I have a bad habit. My self-control in some areas of my life is so extreme that it comes closer to repression, but not in this one. There is a particular activity in which my will is weak. Very, very weak.
I read over people's shoulders on the subway.
You probably hate people like me, right? I don't blame you. But I can barely help myself. It's a disastrous condition noticed when I first became literate as a child: the drive to read every word within eye-shot. The backs of cereal boxes. Billboards. The stories Mom would read to me and my brother (I couldn't let her turn the page till my eyes had finished reading what she'd just spoken aloud). And other people's Metro papers.
I once had a guy move a seat away from me because I found his book riveting. But not before I learned some interesting tidbits from the Steve Martin biography he was reading.
You can seethe with anger at me if you like. I probably have it coming.
But I'm more likely to get the message if you write it down and sit beside me.
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1 comment:
Holly, you should expand this post a bit and make it into a podcast. I can just hear your voice reading about your silent over-the-shoulder reading.
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