No reading week?

How will I survive? I haven't read the chapter yet, but I accidentally opened to it when looking for the week 3 exercises (which I still haven't done, either), and I've been dreading the idea ever since. Now that everyone else is mentioning that it includes reading LJ and email and and and...oh my. Reading's not a chore for me, it's a relaxation and a pleasure and a joy, and the computer is a major part of my social life. But then, the computer, and reading as well, are also probably minor obsessions. Does this also mean I can't game, since my gaming is online in chat rooms? And that I have to go a whole week not IMing anybody? I'd actually have to telephone Jen to talk to her? Or write letters to people?

The very thought has me stunned into disbelief and fear, but at the same time I can also see why I might need it. There are so very very many things I don't do because I'm addicted to reading and the online world.

This is going to be very very hard. I can see myself fighting it already. Wish me luck.

Reading dep

Upon consideration, I am going to try to do this reading dep thing. I'm giving myself permission to read email twice a day, and that's it. No IM, no LJ reading (writing's ok). I'll see comments, because they come in my email, but I won't reply to them until next week, and I won't read my friends page until then either. I love you all.

I'm not even going to game on Monday and Thursday. I'm writing an email to the GM to say so, soon's I'm done here.

I already started. I took my book-on-CD out of the player in my car (The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett, and I'm on Track 16 of CD 4 of 6, for anyone who's curious), and put in a music CD instead: the Indigo Girls, which I had never listened to before.

A misheard phrase from the first song gave me another scene of my Llorona story, and a possible title, though it probably gives too much away: "The Drowning Moon". First thing I did when I got here was to write down that scene. The last one of the story, as it happens. I have the very first scene, one in the middle, and now the end. Progress, though slow.

Some things I might do with my reading-free week: Call Kirk. Call some other people. Write a few letters. Clean the house. Play with Rosa. Work on my story.

My first reading-free (or reading-limited) evening

What have I done with my reading-free--and Rosa-free--evening?

I went to a decorating store and looked vaguely for wallpaper and decorating fabric that I might want to use in my house. I started thinking about making a canopy for my bed, with fabric hung from the ceiling and wall on curtain rods. The most interesting wallpaper I found was the one my coworker had told me about which was why I went there in the first place: a view out a castle window, with a flying unicorn in the distance.

I bought myself another notebook, this one for non-morning pages scribbling: to take to a coffee house, or just the other side of the apartment where the computer isn't, and write.

I went to House of India and had vegetable korma. It may be my stuffy head, but I think their food's not quite as good as it used to be. On the other hand, the cute waiter is still there, and he still flirts with every woman who comes in the door.

Then I went to see about getting a haircut, but there were no stylists available, so I made an appointment for Wednesday.

I came home and played the piano for about half an hour. I called Christine hoping to go out somewhere, but she wasn't home. Then I tried out my fingerpaints, and finally sat down here and wrote another six or eight paragraphs of La Llorona. I am kind of annoyed with myself because I did some writing on it at work today, but forgot to send the file home, so I now have two files with different pieces of the story, and I'll have to merge them.

This is hard! I keep wandering around the apartment feeling lost because I can't just pick up a book and plop on the couch, I have to think of things to do. Yet I'm still a procrastinator, so the idea of cleaning the apt just doesn't want to happen. I do allow myself to write (and to read my own words, in the process, of course) because I think that is entirely different from getting distracted by other people's words.

Maybe by the end of the week I'll have an easier time of this. I'm hoping so; it's one reason I'm really going to try to stick it out that long. I even sent Paul an email telling him I couldn't game this week!

Tomorrow should hopefully be better: I've got a bunch of errands to run, then Jen and I are going to see Lord of the Rings again (this will be a record. I have never seen any movie more than twice in the theater). After that, I'm tentatively planning to go to the Way Out club with Pam again. This time she is going to drive. I don't want to take my shiny new car to the place where my old one was killed!