I have a reading problem

I feel like I need a version of AA for book lovers.  My name is Kristina and I am a reader.  I love to read.  I will read most anything.  I would say everything, but a few weeks ago, I discovered a book that was so awful that I couldn't convince myself to keep reading it.  It was one of those self-published books, signed by the author himself and given to me free of charge.  Thank goodness I did not pay money for it.  It was so awful - the ego jumped out of the pages and was really quite nauseating.  Despite the fact that I was on the MARTA ride home, I could not compel myself to keep reading.  I normally have the opposite problem.

Ever since I was a kid, I have been unable to put a book down once I start reading.  This is the reason I am blind today.  Seriously.  I used to stay up long after I should have been to bed literally reading from the light from the telephone pole outside my bedroom window.  Thankfully, our house was on the corner, so there was a decent amount of light. (Are those things called telephone poles anymore? I digress.) I would stay up until I was finished reading the book I'd started that day, no matter how long it took me.  Thankfully, I'm a fast reader.

This is actually the reason that I am up late writing. I just finished reading The Handmaid's Tale, which I started reading on my train ride home yesterday.  It is one of those books that makes you really think about things.  It is kind of like 1984 in that it is in the future and shows what will happen if extreme elements take over.  In this particular book, women have been forbidden to learn to read (the horror!) and are basically vessels to deliver babies.  The woman telling the story makes the remark that is all happened so slowly - the changes were so gradual that people just accepted them.  The reasons for the changes made sense at the time.  They were lulled into believing the right decisions were being made for society.  Things would be better, but they were only better for some, not all.

It made me think of gas prices.  The prices rise sharply and we all moan and groan.  Then, they start dropping a few pennies here and there.  We are happy.  What we don't realize, is that they are still way more than they were before, but we've been lulled into being happy about being given back a few pennies.  It kind of creeps me out how easy it is for those with power and control to manipulate the masses.

And now, I have to stop thinking because it is late. In the morning, when my early bird children are awake watching The Voice at 6 a.m., I will greatly wish that I had gone to bed earlier.