Heavy Subject Matter (Pt. 2: Physically Heavy)

Warning: heavy material ahead. No, not a content warning. (If you want that, see Pt. 1). Though, I suppose the book has some of that in its characters’ backstory. I literally mean heavy subjects ahead.

For anyone who is super adept at remembering my life:

1. Why? It’s not that interesting?
2. Can you please teach me how?

I need a journal to remember what happens to me on a Tuesday. Seriously, there’s a little journal in my Health Storyline app entitled “Things that Happened Today.” I need it.

But, if you do remember my life, you may remember that I was recently diagnosed with EDS. I also wrote about how challenging it is to remember what I read in books. This is unfortunate because I’m having a particularly hard time getting through Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. It’s a good book. It’s a good enough book, in fact, that my Partner wanted to read it, too, and he rarely reads fiction books. The fact that he also wanted to read it means that we bought it in hardback. He is weirded out by Kindle books.

We bought it the day it came out. He finished it shortly after that. I’ve been struggling since then. For anyone keeping count, the book came out almost six months ago. Partly, I’ve been struggling because of my brain fog and a need to go back and refresh on sections whenever I set it down for a bit. But, there seems to be something more. It is more than just more than mentally taxing to read that book.

I assumed it was because it was figurately 1,200 pages – and it is probably at least partly because of that – but it’s also because it’s literally 1,200 pages. I’ve had some time to read lately, because I’ve been getting over an acute illness and a flare-up, and it seemed like it would be soothing mentally and physically to read for self-care. This is usually a good idea, but 1,200 page books need to come with warning labels.

Warning: heavy subject material. Will hurt when you drop it on yourself because you lost grip strength. Will hurt when you hold it with two hands with weak wrists and it is heavy. Will hurt when you balance it on a recliner chair, but you end up twisting your neck awkwardly to see it while not holding it in your writs. Warning: just will hurt. Do not read for more than a couple of hours if physically at less than 100% capacity with a chronic illness.

I am too cheap to justify buying a second copy on my lightweight Kindle. I’m number 6 in line (finally!) to get an e-copy of the book from the library. We’ll see whether I finish the book in hardback first or take so long that I ultimately end up obtaining the library copy for the last bit of it. Until then, I’m going to wear my nice new wrists braces to make sure my wrists are rested from the exertion, and my Partner agreed that we will definitely buy the sequel, again, the day it comes out again. We’ll just buy it on Kindle the next time!

Extra flexibility is only a superpower for combat robots. (Also, for anyone who has followed Questionable Content for years, guess what? Bubbles has EDS!)

Source: Questionable Content

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Need a recap of anything I’m talking about in any post? Check out the Glossary of Terms.

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