Abigail M. Schilling

I get bored when I read books. This is really depressing to me. Because I actually like books, I don't mean to get bored. I like to read! I like stories! I like writing! But I get bored! What is wrong with me?

I'll be reading 1984 la dee dah and then all of a sudden I won't. And days will go by and I'll think about it and wonder what happened to the characters--because I knew them, being almost 200 pages into the book afterall--but never enough to pick up the book and actually finish it.

And then, a year later, I'll be moving and I'll come across my copy (because even though I know I won't ever read the book again [see below] I have to BUY it because I have to BUY everything) and I'll wonder again about the characters, hmmm, and then move on with my life and shelf the book.

I think that's one of the reasons I like blogs so much. You say your bit and then move on to the next day. None of this on and on and on for four hundred pages business. I love reading blogs. I love being able to load a favorite URL read 600 words and then get on with my life. By the time tomorrow rolls around I'm ready for another 600 words.

And if I do ever finish I book I promptly forget it, pushing back into the attic to make room for more song lyrics or every line from Center Stage or Love Actually or Friends ever. The thing is that book is back there, in the memory, somewhere because the moment I start re-reading (Hey! I remember liking this book but not what it was about ... I'll read it again!) I REMEMBER EVERYTHING. Ohhhh, I remember, this is the one with that lady... and I bet she does that thing? I wonder if she does that thing or not? was it another book? for another 12 pages when she finally does the thing and I move on to wondering about something else. This process makes me absolutely crazy. I've never been able to enjoy a book the second time around unless I already remember the entire plot going into it.

All this is rather amusing seeing as I spent three years in college doing nothing but reading. All the time the reading. I couldn't list all the books I read if I tried and even if I had them all in front of me I still couldn't list them because I don't know how to pronounce some of the names. So many books.

And I just kinda shoveled them in. I had to push through the boredom. And then I forgot them. Poof. Gone. Thousands of pages of classic books with unpronounceable authors and titles that I read, took notes on, wrote papers about, and sometimes! even argued about. And I couldn't tell you a thing about them now. Well, except that somehow, maybe, they made me a better person.