Quote of the Day: H.L. Mencken

"There are people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing."


If you're a regular reader, you know all about the daydreaming problem that makes driving such a challenge for me. Now it appears that I can't even ride the bus correctly.

For the past six months, I have been reading books while I walk to and from the bus. This has greatly increased my quality of life by increasing the number of pages (or Kindle positions) read each day. However, lately an embarrassing problem has been developing. In the past three weeks, I have gotten on the wrong bus 2.5 times. Luckily, my wife doesn't laugh too much (out loud anyway) when she has to pick me up in a strange part of town. The problem is my book is so engrossing that I forget to look up. One time I even thought about looking up but didn't.

The good news is I will probably never do something desperate to escape the mundane pressures of being a grown-up because I do it in the pages of a book every day. Right now, I am escaping the craziness of my job by following Gustave Flaubert into 19th-Century Paris so no midlife crisis for me.