A purple flower

I see the Toronto office has beaten me to the punch this morning with some upside-down goldfinches. Ordinarily I'd say well, that's one less thing I have to bother with and go merrily on my way, but since I did have a bit of something to say for a change I thought I may as well start off Iris Week anyway.

And why Iris Week?

I was going to blame the upside-down finch lady, but the fact is that my father's irises are blooming right now and I'm ever so slightly fascinated with the shapes you can find in irises. So this week it's all irises all the time.

Unless there are more upside-down finches. That's ok too.

And before anyone wonders why I'm starting Iris Week with such a lame photo, all I can say is that I like the backlighting so there nyah.

Why yes, I am five years old.

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I read a book this weekend. Now, the time was that it would be more than unusual for me to say that I didn't read a book this weekend, but for a number of reasons the book reading has tailed off in the past couple of years. There are only so many interests one person can take care of at a time, I suppose, and since books are a fair bit less ephemeral than some of the other things that occupy my brain they got put on the shelf for a while.

Er, so to speak.

I'm a little sad about that, to be honest. I've been a book reader for as long as I've been able to read, and I was reminded EVERY SINGLE BIRTHDAY for the larger part of my life that I always wanted to be a reader.

Should I explain that last part?

Well, it was a favourite tease of my mother to recall me at four and a half coming home from the first day of kindergarten, standing there with my hands on my hips, and refusing to ever go back again because all we did at kindergarten was play and what good was going to school if they didn't teach you to read?

I personally don't remember any of this, but I've had it recreated for me often enough that I choose to believe it.

Anyway.

I still read a lot, but over the years my reading has moved from the pure entertainment of fiction (I was a huge science fiction fan back in the day) to slightly more brain-stretching classic books and poetry to a pretty steady diet of non-fiction. Work-related, mostly, although I'll look up books on almost any subject if there's a flicker of interest somewhere in the intellect.

What can I say? I'm a magpie. I like to pick up bright shiny ideas and admire them for a little while before putting them down and looking for something else to play with.

Oh, and if anyone's feeling sorry for me about the work-related reading, don't. Work-related reading in my field is actually -- or at least usually -- interesting.

To me, at least.

The result of all of this, by the way, is that if anyone asked me to name the last recently written (meaning within the last... oh, let's say fifteen years. Although with my normal reading patterns you'd be safe to say one hundred years) work of fiction I'd read it would really be a head-scratcher for me. Yeah. In fact, I can name only two in the past five years. One that my brother gave me (and, considering that it was by an author that I never would have thought to read at all, I found surprisingly enjoyable), and one that the Toronto office recommended as being suited to my sense of humour. She was right, but even at that it took me months to remember to go out and look for it.

Not so much for the modern fiction, Yours Blatheringly.

Which is why it was unexpected that the book I added on a whim to my latest order from the Internet Book Company Which Does Not Need Free Advertising From Me was opened before the DVDs that were the real reason for giving them more money (what can I say? I only got the book to get the most from my free shipping...). Not only was the book opened before the DVDs; it's also already finished. It lasted less than thirty-six hours, in fact, and that's without making an absolute marathon of the read.

Now, granted, it was a not-terribly-taxing and an entertaining book. Not exactly a huge feat for me to have finished it so quickly. That sort of thing just hasn't happened for a long time, that's all.

Maybe it should more often.

Used book store, anyone? I think that it may be time for me to start making them a regular part of my existence again.

Before I go, another iris. A yellow iris.

Because I can.

Nyah.