Reading and Marking

Since my daughter likes to make funny faces and play ALL THE TIME, I've been on a bit of a vacation from writing lately. My leftover effort and energy has all gone into reading more than anything else. I constantly find myself kicked back on the couch with my nose in a book and a pot of tea on the table next to me. It's an excellent deviation to just drink it without a pen in hand.

I was actually having a conversation with my friend Amy yesterday about books and whether or not one should mark in the books that they read. I told her that I can't bear to mark inside of a book, and she said "remind me to never let you borrow any of my books then" because she marks them up and down. She brought up a few points about taking notes to see how your feelings and opinions have changed whenever you get a chance to re-read them. It's a fantastic point, but I still don't think I'll find myself marking up my books anytime soon. It does give me an interest in revisiting some of my old tasting notes to see if my tastes have changed in the past couple of years.

On a side note: Tonight as I was putting her to bed, Grace's sleep playlist was going and the Christopher O'Riley version of Fake Plastic Trees came on to the player. Grace started listening intently but couldn't hear the words. She finally said "Can't hear that music daddy" with a look of exasperation on her face. I replied with "Well baby, that's because they aren't singing and there aren't words." She stared at me for a moment and said with a firmness only a child could muster up, "Sing it daddy."

At that moment I did the only sensible thing a father is to do when a nearly sleeping child makes a request; I sang every word of the song to her and by the time it was finished she was sawing logs in my arms.

Moments like that make all of this madness well worth it.

I'll get back to blogging about tea again sometime soon; I promise.