Reading on A Dark Day

So, yesterday was kind of a bleak day. For no real reason.

The Japanese Garden in Washington Park,

which I explored on the gloriously sunny Sunday.

Sunday was awesome. Portland was warm. It was sunny. It was like spring. I walked around Washington Park and wrote ten pages of a fun, unpublishable project completely unrelated to The Ever Afters. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Then yesterday hit with a case of the Mondays. It was raining, like Portland has been known to do (I've been in denial about the amount of precipitation in the Pacific Northwest, but I think that cured it). I drove around and got lost and tried to visit a cafe I found on yelp, but it was mysteriously closed. I watched my phone for emails and didn't get any.

Like I said, no real reason.

But I was in such a funk. Kind of overwhelmed by life, and wondering if I had made a terrible mistake. Kind of wishing that I hadn't driven across the country for the adventure of it, I wanted to be home. Well, I wanted to be someplace where someone I know could give me a giant hug.

I have a point, I promise. I'm not just complaining.

And then, 9 o'clock rolls around. I shut down all my freelance work for the night, take a shower, and can't decide what to do. I decide to read a chapter of Shannon Hale's Midnight in Austenland, go to bed early, and hope tomorrow would be kinder.

I bet you know where this is going now.

Highly recommended on all fronts. :-)

Yeah, I stayed up reading until the wee hours of the morning. I finished the book. I was giddy with how much I enjoyed it. The pure, unexpected joy of reading something for pleasure, getting caught up in a story totally removed from my own.

Somewhere between Chapter 3 and the last page, my mood had totally reversed. I was no longer worried about finding a place to live, or finding another job, or when I'm going to find the time to get my website up, or what exactly my personal marketing plan for Of Giants and Ice should be. I wasn't even too concerned about what I was doing with my life. The future made me feel hopeful. I was glad to be where I am, life-wise, and locale-wise, and totally excited that my college roommate will fly over to visit me on Thursday.

Now, I'm not totally sure why this happened. Maybe it was just a cause of the Mondays; maybe they eased as soon as I read straight into the wee hours of Tuesday. But I also hadn't finished reading a book for fun for almost two weeks, which usually only happens when I'm under deadline.

Is it possible to be addicted to reading like some people are addicted to exercise? Like, did my body not get its weekly dose of book endorphins???

It's possible. After seeing how many books I read last year, I decided to read FEWER books this year. In 2012, I wanted to do more living than reading (mainly because I feel like the opposite happened in 2011). With my road-trip adventure in place, this turned out to a goal that was easy to achieve.

But I guess last night was a reminder - Don't lock yourself in stupid policies. Read if you freaking want to read. It's one of your favorite things.

In other news, it looks like this today:

Gorgeous, right?