These are some of the topics on which I write every day, and yet I still end up in the non-fiction section of the thrift store book area or at the library (although I never check out library books because I owe such a hefty fine I would have to take out a bank loan to pay it off. I figure it's cheaper to buy the book for a couple dollars secondhand and never have to forget a due date (or order it cheap online), and I just read books at the library while Little Gary plays with the puppets and plastic dinosaurs in the kids' section.).
My theory is that I'm so addicted to learning new things now that I can't stop. Even if the information I write about is for stuff I won't likely ever use (I'm looking at you, inscrutable IT websites, with your nerdy computer speak and your love of shoving my insufficient education base in computer tech in my face), I must have more, more, MORE! But I pick stuff I'm more interested in. Instead of sump pumps, I choose cookbooks, for instance. Or sewing. Or interesting things about the brain. Or quantum physics written for people who never did well in math.
But I do read fiction, too. When I do, and if the book is good, it's catastrophic. No work gets done. I easily justify just one more chapter while the articles remain unwritten, the laundry piles up, the kids starve to death, and every surface in the house gets more dirty and cluttered. I have to dole out fiction to myself like I'm an addict.
Recently, on a quick trip to the thrift store, I spotted a book in the children's section that immediately took me back to my childhood. This one, in fact:
I loved Danny Dunn books when I was in elementary school. I read them all multiple times, and I used to dream about the fun Danny, Irene, and Joe had on their crazy scientific adventures with Professor Euclid Bullfinch. Of course I bought the book, and of course I re-read it. It's not quite the same as when I was seven, but it was still fun. I'll read it to my boys, who will be amazed that such entertainment does not come from an electronic source.
But for now, I have to finish 510 words about water damage restoration, and I want to finish so I can fold the laundry and get the kids to do their chores. My parents and brothers are coming over for dinner so they can meet my Welsh nephew and the in-laws' new dog and cat. It's just as well I finished the Danny Dunn book (which took about an hour) and that I don't have any other good fiction lurking on my nightstand, beckoning me to shirk all responsibility.
I think I'll find my own copy of Allen Bradley's The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. If you're looking for a good series, Bradley's Flavia de Luce series is it, with four published and one coming out in 2014. I just looked it up and realized I haven't read all of them. I fear the laundry is going to pile up again in the near future.
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