Relief

What a relief to be home after spending the morning at the hospital waiting. My Bookman is experiencing double vision and no one can figure out why. So we were at the hospital at 7 am for more tests. I didn't know how long we'd be there so I went prepared. I took paper to work on my essay, I took essays from my classmates to read, and I took a book. A very big book. My occasional book group is reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. The mass market paperback clocks in at 1,168 pages. So even if I found myself waiting all day I'd be fine. Hospitals are not comfortable or easy places in which to read. Too much noise and distraction. Plus, just when I'd get settled in, I'd have to go wait somewhere else. I went from MRI to outpatient to radiology and back to outpatient. Then Lance the therapy dog came through and I had to say hi to the friendly yellow lab. It's amazing how his just walking into the room turned all of the worried, glowering faces bright with smiles. There were quite a few people reading books and I tried to see what they were but people were not holding them up in an obliging manner. The woman at the check in desk though was reading A Million Little Pieces and raving about it to a nurse who had stopped to chat. I know quite a few people who have read this book but have thus far managed to resist it myself. I am mostly resisting reading it because everyone else is and then telling me I should read it too. I see the lemmings running towards the precipice and childhood memories of my mother telling me over and over like a mantra or something, "if everyone jumped off a cliff would you do it too?"