Panic in the Library

I’ve really been tearin’ it up lately when it comes to reading. I track my books on Shelfari, and so far this year, I’ve read 30 books. In all of last year, I read only 21! I made a conscious decision to stop spending so much time online and get back to making time for reading. I may have overcompensated, because I’m not writing as much, and sometimes neglecting to get things done because I’m deep into a book and I just can’t put it down. I’m pretty much okay with that, though. When it’s nice out, I tend to put on a bikini and sit outside to read. (If it’s really hot, I sit in the shade. I get overheated easily.) I figure that I’d better be enjoying the summer, because it is starting to wind down. Winter will be coming soon enough! I’ve also been trying to get over to Shane and Matt’s once a week or so for some happy fun pool time (pictures will be forthcoming), and we’ve been having a blast just floating around in the pool, relaxing, talking, and listening to some fun new music. They’re so sweet to welcome me over so often!

Anyway, back to books. The last few I read were hard copies rather than Kindle versions. I like to change it up a little bit. I’m a wild woman, I know! So instead of leaving it on and draining the charge, I just turned it completely off. That seemed like common sense to me.

When I finished the current book I was reading (a hardback), I went back to the guest room to find another book to read. There is a tall shelf back there crammed full of books, ones that I haven’t read yet. I thought about a Jeffrey Deaver book, because he writes good crime thrillers. Picked up a Paul Krugman book, but I’m fairly sick of reading about the economic crisis. Considered a Jeffrey Toobin book about the Supreme Court. I have a multitude of books about Microbiology, but I wanted something a little less serious at the moment. In that light, I thought about Maureen McCormick’s autobiography (Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!), but that was a little too light. I decided I was in the mood for a good, creepy horror novel. And I didn’t have one on that particular bookshelf! There were a couple of Dean Koontz books, but he’s kind of Horror Novel Lite lately, and I wanted something really toothsome, so to speak.

I knew I had some good stuff on my Kindle, so I figured it was time to fire it up again. Although I hadn’t had it on in a while, I had ordered a couple of items, including some free books, and I figured I could get all those downloaded to my Kindle and put into the proper categories, then decide which book I wanted to read. I turned it on, and it was thinking and thinking...but it wasn’t syncing up to my new downloads. As I investigated, it appeared that it wasn’t connecting to the wireless network. I tried connecting manually, I did some troubleshooting, and I still couldn’t get it to connect. It recognized the network, but for some reason, it just would not connect.

After a little bit of frantic work, including a restart, I decided to let it charge fully, and I will go from there. As it charges, I find myself feeling quite anxious. Of course, I can already access the books that I have on there without having the wireless connected, so that isn’t the problem. Not having something work the way it is supposed to and always has bothers me quite a bit. I know I’ll get this resolved (there are still things I need to try, and I hear that Kindle tech support is outstanding), but in the meantime, I’m fretting. I don’t like to fret, but that’s what I’m doing. I’m currently resisting the urge to see if it has charged all the way yet, and wondering if I can sleep without resolving this.

I did have to laugh at myself as I was looking for a book to read. I was the literary equivalent of Springsteen’s “57 Channels (And Nothing On).” An entire bookshelf of books I haven’t read, ranging in topics from science to politics to thrillers, and nothing was striking me. Five crammed-to-overflowing bookshelves in the basement, but most are books I’ve read. I have no qualms about reading favorites again, but I’ve got so many others that I haven’t read yet!

As I write this out, it strikes me that if this is all I’m fretting about at the moment, I am a very lucky woman. I think I’ll sleep easy tonight, after all.