Between the Covers: Stories from My Bookcase

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Reader's Block

I have yet to start/finish another book. The South Beach Diet is still in my bag because I haven't read it in its entirety. There have been opportunities in the past two days when I could have just kicked back and checked in between the covers of any of the gazillion books in my TBR list, but I didn't. 

Is it possible that I could be having a reader's block? Is there even such a syndrome?

Urban Dictionary does have an entry for reader's block, and it is defined as such:
Related to Writer's Block, this is when you cannot, for the life of you, pick up a book and read it. Sure, you may be able to read a paragraph or two, or maybe even a page, but you don't retain anything of what you just read or have the attention span and/or will to go on. This is common for those who have ADD, are in possession of garbage literature, or are just so exhausted from having to read so many books during school/college that reading anything else, even for pleasure, has become impossible. To those who love to read, this is worse than heart disease and cancer combined.
Oh this has definitely happened to me more than once. I think that while attempting to finish Les Miserables, I had reader's block several times. Yep, not just once. Haha!

So I think I'm going through another episode right now, though I hope it won't last for long. In the meantime, I can just blog. 

Or not.  

Apart from reader's block, I'm actually having a bit of a writer's block too. I recently made a list of blogging ideas but when I sat down to start writing, I ended up having two intros to two different topics for my newbie photographer site, and then I just could not get to the point of the post. So I just saved them in draft, to wait another day.

I blog hopped this morning and was on this lady’s blog about her travels around the Philippines. There are times that she travels alone. Now that is something I’ve never done before. Imagine being like Bea Alonzo’s character in And I Love You So, and traveling to Anawangin Cove on your own, with not much else other than your beach cabana tent on your back, along with just a few supplies.  Knowing me like I know me, I probably would pack a LOT of things, but I’d just as soon ditch them because I don’t want to carry a very heavy backpack. I’d also be scared of spending the night out in the wilderness alone.

Then I thought about how we haven’t done any traveling lately; and how we couldn’t even bring to reality our plans to head to Ace Water Spa for an afternoon of swimming and lazing around their massage and dipping pools. We had all summer to go, but we didn’t. L I remember my nephew Esban telling me that the last time he and the boys were there with my parents, they were relaxing on the foam pool floats that took them through the Lazy River without much effort. Though, Ace to me is a water theme park, customers are not allowed to bring in any of their own inflatable water floats. And I get it; they’re selling the hydrotherapy massages and the herbal infused dipping pools more than the concept of a water fun park.

It would be nice to get to travel again, but maybe next time we can try a nice hotel. We’ve always been on a tight budget so we couldn’t afford luxurious accommodations. Maybe when we go to Cebu in February, we’ll book into a nice hotel and for once enjoy all its furnishings and in-room services. Maybe even get a suite with a balcony or a terrace with nice agio outdoor furniture that we can lounge on for some chillax time.

Haha. How did I just get from reader’s block to dreaming about vacations and travels? J

1 comments:

Auntie E said...

I really need to read that South Beach book. I know I have it around here.