Readin' - Writin' - 'Rithmetic

I love to read. I can't remember a time when I didn't love to read. Words are my friends. My vocabulary is vast because of reading. I learn new words - even though I have heard it said that one does not want to LEARN anything while reading for enjoyment - along with new ideas while I read.

I have four bookcases stuffed with books. But that is because I mostly get books from the library. I love to read, but I also listen to books on CDs or tapes. The library loans these out for free. The CDs are often scratched and the tapes are often wrinkled and don't feed perfectly. However, I not only love to read - I'm cheap - and the library is the right price. So far this year, I've read/listened to 32 books. Last year my total was 170 books. [I have the books all entered into a spreadsheet and can actually list them all.]

Reading is fun-damental. I refused to go back to Kindergarten because I learned to my horror that they had no intention of teaching me to read - my sole purpose for allowing this indignity in the first place. My mother, not yet a teacher, proved herself adequate to her later calling and taught me to read. Admittedly she had a brilliant and eager student and so I learned to read quickly.

Reading is passive. Writing is active. Not that I am that into activity. But writing is actually more fun than reading. Some people do not find this to be true, but I do. I have written for a monthly magazine that was put out by my one-time neighborhood. I now write an article three times a week for an ezine called Really Good Quotes or RGQ. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/reallygoodquotes/messages
Please feel free to look at past issues or even subscribe.

Genetics is a strong force to overcome. My mother loved to read. She could be seen with a book or a crossword puzzle whenever the spare moment popped up. I grew up to read and do puzzles. My elder son, another avid reader, is also a writer. He writes here: http://maxfalco.typepad.com/its_simple_in_that_compli/. I find from reading this that he is a paid writer, something I have never achieved. I'm so proud of him.

So that covers two of the three "Rs" which never made sense since only one is an R-word. Now about that arithmetic. I have stated, much to some people's disenchantment, that I hate math. I really don't so much hate math as hate the higher, stupid, not useful to me math. I have no use for calculus or even finding a point-slope. I am interested in figuring out how much a pair of $45 slacks marked down to $40 and then another 1/3 off is going to cost me. Luckily, I can do that kind of math.

It is rather fun to be living in a time and place where I have been afforded the opportunity to learn to read and cipher. It's even better to live in an era where I can have a forum to print some of the stuff I write. This is a nice place. RGQ is great, too. Even Landon Living had it's good points.

I think that some of the things I say may in some way make a difference. Perhaps to the reader, but mostly to me for having to think it through in order to write in down.

Anyway, that's my reason for writing.