Where art thou, Reading bone?

"It is the act of reading itself that I miss, the opportunity to retreat further and further from the world until I have found some space, some air that isn't stale, that hasn't been breathed by my family a thousand times already." 

- Nick Hornby, How to Be Good

Books are meant for reading – or so I remind myself.

I had dinner with a friend a few weeks ago, and part of our conversation led to sharing our current reads. Knowing that this friend of mine is a voracious reader, I expected to hear a mouthful from her. But when it was her turn to ask me, I found myself blinking...hard.

Usually, when someone asks me what I'm currently reading, I always give the most exciting and graphic explanation I can. But at that moment, I couldn't utter a word. I found myself responding only with an apologetic nod and trying my best to explain myself. I was mortified (to my friend's amusement) and my head was screaming inside,

"Holy horses girl, what's up with that?"

I have to be honest, I haven't had time to do some leisure reading in the past months. The majority of the reading materials I've been reading are either newspapers or the books that I use as resource materials for my classes. And okay, to make things worse... I've actually managed to watch more movies this year rather than to read books.

So yeah, KILL-ME-NOW.

As of writing this, I've only managed (operative word!) to finish reading Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, (out of the four books, I've only finished reading Book 1) Neil Gaiman's Ocean At The End of the Lane, Cosmopolitan Philippines October issue, Esquire Philippines November issue, Swimming With Dolphins by Deborah Wright, and I've started reading Nick Hornby's How to Be Good.

Finished reading this in one sitting. I surprise myself sometimes.

I always tell people that I LOVE TO READ. And that's really true. My brother and I were raised surrounded by books. I grew up carrying around my Childcraft encyclopedias outside the house and reading them on the sidewalk (to our neighbor's horror, and to my Mother's amusement).

I also learned how to read the newspaper, although backward, when I started elementary. And I even learned and managed to memorize the good, old card catalog by heart at the same time. And I have to say that if not for reading, I wouldn't be able to survive and get through my high school and college years as well.

So being a lazy reader has never really been part of my reading vocabulary – except for now.

So forgive me dear reading gods, for my reading bone went missing for a while. I'll try to make it up to you soon, okay?