Brain Candy

The green glowing numbers on the clock are glaring accusingly at me. The time has just pushed its way to 11:30 at night. I crawled into the bed just before 10:00, a yawn lazily rolling from my lips. I had intended to go to sleep early and try and be rested for work for once.

Only I am still very much wide awake, all my yawns still not reminding me I am tired and have responsibilities waiting for me on the other side of the night. I am awake and I know if I do not force myself to try and sleep I will be awake all night. I will be awake right until the clock does not just glare at me accusingly, but will shriek its disapproval at me in the form of the morning alarm.

Insomnia. At least that is what one would think of a lifetime insomniac like me. They would be wrong, oh so very wrong. For once it isn't my inherent inability to sleep keeping me awake. This time it is all my own doing. This time it is a book.

If you had told me when I was young that I would have to force myself to stop reading for my own good I would have laughed at you. I think most kids, other than kids like my husbeast was or the kid is, would scoff at the idea of being told to stop reading. Alright so most of my friends were probably the kids reading by a flashlight under their sheets. I am sure though there are plenty of kids that would still be scoffing.

I do not often get to read. I let the world sort of take me over and do not seem to find the time to read. For me reading is an all consuming thing. I can't really stand to not know how something will end. This will lead me to power through books as quickly as I can so I can know the end.

I admit that I would be just as happy with a book knowing how it will end before I finish the book. I mean I can watch movies where I know the final outcome beforehand and still enjoy the film thoroughly. I can do the same with a book, and at least then I don't feel the need to sacrifice sleep and food in order to know.

For me there are two types of books I read. There are heavy books that are engaging and I have to think about hard while I read them. These tend to be books with weighty material, or complex world systems and views. They are books that make me think and learn while I am reading which slows down the reading process. When you have to absorb and sort through vast amounts of new information with your story it tends to make things go a little slower.

The second type of book are the type of books that the kid calls candy. They are books that are just fun and easy to read and you sort of consume all too fast like some greedy pudgy faced kid the day after Halloween with a pillowcase full of chocolate. They are books that you open and seem to be closing finished in no time at all.

These candy books can still be engaging or even have stories with weight like the first type of books, but they are not as difficult to wade through. They are not books that feel like you are working to read them. They are completely absorbing and you just flow through them with ease.

I tend to like to read my candy books more than my weighty books. I enjoy both equally, but it is so much harder for me to plod through a weighty book quickly that we go back to that thing where I am frustrated wanting to know the end but not having nearly the time I need in order to finish the book. Candy books I can work through easily in a few days which is so much more satisfying, not to mention better for my sleep cycles.

I am halfway through my second piece of candy fiction in a week. I almost feel bad about the fact that I have a half read weighty book in my purse that I have been slowly chipping away at for almost two months now. I think when I finish off the candy tonight I will go back to devoting some time to my weighty book.

For now though I am going to be the pudgy kid in the corner indulging my sweet tooth.