Writing in the Dark

 

Tuesday, August 21, 2012 – Writing in the Dark

I don’t recommend writing in the dark, but that’s exactly what I was doing at approximately 4 o’clock in the morning.  My insomnia had kicked in about half an hour earlier.  Fortunately, I’d left a pad and a pen next to the bed so I didn’t have to turn on the light.  Even more fortunately, I soon realized that I was writing with the wrong end of the pen, otherwise my “notes” would have been useless. 

Writing down my thoughts didn’t quell my insomnia, so I finally gave in, got out of bed, and went out to the living room.  Elliott was still asleep so the house was quiet and I had plenty of time before I had to start my day’s work.  Therefore, it seemed a perfect opportunity to indulge in a novel-reading binge, one of my guilty pleasures.  About a week ago, I’d come home from the library with a shopping bag full of novels.  The bag had been parked on the living room floor ever since because I was either too busy or too exhausted to examine the contents.  I could barely contain my excitement – oh, the anticipation, the delight! – as I hauled the bag over to the sofa.

Of course, I knew I couldn’t read all four books before their due date.  But I planned to take a little taste of each, so I’d know which ones to load onto my Kindle prior to our trip to California.  They were a diverse group and I hardly knew where to begin my sampling.  In the Jewish ghetto of 16th century Venice (The Midwife of Venice)?  On a Puerto Rican sugar plantation in the 1800s (Conquistadora)?  In the exotic locale of the deepest Amazon (State of Wonder)?  Or should I follow the imagined life, in the U.S. and Japan, of Butterfly’s Child? 

I examined front and back covers, perused the copy describing the plot, checked out the photo of the author, and even scanned the acknowledgements.  I flipped through pages at will.  Sorry, Kindle, I truly love you, but there’s nothing that can compare to the sensual experience of holding a book in your hands. 

When I finally got around to going online to check prices at the Amazon website, the question wasn’t which novel to purchase, but which novel to purchase first, since I now plan to read them all.  The choice was nearly impossible.  I postponed making a decision about the novels, and instead, made an impulse purchase:  Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, a book that my friend Eleanor had recommended highly a couple of days ago.  Actually, I only downloaded a summary of the book, since the complete version is quite lengthy.  Since the book is non-fiction, it doesn’t count towards my quota of novels.  Plus, it sounded so interesting, and it was only $2.99.  In other words, how could I resist? 

It turned out to be a good choice.  A few minutes after I downloaded it, I took it over to Lifetime where it kept me completely occupied as I pounded away on the elliptical machine.  And it’s a book that I’m sure Elliott will enjoy, as well.  He had to stop reading temporarily after his eyelid surgery, but he’s eager to get back to his Kindle as soon as he discontinues using that shmeary Bacitracin ointment in his eyes.