For the Mr. Kites

It is currently 6:25 AM, and the only ones awake are a few wide-eyed warriors and maybe a couple of friends on the East coast waking up for work and internships. I myself am not quite sure why I am conscious...I left my two favorite As at around 1 AM, assuming that I would play a few rounds of omgpop and then head to bed. But alas, I picked up a book, marked by a dog-eared page about halfway through its creamy pages and I was hooked, again, so strangely, as I always have been.

It is hard to describe the type of effect that an engaging book has over me and my mood, and even harder to not make it sound obsessive, or even unhealthy almost. The moment I start in on a book that manages to capture my interest, and this is not a terribly difficult thing to accomplish, I can barely stand to put it down. I do not know how else to say it besides that it feels like a mood settles over me, like storm clouds separating me from the outside world. I become quiet, sometimes sullen, and anything that makes me have to set aside my fictional world is generally not too kindly received. Friends around me notice, and I have no explanation to give them other than that "I feel weird today". But I know what causes these moods, and what can get rid of them. It is only when I have bulldozed through the hundreds of pages that had lain innocently before me do I arise from this almost catatonic state, shaking it off as I stand up as if coming out of a daze.

This might sound strange, in a generation that much prefers video games and the Internet to print, but this happened to me even when I was small. Gleefully coming back from the library with a bag full of books, I would retreat to the nearest comfortable spot as my family would warn me to finish my homework before I started reading. My sister and I were scolded for reading in the car, at the dinner table, while company was over, any time that we could sneak in a couple more words. At night I hid under my covers, overheating and suffocating under my blankets as my slightly sweaty fingertips awkwardly manned a flashlight and attempted to turn page after creamy page. I devoured characters, stories, and entire worlds, never being able to get enough, even if I had run out of pages to turn. Truly, can I really call it a love of reading? While certainly I have come across such well-written passages and plotlines that I had to stop and reread them, in awe of the author's abilities to wind together letters and words, in truth it all comes down to my overwhelming desire to find out what happens next.

Being a hermit, detached from the real world in all senses does not seem particularly healthy to me, and yet I am unable to stop. This summer, the abundance of time on my hands has led me to the library, and once again I find myself more often than not curled up with a book, reading at ungodly hours that are meant for other things; sleep, dinner, spending time with friends. Such a curious thing to ponder after reading for 4 hours, and I guess it is interesting enough for me to forsake whatever other 5 or 6 hours of sleep that I could have snatched before it would actually be ridiculously lazy for me not to wake up. My head is pounding and I am quite aware that I should be in bed, but with the strange California sun tempting me through the untimely June clouds, attempting to sleep seems out of the question for now. At least I am satisfied, finally knowing the fate of that other Boleyn girl....at least until I begin the process again diving into pages bound between the most inviting blue covers.