Summer Reading

For several weeks, Roy asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day. I'm a pretty content person and will rarely ask for anything beyond food, but on Sunday afternoon I requested and promptly received Tina Fey's recently-released autobiography, "Bossypants." Enthralled by the sincerity with which she commits to self-deprication and anecdotes that made me laugh audibly, I devoured the entire book less than 36 hours after it was placed in my eager hands.

After forcing myself to hurriedly shuffle around a college campus for the first seven months of my pregnancy, I'm more than content to settle down on my mom's porch with a good book and a tall glass (or four) of black cherry Kool-Aid. On campus, I lived in a sphere and only took note of the things I could stand to let inside my bubble with me. I wouldn't quite say the bubble has burst, but I can definitely let in a lot more, like the multitude of songbirds fluttering around the balconies above my head and a subtle appreciation for extended sunlight hours.

I like to write about my life, but I also savor reading about other people. The concept of reality has been a television fad throughout the 21st century, but it's been a long-standing tradition in literature for centuries. With that in mind, I drove down the street to Barnes and Noble this afternoon to indulge my love of the written word in a huge, air-conditioned room where I can disappear among the shelves. I also just really love the smell of bookstores.

Let's not forget, however, one of my most unshakable lifestyle habits- I'm cheap. I perused the fiction, biography and parenting sections full of brand spanking new books perfectly organized by author and genre for a while, wrote down the titles of the ones I wanted to read, and made my way toward the Half-Price Books nearby.

Frugality demands a willingness to really search for what you want. Because the half-price bookstore subsists on a cycle of people bringing in their own books, the staff can never predict where in the store the books will be placed, making it a bit less organized than good ol' Barnes and Noble. I wandered around the store for a solid 45 minutes before deciding on $3 worth of books that I dug out of the clearance section. Did I mention that I sold $19 worth of books on the way in?

I was genuinely sad when I finished "Bossypants" so quickly because I loved it and wanted to read more of Tina's crafted brand of humor. Much to my delight, I now get to hunker down with "Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay" by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor. Yes, I'll also be reading my $1 copy of "What to Expect: The First Year" on the side, but give me a break. Some time in the next nine weeks, I'll have a newborn and my days of gratuitous reading will be severely diminished.

My favorite thing about reading is that unlike watching a half-hour TV show, you have no idea how much time has gone by when you finish a chapter. At this rate, the following weeks will fly by and in no time, I'll have a baby girl in my arms.