I like reading and men.  The two don’t necessarily go together, I just thought I would throw the liking men in there because, well, I like reading and I like men.  Two likes instead of one.  One like is just too lonely.  I have other likes as well, but I only want to cover these two today.

I may have just confused myself.  Something I do frequently.

My mother tells me I started reading around the age of three.  I say tells me because I don’t believe her.  I have no proof or memory of reading at this age so it is rather difficult to dispute.  Regardless of what age I started, I do know I have a love for reading that has never left me.  This love is constant and never ending, at least for as long as I live.  It is a bit one sided.  I do all the loving and the book just sits there.  Wait a minute, maybe reading and men do go together.

I was one of those kids that would stay up all night reading, crawl out of bed in the morning an exhausted zombie, make the motions of learning in school, all the while daydreaming about my story, rush home as quickly as I could, finally wake up so I could get back to my book and start the entire cycle all over again.  As an adult, pretty much the same, substitute work instead of school and there you have it.

I read for the pure pleasure of reading.  I do not read for any other reason.  I would like to say it is because I want to be more intellectual, informed, wise or whatever the smart people blather on about.  You know, the people who critique a writer and spend their entire life teaching and writing their thesis on another’s work, but have never created a single word or thought of their own that isn’t based on someone else’s imagination.

I admit, sometimes after reading a book I do feel a little smarter or wiser.  I can assure you, this is an entirely unintended consequence.

I discovered science fiction somewhere around the age of ten.  This genre blew my poor little underdeveloped mind away.  I devoured everything I could get my hands on in the library.  It was not an overly large selection, which was very disappointing.  While other girls were reading about getting their periods or babysitting, I was reading about dystopian societies, space exploration, robots and any myriad of subjects that fall into this genre.  Needles to say, but I’m going to say it anyway, I was ill prepared for my period and I was a horrible babysitter.

Now, about liking men, I’ve liked men for as long as I can remember also.  They would have been boys back in the day and I liked them mainly because I wanted to be one.  I have scars all over my body as proof of my Tomboy days.  Boys had more fun.  Building bike ramps and then jumping the chasm felt like taking off in a rocket ship.  I became well acquainted with gravity in those days.  I am well acquainted with it today for entirely different reasons, but I refuse to mention boobies in anyway whatsoever.

Sometime after the period thingy, my insides went woaaaaa, those boys are good for more than climbing trees and jumping ramps with.  Suddenly, I didn’t want to be a boy anymore.  I never quite learned how to get along with girls; they speak a different language and still confuse the hell out of me.  That is just a side note to let you know I get along better with men.

Imagine my surprise, when later in life, I find with great delight it is possible to mix my two great likes together.  Just by chance, a would be lover started wooing me by reading me stories.  Nobody had ever read to me before, man or woman.  I was immediately smitten. 

It fascinates me to listen to his voice as the story transports me away as stories always do.  Now, you might be thinking, for crying out loud, go buy a book on tape.  Sorry, not the same thing as laying your head on a lover’s lap or sitting very close while being read to.  I not only hear the words, I feel the vibration of the words, giving a new depth to whatever he is reading.

Reading and men may not go together, but reading and this man does.