, figured out the names and the songs of all the birds. I don’t have to look to hear and to see them singing. I don't wonder what the names of the plants are and when they’ll bloom. I now know what season it is, practically what day it is by the plants and the flowers in the woods.
I did get some of the willow cut down by the upper pond. That’s a good thing because I really wanted to make some baskets. But since I can’t make baskets and read at the same time, I don’t make baskets.
This whole week I was going to go do visiting teaching, no that was the week before which I postponed till this week. But now the month is gone, and I’ve not done it. But I did read L&C. I printed out a stack about a foot high and read them outside, or in the car or anywhere at all.
Why do I have to have such an addictive personality. Why can’t I just be normal, get up in the morning, say my prayers, take my shower, go out and make breakfast and clean the house, go outside and do a project, work on the hides and resurrect my tipi, water my 17 trays of weary looking plants? Why did I kill my geraniums? Why did I put off replanting them and coddling them into full strength?
But I can’t. I am up. I’ve not said my prayers, read my scriptures, taken a shower, but I’ve read two more stories. But as I reach the end of a story, I sigh, then look for another one. One is never ever enough. I print them out for the times that I won’t have my computer to myself, when I’ll have to read on the couch, or outside, or lying in bed.
I need help. I need a 12-step LC anon group. I should get my life back. But I don’t want it back. I want to live in my world of fantasy. Is this what it’s like for avid readers who read whenever they can? I know some people like that. But when I read, I'm so totally taken from my own life, so completely drawn into this life of the characters, that my own life becomes a mere shadow while the action goes on in my mind. My memories of the day aren’t memories of what I’ve accomplished or what I’ve done with my life, but they are instead memories of what has happened in the lifes of the hero and heroine of my chosen romantic adventure stories.
It’s like reading Harry Potter, I tell myself. The entire family was consumed with that. They’d start at book one, and continue through book 5, reading every word, giving no cares to the world around them. This was the same, it is just not a bound version of a book.
Ben used to read Star Trek novels. He read about 24 of them, then read them again and again. He blocked out life and just read. Isn’t that the idea of a good book, to lose oneself in the book, to let your own life become dim in the background?
However there are positive things about reading so much L&C. It definitely helps me to see the good in Willem. He’s one of those quiet, patient, contemplative people in the world. Some would see a man like that as boring, but he’s so constant and steady for me. He never changes. His feelings of deep love and admiration for me never change. He is so supportive, so willing to comfort, so non-judgemental. He’s always happy. He’s not excited or bouncy, but he’s calmly peaceful. He totally wants what’s best for me, for us. He is so selfless. He brings me things I'm too lazy to get up and get. He helps me when he doesn’t know what in the world I want him to do.
Well, it’s time to go. We leave in fifteen minutes. I won’t take any L&C along with us today. I will just drop it cold turkey. I can always read it again when I get home. See, there I go again.
nancysont@hotmail.com
