Distracted Thoughts.

Distracted a bit by Star Trek: TNG on television. I like having the voices in the background. I like the dream of space travel. I like all the different species the crew encounters. I like the interaction, the conflict and the resolution. The show appeals to me on more levels than just the science fiction that first attracted me. I've been attracted to science fiction and speculative fiction since I was in junior high. (I think we call that middle-school now.)

I was once a great reader of books. The year I spent in New York, I read 3-5 books a week. This took me outside the speculative fiction and into popular fiction and some non-fiction. (My television did not work very well and I'd be damned if I'd pay for cable... in those days.) I spent a lot of my free time in the bookstore.

My company and I were very good at sharing books while out of town. No one really wanted to travel home with a suitcase full of books! I left some at the apartment I'd sublet. I gave my favorites to friends. I lugged home the ones I felt I couldn't live without. (One of the many reasons my garage is full of boxes and boxes of books.)

I don't read books much anymore. I miss the books. I am too busy now with my husband and the pursuit of my career. (And the walks and my extended family.) I don't see that well anymore either. I wear trifocals and the angle I have to point to read gets tiring very quickly.

(I have my glasses adjusted for reading scripts and looking at a distant stage. The in-between is for the computer.)

But, oh, the books. Oh, the novels. Oh! All those stories! I loved the particularly long ones because that meant I'd spend more time with characters I'd come to love. Some books I revisited again and again. I'm trying to share those stories with our children. (The nieces and nephews and, my students, "our" children.)

Star Trek is over. It is late, in all ways. But, along with reading my next play, cleaning out my closets, buying some new clothes, calling my current show, getting ready for the next, spending time with my husband and my father... I need to read a book!