I finished a book today!

Actually, I finished two!  While that might have sounded blasé back 4 years ago, when I read over 400 or any of the previous decade before that, I really haven't been able to read much the past nine months or so.  While I'm extremely busy at work (the two books I read are a re-read and a first time read of Lois Lowery's The Giver and Gathering Blue, the former being used in classroom assignments the past two weeks) still, the main culprit for my lack of reading has been a physical inability to stay focused on anything for long before headaches and dizzy spells would strike.  After months of tests ruled out the more obvious possible causes (vertigo, stroke, cancer), it turns out that my body was strangely (I say strangely because I'm outside in the sun more than the average professional in the US would be) deficient of vitamins B12 and D.  Ever since I started taking supplements almost a month ago, the symptoms have mostly faded, with maybe 1-2 minor spells the past three weeks.

But it's high past time that I reintegrate reading into my busy professional and social life.  So in addition to the two books I mentioned above (I'll finish Lowery's other two books in the Giver setting, The Messenger and Son, at work over the next week or so), I've begun reading the recently-released Library of America anthology, Reconstruction:  Voices from America's First Great Struggle for Racial Equality, and hopefully if I just read a few minutes at a time 3-4 times/week, I may just be able to finish reading more than the 15 or so books that I read all of last year.

We'll see.  But it sure is good to be able to read near my old reading speed without feeling nauseous, dizzy, or mentally confused afterward.