Overdue

Frankly, I don't know why this post didn't come a lot sooner.

I was walking around the grocery store today, thinking about my friend Liz. Liz Gilbert. Her and I spend hours every day bonding on the 801 bus to Salt Lake City. Actually, I've given more attention lately to Elizabeth McKenna and Juliet Ashton. Before them, it was Katniss Everdeen, Kendra and Seth Sorenson, and Billy Pilgrim. Also, Jonas from the Giver. Does he even have a last name? I can't remember.

Kathleen Kelley spoke straight to my heart in You've Got Mail. "So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?"

But reading does so much. I feel like it's an escape (Mockingjay got me through some of the longest nights I've had in a long while), a party with old friends or new friends, depending on what book I've picked up. When we watch Harry Potter or (as we did tonight) Eat Pray Love, I find myself whispering things to Ryan like, "He's just like that. You need to know the character, but trust me, it's not surprising that he'd say that." As though we've been friends forever. And it might sound silly, but to me, we have.

Books make me feel like I've been places I've never seen; that I've done things I've never done; that I've met people who have never lived. I'm pretty sure that makes me really, really dorky, but I can't help but want to go to London and visit Kings Cross Station, to see the island of Guernsey, to learn Italian, to see Dresden.

I'll give you three guesses as to what I'll be doing when winter rolls around and our cozy blankets are beckoning. And the first two don't count.