I’ve been continuing to chew through books at a steady clip, though my pace has slowed down a bit since I finished moving. I can do other things easily now, so I am spreading my reading time out more and not going through a book every day or two. Now I’m down to a book or two every week. It’s about the same number of pages every week, seven or eight hundred, but sometimes that’s one book, sometimes that’s two books, and I’m sure I’ll find a monstrous book where that will only be a part of a single book. Most of that time is when I finish a game before I’m ready to go to bed, when I’ve got a meal that only takes one hand, when I’m killing time between things, and evenings when I want to avoid screen time. It’s nice, even if I’m mostly rereading books these days rather than digging through anything new, but I’ve been so stressed and tired over the past month that I wanted something familiar and simple rather than anything particularly trying. I did not want to find myself stressed out by not knowing what happens next. Which has definitely made for some mental rest, but it also means I haven’t had anything new to mentally chew on from my reading time. It also means most of my thoughts about my reading experience are a reflection on where I was and how I was sitting rather than the novels I was reading.

I mean, sure, the Dresden Files is a fun series to be reading through again, but I don’t really have a lot to say critically about it other than discussing the series’ place in Urban Fantasy as a whole, the general sexism of the protagonist that shifts over the years (the novel being a reflection of noir detective stories is no excuse, even if it is a reason) from blatant and awful to more subtle and perhaps a reflection of the author’s subconscious biases than the state of the character (but then we’re getting into a conversation about authorial intent and that’s a different blog post I haven’t got the mental energy or research time to write), and the somewhat emotionally difficult rise and fall of the protagonist since it’s difficult for me to read this much about a character who always seems to just cross the finish line. It feels too realistic. What I’ve really been thinking about is the fact that I’ve pretty much failed my initial apartment planning goal of having space to sit comfortably and read in every room of my apartment.

Sure, my living room is super comfortable. I’ve got some work to do if I want to get the cushions on the two sections of my couch that live up there to stay in place rather than slowly spread out until I’m always sitting on a gap between cushions, but I’m pretty sure I know how to fix that and just need the time and energy to do the work. I also don’t really sit on the couch to read since my armchair is right there and now it’s backed up against a wall so I can actually lean back comfortably. That’s where I do most of my reading, even if there isn’t a great light source near it [a problem I have since fixed]. I’ve got a pair of lamps up there, but neither is in the right spot to illuminate the chair. The couch is well-lit, though, so I can probably move one around to get the chair better. That will take some work since all of the spacing is pretty tight up there.

In my dining/game room, I’ve got the other section of the couch in a position where it is a pretty comfy and convenient place to collapse when I’m on that floor. It’s under the stairs, though, so I’m always nervous that I’m going to bang my head any time I sit down or stand up too quickly. Plus, it shares space with my bird’s cage, which means that there isn’t really space for a lamp and, even if there was, I couldn’t put anything too bright next to it since I want to be able to sit there without disrupting my bird when she’s calm and settled down. I could get a small lamp that I could clip to the underside of the stairs, but that’s just one more thing for me to worry about smacking my head into. No matter what, though, I’ll have to buy a lamp for that couch since I’ve got nothing that could work for it even a little bit. Not far away from there is my futon, sandwiched between three of my tallest bookshelves. There’s no light next to it, but there is an overhead fan with lights attached to it that I could probably use if I wanted to. Currently, though, the futon holds all of my junk as I’m figuring out where it goes. Things like a package I’ve gotta send, cardboard boxes from curtain rods that need to go into the dumpster, my every-day-carry bag when I’m in the apartment, and the mail I need to open eventually but have not had the spoons to deal with yet. There isn’t space for me on the couch right now and having an overhead light will work for some styles of reading but they’re usually too bright for my preferences since they’re geared toward lighting an open area rather than providing local illumination.

My bedroom is mostly fine, since I’ve got a decent bedside lamp and can just lounge on my bed to read, but I’ve had some trouble with that lately, since sitting in bed and struggling to stay awake so I can continue reading when I’m exhausted and it isn’t my bedtime can put me on bad footing for actually going to sleep when it is my bedtime. It is bad to build an association between trying to stay awake and laying around on my bed. I have enough sleep issues as it is. I don’t need to add a new one to my list and getting back into workouts means any time I sit somewhere for more than five minutes, I will start to fall asleep, so it’s not like I can just avoid reading on my bed when it’s close to bedtime.

All of these problems are fixable. They will take time, money, or effort to fix (or some combination of the three), but they’re all relatively easy to fix. Much easier to fix than the frustrating level of noise my upstairs neighbor used to make. I’ve even got plans on how to go about fixing these problems, as you can see from this post. I just need the time and energy components, which are both in short supply these days. Maybe once I’ve adjusted to the workouts and fixed my sleep schedule I’ll be able to get back to doing things at a better pace than one or two minor tasks every few days. Until then, I’m making do and mostly just reading upstairs in my armchair with an awkward number of lamps turned on. Don’t want to strain my eyes, you know?