last week i went to see my superstar colorist, liz murphy, so she could paint away the pesky “sparklers” that insist on growing out of my head and she was shocked by the big dent next to my eyebrow. “what happened to you?” she asked. “oh, i fell asleep on my glasses last night reading.” liz is a big reader too and understands that changing my bedtime routine is not an option. but i had already been awake for several hours and the mark on my face was still quite prominent and definitely not pretty, so clearly, something had to change. liz, who has the wisdom of yoda, but looks like a bombshell, said, “you need a reading device, like a kindle or an iPad.” of course i have heard of the kindle, but i have not been interested in them because i love holding an actual book. i love the feel of the paper and “personalizing” my books by turning down the pages of passages i like or bending the page corners to remember my place (this doesn’t happen all that often as i usually fall asleep before i manage to do that.) i like arranging my finished books on my bookshelf so i can reference them later or lend them out to friends. and i love looking at the jacket designs and all the color and warmth books add to a room. i just love books.
but i am also fairly vain and i do not like having a tender, red dent in my head that takes half a day to dissipate each time i sleep in an unlucky position, which seems to happen a couple of times a week. also, my bookshelf IS quite full from a lifetime of collecting. and sometimes it’s hard to hold up a heavy book when i am tired and i HAVE woken myself up when my book comes crashing down on my face (which has also caused injuries. the reading devices have little stands that prop themselves up, liz says.) and i need to buy new glasses more often than most because mine don’t always survive being slept on. liz said i could make the font big enough on the kindle or iPad that i wouldn’t even need my glasses. PLUS the device makes it’s own light so i could turn the lights off before going to bed. for years i have settled in each night with the bedside lights on and fallen asleep that way, which probably isn’t the best for healthy REM. and this thing could allow me to save on lightbulbs and electricity… very boulder!
the other problem with real books is that they are heavy and take up a fair amount of space in your luggage when traveling. the kids and i are getting ready for a beach holiday over thanksgiving break and all i really want to do is read and sleep (and spend quality time with my darling children of course.) we are trying to travel light and i was wondering how many books i would be able to stuff in our suitcase. with a kindle or iPad, i can download as many novels and memoirs as i want and my luggage won’t get any more difficult to drag around. so at long last, i am open to reading with technology. this is quite a step for me… i still have a paper agenda and write out a paper “to do” list each morning and take all my work notes in a wide ruled composition notebook (i have pretty big, loopy handwriting.) i can’t imagine ever giving up these paper tools, but you never know.
in the end, i decided to invest in the iPad… ours is prehistoric and doesn’t really work anymore. also, when i couldn’t find the charger, i put it away in a “safe” place and now i can’t find it. (i DID find the charger though, which i put in another “safe place”… hopefully one day they will both be found at the same time and maybe even function, but fred flintstone has a newer version so i doubt it.)
after some lessons on the iPad from my son and first husband, i learned how to download movies AND books. the hotel we are staying in does not have TVs, which is why the iPad won out over the kindle… i thought it could do double duty. i am all for unplugging, but i like to have some leverage over my children as well… bribes have never been beneath me. i potty trained both of them with m&m’s and sometimes eat dessert in front of them when theirs has been taken away just to hammer home the point. oh the sacrifices we make as parents!
so we arrived in sayulita two days ago and the iPad has remained in the safe (the first night it was because i locked it in there and couldn’t get it back out.) but we have been too busy listening to the waves crash and watching the sky change colors and collecting sea shells and getting lost to read or watch movies… hopefully we can keep track of it when we get home and i put it in a “safe place” so we can try it out.
to read more about sayulita click here