Recognizing a need to get out more.

I've become fully engrossed in The Cider House Rules. All 1,047 large-print pages of it. I'd like to say it's because the book is so enthralling, I can hardly put it down. That's partly correct, I suppose, but my deep connection to this book mostly stems from the fact that I've been reading it for months.

I believe this book was selected as December's reading for book club. I looked at the calendar and funny how it says February.

Whoops.

I don't remember the last time it took me this long to read a book. I've spent more time with its characters than I have with actual people.

I'm currently on (large-print) page 952, and I don't want to stop reading. I feel a kinship with Homer Wells, and I'm going to be mildly depressed when the book ends and we don't get to hang out anymore.

And then I re-read that paragraph and realized what I just said and smacked my forehead. I made friends with a fictional character. Named Homer. An orphan, no less.

I'm hopeful that I'm not the only one who bonds with fictional characters in a novel, other than Harry Potter, because I don't want to be that person who people point at and laugh.

I haven't decided if it's pathetic that I want to sleep with the book under my pillow so when I wake up in the morning I know Homer is still there.

Don't tell anyone I said that.