Quite frankly, I don’t know how I would survive if I didn’t have the option of opening a physical or virtual book… I just don’t.

Given the political tone in my country lately (USA) I rarely watch the news, the radio stays silent because I simply do not want to be bombarded by the negativity and hate that seems to flood the airways these days.

So I have four “escape from life routes” that I’ll take if I’m not reading.  Yet, by far my preferred escape is through the pages of a book.

1. Walking With My Dog – I’m lucky enough to live near a big city (Pittsburgh, PA) and yet far enough away that my small town/neighborhood has a very country feel to it.  So, my little Sheltie, Harley, and I will pull out the comfy shoes, grab the leash, some treats and head out to explore the nooks and hidden places in a nearby woods.
2. Playing Around With My Plants – I have always kept indoor gardens.  I have quite a collection of African Violets, Lucky Bamboo, and green leafy plants like Spider Plants or Ferns scattered around the house.  I’ve never had much luck with outdoor flowers – but indoors, I’m a wizard at growing things.
3. I Write On My Other Blogs – Although reading and writing about what I’ve read on my review blogs is my main interest/hobby – I do have other blogs that hold my interests.  Tending Plants, Fairy Gardens, and a Survivalist / Prepper blog are a few of those other interests.  A few weeks ago, on a whim, I wrote a post on that Survive blog asking what book people would put into their Go Bag, what would they sacrifice in weight and space to have one physical book with them if they ever had to head out into the unknown.  I was very surprised at the answers I got.  Although one answer fit my mindset perfectly.  This person would find the thickest anthology of Christmas Romances, maybe five to ten stories so that she could be reminded that there can be joy, happiness and love in the world again… I thought that was rather telling considering the state of our world today.
4. and Finally – I go destroy and kill a few monsters — No, not in real life, but in the MMO World of Warcraft.  I’ve played WoW for more than a decade now, from the beginning through great and horrible expansions, finding friends and losing them as they moved on as well.  Although I’m retired now, back in my J-O-B days I was a bank teller — any service job is the pits in the way that you’re treated, honestly, but play around with someone’s money and you move to a higher level of rude, nastiness.  I never, ever understood why someone would get angry at me, demand that I bypass the Federal and my company’s rules that could cost me my job to give them money from an account that was over drafted already.  Seriously?  So at the end of a day full of jerks and idiots I’d head into WoW and kill things and pretend that the monsters in game had the faces of those nasty, rude jerks.  Hey, it kept me off the psychiatrist couch and out of jail, so it worked.  LoL  I still play every day, even if I only have an hour to spare… but I don’t have to take my frustration out any more, now it’s simply for pleasure.

And, that’s my list of my other escape routes if I cannot dive into the pages of a book.

Have any suggestions or stories you’d like to tell?  I’m always open to find new and fun ways to escape reality for a while.