Day 449 and 450: Stories

For those of you who know me, you should know that I'm not a particularly large fan of reading. However, over the course of the summer, I noticed that there was a lot of free time during rehearsals and performances, more so than last year. I'm not sure why, but there was a noticeable amount of space that boredom could creep into. I wasn't going to kill my phone battery or completely demolish my brain cells by playing Candy Crush, so I decided to start reading. What I discovered was that if you found something interesting to read about, you could actually enjoy it and learn something in the process. My elders had always told this to me, but I couldn't believe it because I wasn't mature enough to recognize what exactly I wanted to read. Luckily, over the summer, I realized the three topics and/or genres I liked to read: (1) memoirs (2) mysteries (3) anything about musical theater. Upon discovering this, I was able to read about 10 books this summer so far. Some of them include Richard Rodgers memoir, Julie Andrews memoir, Florence Henderson's memoir, two books on the career of Rodgers and Hammerstein, The Enraged Accompanist's Guide to the Perfect Audition, two books on Oklahoma! and The Cat Who Lived High. The last on that list is the 11th in a mystery novel series that my late grandpa got me hooked on. He used to tell me I should read more, and he knew I liked mysteries as a kid so suggested The Cat Who... series. Its a collection of 29 novels by Lillian Jackson Braun. While they are mysteries, they replace the suspenseful drama with witty, playful humor, but still keeping you engaged in the story. I cherish them, especially because of the memory of the man who introduced me to them. Before he passed, he gave quite a few of the ones he owned to me (he always kept them in his car). While I read all of mine electronically on my iPad's Kindle app, I will always treasure those stories. Now that I have discovered the magic of reading and know what books I like, I will read stories forever.