Reading comes to us in phases now. It's like craving a piece of chocolate cake. Once you see it, you gotta have it. No other dessert would do. But when you've had it, you can go for months on end without having it again.
Because life distracts and deprives of this pleasure, the pleasure must come full force. Binge reading.
We lie in bed for days with curtains wide open and legs entwined under the same blanket. We read. Book after book. Dylan more than me. The man can really get through books like I can get through a box of cookies.
Sometimes we read multiple books simultaneously. Kind of how you'd watch the first episode of different shows to see which one you want to binge first or binge properly.
Sometimes I could let some books go. I don't take to everything. But Dylan rarely ever does that. Sure he'd have plenty of half read books. Marked by his quirky bookmarks, but you bet he'll finish them sooner or later.
The first thing the man does when he goes to any bookstore is look through the jar of those old $1 bookmarks and picks out a few. The last thing he does at any gift shop is the same. He'll spend a good 10 minutes before checkout in front of one of those rotating kiosks neatly stacked with postcards and magnets and bookmarks and carefully decides his picks.
But the poor bookmarks never make it into his books. I know he has every intention to use them when he buys them. But it's rarely meant to be. I do not know the fate of these bookmarks because I rarely see them again. And I have learned to not pick this battle with him. (Husbands could have far worse habits than bookmark hoarding).
Instead you'll find old receipts, concert tickets, clothing tags, tissue papers, dried leaves (that were fresh leaves when first used for this purpose) and even airplane boarding passes serving as bookmarks. That's how you can tell my books apart from Dylan's. Mine are neatly decorated with vintage bookmarks, colorful, magnetic, stick-on bookmarks, bookmarks with tassels, and bookmarks that point to the exact line of the text. He'll have the entire world's crap in his books except a real bookmark. I used to offer him mine but after they met the same fate as his own, I have not only stopped offering, I actively protect them from him.
During our binge reading days, you'll find books everywhere. Half open, half closed, upside down. By our legs on the bed, snuggling by the arms, stray ones on top of the sheets, and finally the lucky one in our hands.
Our cat would come from time to time to check on us. Sometimes she would sit for hours on the other side of the bed giving us judgmental looks, sometimes carefully balancing herself on top of a book ensuring that her entire body including her tail sits within the four corners of that book. The lucky book would be her chosen throne for the day, which means it would be very inaccessible to us. Dylan says she's reading by osmosis. I think she's just telling us who's the boss.
Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night with something jamming into my ribs. It would be a book I'd forget to put away before falling asleep. An aftermath of staying up several nights, binging.