Read & eat

Pretty much ever since I learned how to read, reading while eating has been one of my favorite things in the world. Before school, I read while I ate my cereal. During recess, when I wasn't coerced into doing stunts on the swings or playing foursquare, I sat on a bench and read while eating some stowaway piece of my lunch. After school, I read while slowly eating a piece of cheese or chips or an apple or all three in some combination. Sometimes I was allowed to read at the dinner table. The book was made better by the food, and vice versa. Eating the food was a concretized version of reading the book, a way of holding the words in my mouth, tasting them, chewing and swallowing them. For me, reading demanded this physical and bodily accompaniment.

Maybe this is why some people like to read while on the toilet. Words go in, waste comes out. There are some books over my toilet, but I don't read them. I guess they're there for other people, which might be gross if I think about it too much. I think mostly they're there because I like to have books in every room of the house.

When I was a smoker, I enjoyed reading while smoking, but it was complicated. Usually it meant I had to go outside. Afterward I'd feel the need to drink something or wash my hands. Often, it felt too distracting, and would too easily become more about the cigarette than about the book. With eating, there is tranquility, symbiosis: the body moves toward fulfillment, digestion, while the intellect and imagination similarly churn, break down.

More over here.