This past weekend, for a variety of reasons, I binged a bunch of short fiction.
Even when I'm reading anthologies, I tend to bounce in and out, getting a little long fiction in there too, resetting a bit.
And this weekend, I decided to be indulgent. To just keep glomming the next, pausing only to track the titles as I went leaving my brain a glorious mismash of ghosts, and kisses, and spaceships.
It felt very decadent. And yet why? I mean of course there is privilege involved in being unneeded for two days. But why should just reading feel so decadent? I think there are all these little things set up to make us feel guilty about not doing. One of the things I like about tracking reading is that it makes reading look more productive. Reading doesn't have to be productive and reading fast or slow is not a value judgement. One could certainly argue that metrics encourage people to read more when processing what you have read can also be useful. Certainly the faster I burn through stories the more likely I am to look back and go, I think that one was in space? Or something?
But I find even when the details are fuzzy, I remember the feelings: happy, sad, confused, elated, scared, triumphant, resolved, and much more.
And how fun is that, to go all these places and feel all these things, from my couch.
