An Earlywinter Night's Sloth

I just read A Midsummer Night's Dream in one sitting.  (Is it 'sitting' or is it 'setting'?)  Anyhow, I've read it before, but not all at once, and so I don't remember it being that short.  I think it took me 3 hours or thereabouts, but I wonder if all Shakespeare plays are that short.  We read Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet in high school, but of course I didn't want to read them or anything else that a lame-o teacher told me to read (despite myself and the fact that I would have enjoyed 90% of my assignments if I had just released myself from my stubborn ways), and so back then they felt intensely long and boring.  I could download those two plays and compare them to the length of AMsND, but I think my Kindle has had enough attention for one day.  I haven't done much else but read this afternoon.

Somehow or other, I managed to have always loved A Midsummer Night's Dream.  I'm not sure if it's because there was a movie with real actors performing a slightly abridged version of the play when I discovered it, but the movie's script was made entirely of the original script of the Shakespeare play.  (I doubt that's why I loved it so much, though, because around the same time there was also a movie of R+J, and while I appreciate the story, I never felt a connection with that one.)  I congratulate my 15- or 16-year-old self on being open-minded enough to listen and discover that I identified with Helena more than any other character in a play or novel or movie up to that moment.  I remember the profound sense of validation when I realized that I could identify with a Shakespearean heroine.  Maybe it doesn't seem like it should be that much of a dramatic turning point, but I remember sitting on my single bed in my room back in Virginia, staring at my tiny white TV set, feeling like I wanted to memorize all of Helena's lines, and feeling comforted in the fact that I wasn't the only one who had ever felt that way.

I never feel guilty for reading all day, but it happens so rarely that I feel like the time spent doing it is stolen (which makes it so sweet) and so I feel sneaky and guilty in that sense.  I do, however, feel guilty that my butt is sore from sitting, and that I didn't even get up to fix myself some supper--Marcus heated up a bowl of leftover chicken & broccoli casserole with rice for me.  Without being asked.  Isn't he fantastic?  Maybe he feels guilty because, while I've been reading, he's been playing Civilization V on the computer in the next room.  I think it suits both of us just fine, but because it happens so rarely, we have that sneaky feeling that, if the other was not otherwise occupied, there would be resentful feelings flying all over the place of the other's sloth.

Well, it's actually 10:00 on a Saturday night, and you know what that means?  I'm going to get ready for bed!  Last night was New Year's Eve, and we stayed out uncharacteristically late.  We're prematurely old and crotchety when we don't get our eight hours.  Actually, I'm sort of lying because I totally got my eight hours last night.  I slept til 10:20 this morning!  In my defense, the curtains were pulled and it was dark and stormy outside.  I was powerless to the intoxication of those perfect sleeping conditions.

Without further ado (which reminds me, I should download Much Ado about Nothing.  I liked that one, too!) I'm off!