READATHONNNN!

After a year of training, it's finally upon me! Dewey's October 24-hour Readathon. I feel very fit ready for this. And I'm only five hours late.

But Tika, you may ask, what kind of training can one really do in order to read and eat delicious snacks all day? And also, doesn't that sound like... pretty much any weekend for you?

Well, dear readers, the training regimen for these kinds of things is more rigorous than you may think. I had a salad for lunch yesterday, and if that's not extreme self restraint, I don't know what is when there's chicken bruschetta pizza on the menu. I can neither confirm nor deny whether said salad had bleu cheese and bacon on it, but I can confirm that I'm neither a monk nor a nun.

Training for a readathon requires me to visit my wheelhouse, which is aggregating finger foods. I've collected snacks in the form of loads of Kenyan tea (hand-carried halfway around the world to me by my co-worker - who is actually from Kenya - because he knows how much I love tea), Honeycrisp apples (the Cadbury mini-eggs of the apple world), smoked gouda cheese, popcorn, and "Uncured Hot Salami," whose title never fails to make me alternately giggle and think, "ew. Uncured?" Whoever is in charge of naming things at that company clearly needs a vacation but the salami is delicious.

I've also put in a couple of excellent days with the GIF Admiration Society's own MiniReadathons, which most of you will probably recognize as "stuff you have participated in" because everyone who reads this is pretty much my social media buddy, as previously noted. Those of you who made it to #427 on the readers sign-up list,

(Adorable baby courtesy of Raych! Hi Raych!)

I am very impressed by you.

As for your second question, what exactly did you think training was? My brother informed me that 24 hours was a long time to read and that he would probably fall asleep at least 4 times. I gleefully informed him that I will probably only fall asleep ONCE, and that is what training gets you, my friends: fewer naps on a Saturday.

Wanna see what I'm reading?

I've also got the audiobook for All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot on deck for when I need a break from reading with my eyes and want to knit or maybe even take a walk. Being prepared to consume literature in all contingencies is important in these situations.

UPDATE! 

Let's see. Today I have consumed an inordinate amount of chocolate, crackers, apples, posole, and cheese. I finished Black Sun Rising around noon and now it's 8pm and I've taken two naps (100% more than I planned but only half of what my brother would have taken so I'mma call that a win), read the introduction and first several few okay three chapters of Dracula, tweeted a whole bunch, and now I think I'm going to listen to some James Herriot and knit for awhile.

Or maybe I'll play some video games and drink some wine. #readathon