It’s late July and that dastardly summer heat wave is finally over, which means I can get back to being a human and acting like one, rather than hiding in the shade all day reading books. Enemy of the sun, pavement and all other things that give off heat (including the very air itself some days) my apartment became a four room cave of hell, with my only recluse fleeing to Second Cup, the mall or the movies. With my wallet groaning at all the added strain that iced coffee has caused it, I’ve been reduced to counting pennies and paying for film passes with exact change.
Yet, despite the reality that my body was never made to endure this sort of tropical weather we’ve been “enjoying” ( hey, we live in Canada, I only bought tickets for terrible winters, not summers too) it hasn’t been as soul destroying as I may have been making it out to be. I have, after all, managed to plow my way through over 22 books so far this years (more than my previous last year total) and show little sign of giving up. Calming down, sure, but there’s still five months of days left in this year and if I can even remotely keep up my pace I should be hitting some sort of personal milestones along the way.
Though, realistically, the summer always contributes more to my book knock-out tally than the rest of the year combined, largely due to the absence of evening classes and all the reading time they generally require. As exciting ancient texts, commentaries and ethnographic studies are, they aren’t as easy to burn through as all the trashy fiction, Stephen King and other nonsense that make up my usual fare, or entirely eligible for reading list tallies, since they, in effect, are part of other tallies issued by my classes. Competing tallies? Perhaps.
Regardless, it looks like it should be a good year, at least when it comes to reading. The weather, well that’s another beast altogether.