"But Don't Take My Word For It!"

I kind of retired from reading for a while. 

I'd been reading, some book or another, since I could read books. 

Ah, see me now, in the sycamore grove, aged twelve. 

Reading Stephen King. 

No girls are talking to me. 

But they did eventually. 

And my syntax probably had a lot to do with it. 

I don't know what it was. 

It was a combination of Banff's pace, which moved in weeks rather than days. 

And the amount of weed I smoked there. 

Reading time saw a decline. 

While the number of individually-wrapped brownies I ate was on the rise. 

I didn't halt entirely up there, mind you. 

I had to pass the time during the morning shift, you see. 

And I still read signs and menus and the like. 

It's not like I happened upon stuff like: 

NO ENTRY WITHOUT HARD HAT

And I'd just pass it and say, 'Fuck whatever that says.'

I got through goddamned Life of Pi, like everyone else. 

I bought The Odyssey. 

But it was really a retirement. 

And I'm only starting to get back to where I was...now. 

I'm reading Watchmen

("That don't count; it got pictures in it!").

Yesterday I bought some Salinger. 

Salinger seems like a good choice. 

He deserves more credit. While Steinbeck deserves less. 

This man (the Hitler joke is the best) got me reading 

Wiesel. No one told me that it's curriculum these days. 

Which is just as well; no one reads Anne Frank. 

Maybe I'll read Anne Frank now. 

I won't really, though. 

I think I just made this post because I wanted to tell you I'm reading Salinger.