Writing Wrongs

May 03, 2007

Booking Through Thursday
No, not THAT kind of R.I.P.
Reading. In. Public.
Do you do it? Why or why not?

Shh. Here I go, book secreted beneath my jacket. I duck into an alley and pull out the tome, speed-reading a few pages. I keep a book stashed behind the toilet tank so no one finds out about my reading addiction.

Of course I read in public. Although I do know of voracious readers who don’t, or rather, believe only some places are acceptable for reading in public. For instance, if one were to dine alone in a restaurant, one should not pull out a novel to read while waiting for one’s order. This makes one a … loser. One should head for the tattoo parlor next door and get the big L inked on one’s forehead.

My own tattoo has been a longtime coming, I’m sure. Sometimes I’ll people watch or write, but I have no qualms about dining alone or reading in restaurants. But that’s me.

Speaking of reading, Andrew is quite caught up in a book full of creepy tales. Something to do with lawn weenies. Like the haunted pants, that’s really all the information I have. Anyway, it prompted a discussion on evil yesterday:

Andrew said, “I know people can do evil, but what does it look like?”

“Do you mean the face of evil?”

“Yeah. That.” He fell silent. After a moment, he said, in a stage whisper. “I know what evil looks like. It looks like … Care Bears.”

There. You have it. Care Bears. The face of evil. It’s either that or people who read when dining alone in restaurants.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 9:47 a.m.

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