Reading Linda's book on an iPad.

So I'm reading Linda's book, Once on a Blue Moon, on an iPad and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

I read Telling Tree   (http://www.amazon.com/Telling-Tree-Linda-McGeary-ebook/dp/B00HCZ66FY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408208013&sr=8-1&keywords=telling+tree)   on my computer, which wasn't ideal, but I don't remember it bothering me that much.  (Hell, I read so much on the computer that my eyes are having adjustment problems.  I literally have to lay down for five or ten minutes with my eyes closed after a session so my eyes revert.)

Anyway, for some reason, Once on a Blue Moon   (http://www.amazon.com/Once-Blue-Moon-Trillium-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00LLVESQO/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1408207891&sr=8-5&keywords=once+on+a+blue+moon)   didn't show up on my computer in a readable from, so I borrowed her iPad.

This morning she asked how I was liking the experience.

Maybe I had preconceptions, but it is pretty much the way I thought it would be.

1.)  I'm conscious of the screen.  Harder to get lost in the story.

2.)  It's awkward to hold, for some reason.  Not soft and fuzzy friendly somehow.

3.)  I like leafing back and forth in a book to check out details and such.  Can't do that as easy.

Problems one and two would probably go away the more I use the pad.


Compare this to audio books.

I'm also kind of opposed to audio books.  I feel like instead of me interpreting the book, the narrator is interpreting the book, and I don't like that.

However, the one book I did listen to on a trip, I thoroughly enjoyed.  I mean, I really liked it.

So why am I denying myself the pleasure?

I'm not totally sure.  But reading has always been a solid part of my life, almost an alternate life (which has been replaced by writing lately).  Somehow, these two ways of reading (or listening) are a separate experience.

I'm a boring person.  I like doing the same things everyday.  I like my habits.  It gives me a sense of security and continuity that I seem to need.  So I don't go out seeking new things all that much.  Instead, I tend to dig deeper into whatever I'm doing.

That and doing nothing.  I like doing nothing at all.  

On the other hand, I've always tried to keep up with the superficial news and culture of by continually browsing information sites, both paper and digital.

I'm ready to give that up.  I just am running into too many situations where I see a Huffington Post article about someone I've never heard of, and I click it, and it turns out to be some woman that was on "Housewives..." of whatever on the "third season" and who the fuck cares?  I'm pissed that they suckered me and made me waste my precious few brain cells on complete pablum.

So I seem to be going to opposite direction as everyone else.  No apps.  No texting.  Just books, and movies and T.V.  Have no friggen clue about music anymore. (Meanwhile, ironically, my two twenty-something employees seem to almost exclusively listen to music from my youth;  Guardians of the Galaxy mixtape kind of music.)

Simplify, simplify. 

I wish I had the courage to throw in the towel completely, but I hate not knowing things.  I hate not being up to date.  It really bothers me.  I have a dozen sites I go to.  I try to weed out the essential from the useless.

So I'm trying to find a middle ground.

So I'll be sticking to paper books for the foreseeable future.  Just because I'm comfortable.  Just because it's comforting. 

The future is barreling in anyway, no matter what I decide.