My Name is Christine...and I'm Addicted to Books

My husband knew when we met that I liked to read, he just didn't realise how much I liked to read. He thought I was a book a week girl, and really how bad could that be?

When we moved in together, the problem was hidden by my illness. For two months I didn't read a single book, and in hindsight that should have been my first hint that I needed to go to the doctor. When you've constantly add a book on the go since you were a toddler (holding a book upside down still counts, you know) then suddenly not caring about reading should have set off the panic alarms. But I had just finished my final college exams in history, a subject well known for its heavy reading list, and we presumed that I was just burnt out. Anyway, even if I had suspected that something was seriously awry, I was feeling way to lethargic to actually do anything about it.

I was married and on honeymoon before I read another book. I was on medication for inflammatory arthritis by then, and felt clear enough to read Breakfast at Tiffany's (I was honeymooning in New York, it was the obvious choice). I only bought one book there, and a magazine of short stories. Again, very strange for me, but I didn't realise it at the time.

Back home, with a fibromyalgia diagnosis finally under my belt and some effective medication, I began reading again in earnest. I discovered young adult urban fantasy, and started writing my first novel. Slowly, my reading climbed up to its pre-illness level, and our Ikea bookshelf began to fill up. So much that we had to buy a new one. Books were stacked on window sills, on my bedside table, and on my office desk. So much so that I started to do that tell-tale addict activity: hide the signs of my purchases.

I was reading a book a day, or at least every two, so I stuffed all the paper bags from bookshops into the green bin when my husband wasn't looking. It's not that he would mind, he's very easy going, but because I was embarrassed.

He recently asked me to consider throwing out my books. I gave around a dozen to a charity shop, and called a halt to it there. He brought up the subject again the other day, talking about how much space my books take up. I now have a couple of cardboard cartons full of books in the cupboard under the stairs. However I pointed out, reasonably enough, that I let him have his Warhammer models on full display, so he needed to be respectful of my collection. He left it at that, though he does seem overly keen for me to get a Kindle. To help my hands, apparently. Hmmm.

I Couldn't Help But Wonder...

I loved Sex and the City. The television series that is, the less said about the movies the better. Apart from the fantastic clothes, the handbags and the glimpses of New York life, we also got to see the inside track on the life of a journalist.

I, like the fabulous Carrie Bradshaw, am a journalist.Unfortunately, that's where the comparisons begin and end. I don't write about sex, I write about the lifting of the European Union milk quota. The only relationship issues I attempt to hammer out are the link between the Greek riots and the price of Irish bonds.Carrie Bradshaw said in one episode that when money was tight she bought a copy of Vogue instead of dinner. If I even attempted such a thing, I'd end up eating the pages, glossy sheen or no. Which is probably how she manages to fit into all the designer clothes that she somehow manages to afford on a freelance salary. A column a week does not a Burberry trench-coat buy, my friends.

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest myth that show spawned was not the fact that one 'average' woman could use four different Dior bags in a single episode, or that friends will forgive you if you repeatedly slam their other half. It wasn't even the unrealistic dynamic of female friendship that Holli Moncrieff wrote about. It was the 'one take' idea of writing. I never saw her do rewrites, for example. She just sat down, made a scrunched up face, smoked a Marlboro Light and 'wondered'.She never once wrote an article on, say, sheep-farming in Bavaria, to make ends meet. She never made writing look like the hard work that it actually is.

She did wear some cool clothes though...

J is for... (The New York) Jets

Ok, I'm a little ahead of myself here, but I discovered if I blog the A-Z challenge straight then it will take me up to April 26 when the next round of ABNA come out and we find out who has made it to the semi-finals.

So, today I'm going to talk about my one sporting love, American football. Thankfully it's starting to become a bit more mainstream in Europe, so we can watch it on TV rather than on a series of dodgy streams that seem to get taken down every time something really exciting is going to happen.

I'm not a sport person. I don't watch soccer, Gaelic football, hurling, rugby or any of that. But my husband's family holidayed in Florida regularly, and they had once gone to a Miami Dolphins game while Dan Marino was still playing. They lost. But that didn't matter to my then-teenage husband. He was hooked, and a Dolphins fan forever more.

Fast forward to our honeymoon in New York ( '...concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't doooo...' you get the idea). It had been over a decade since my husband had last seen a live game. With great generosity of spirit, I agreed to go out to Meadowlands and watch the Giants take on the Jets. My only stipulation was that I could have a hotdog and a plastic glass of beer while watching the game, like I had seen people do in the movies. (Yes, this is an American stereotype and I know not everyone in the US does this, but in my defence when people come to Ireland they want to go to a thatched-roof pub, listen to Irish rebel songs while drinking a pint of Guinness. I have never done this. I also have never sung rebel songs about eight hundred years of British occupation. Except when the United Kingdom score us low in The Eurovision Song Contest.)  Obviously, the Jets and the Dolphins are rivals, so we would be supporting the Giants.

When we got to Meadowlands, all of the merchandise was for the New York Giants. The jumbotrons urged us to cheer for the Giants, when they were in offence and in defence. The Giants were winning. Now, a little thing about my home country. We are a tiny island with a population of about four million people, and we don't invest a huge amount in sport. We don't have a huge pool of talent from which to choose from.We go in to every sporting occasion expecting to lose. When athletes from other countries qualify for something like the Olympics, they think it's the start of something. In Ireland, if our athletes qualify, then we've won. We'll send our athletes, wave our flag and cheer them on. If they don't win, that's ok. We're used to it. We qualified, anything else is a bonus. We are sporting underdogs.

I felt for the poor Jets. They were behind, their fans were outnumbered by Giants' fans. The jumbotrons couldn't care less about them. So, used to supporting the underdog, I switched allegiance, much to the chagrin of my Miami Dolphin supporting husband. The Jets then came from behind to win the game. There's a message in there somewhere I feel.

I love American football now. It's such a social game, the break between the downs gives you a chance to discuss the game, and I love the way the referee explains his decisions to the crowd. Only problem is, the Jets have turned into a great team, and have narrowly missed out on Superbowl two years running. I'm supporting a strong team, I don't know what to do with myself.

**Disclaimer**

I can actually spell, and I spell check every post. Any differences in spelling are down to the way we spell in the British Isles as opposed to in the USA. I've got a couple of comments about my spelling, just wanted to clear that up.