Maybe you’ve noticed that I have a slightly addictive personality. My compulsive tendencies overlap into many areas of my life, but I never thought they would infiltrate my ride to work. Each day I commute 38 minutes to school by car, which is a pretty easy ride by Jersey standards. (Here’s a gratuitous pic of my commuter toy car–$23 bucks to fill up and I buy gas about once every 3 months.) Snappy, isn’t it? (My hair looks a bit rastafarian, but in real life it’s not–nor in real life am I green.)
To help pass the time, I started borrowing books on CD from my library. And that is where I fell into some trouble. The audio books were so addictive that I started driving home the ‘long way’, meandering along the ocean on local roads instead of hopping onto highways for a more direct route.
If I was reallllly into a book, I would sit in my driveway long after my engine had cooled listening to the end of the chapter. Husbandito would call my cell phone to ask why I was sitting in the driveway for 25 minutes. Once I actually brought the CDs inside and listened to them while in bed before going to sleep. I have issues, I know.
As a child, I loved being read to and maybe that is why I am so lulled by the cadence by the voices of the audio books’ readers. I finished listening to The Road by Cormac McCarthy on Tuesday and yesterday I started A Thousand Splendid Suns. I am actually leaving the house early today so I can have more time to ‘listen’ to my book.
For all you purists out there–don’t worry–at night I’m reading books all by myself. Last night I finished up Mr. Darcy Has Lots of Sex Takes A Wife and then started a new Meg Cabot (to see if it would be appropriate for my students) called Jinx.
The moral of my story: I love books. I love reading books. I love listening to books. I love teaching literature. I love (trying) to instill a love of reading in my students.
The End
Audio books are great. They have saved my sanity on many a long car trip. And since I can’t fly b/c of my freaky ear disease, that is saying a lot.
PS: How is your hair?
CWG says: thankfully, the hair has been repaired (see “Fun With Sangria” for the full story) and restored to near-normalcy. i’ll post a pic over the weekend.
You could have brushed your hair before you got in the car!
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) (Are you still with me?) the audio books would be a solution to extra travelling time incurred. Perhaps with that I wouldn’t be so reluctant to consider the longer journey.
)
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This is the perfect solution for something I was thinking about the other day. You have no idea how many minutes I use on random thoughts. Anyway, I am considering changing my current employment. I like what I do, I am good at what I do but I need somthing a little more challenging. (I have a habit of making a short story very long…. sorry) so, a couple of opportunities I was looking at are a little farther to travel than I am used to. My quandry was that as I drive I would begrudge giving up what I call ‘dead time’. If you travelled by train or coach then you can spend the travelling time reading, writing etc… but driving is something you can’t really multi task with. I wouldn’t even attempt to apply lipstick whilst driving. So!
CWG says: i started listening to audio books because i can’t be alone with my thoughts for too long…lol. and my hair today actually looks like it does in my artistic rendition, so stop mocking me. :b
You’re a teacher?? Of literature?? Oh, I love you even more than I did when I won the Coach purse! What grade do you teach?
CWG says: i teach high school students! these days i’m teaching less than i used to because i’m the ‘dean of mean’ (students’ moniker for me) and do all the discipline…such fun! essentially i’m the equivalent of a ‘mob enforcer’.
“Husbandito would call my cell phone to ask why I was sitting in the driveway for 25 minutes.”
Stop making me laugh at work!
Nice post, and it kinda ties in with why I’m here.
I wandered over from “That’s What She Blogged” after reading your comment which included one of my favorite books “The Girl With The Silver Eyes”. I likes it so much way back in the day that I read it aloud to my wife a few years ago. She liked it too.
Anyway, I was just wondering if you know of any sequels or prequels to this book?
That’s all for now. Catch ya later.
CWG says: no prequels/sequels that i know of…sorry! you have an interesting blog, by the way…