Neglectful posting

I have just returned from a writing retreat at a resort in Mexico. I didn't photograph any readers; however, now, after churning out many pages of manuscript, I really need to, again, appreciate the act of reading. I wrote a lot.

When I wasn't writing I would swim or sit in the jacuzzi. The jacuzzi was a small, contained space, good for intimate conversations. There, I got to talk about my people reading project. One night I was leaning my tired neck back, looking up into the palmtrees and listening to a Mexican woman complain about how horrible it was that her travel agent booked her a trip in "gringolandia." It was so bad she switched to the hotel I was at.

You don't just hear the word "gringolandia" without laughing. I cracked up. She cracked up. We became friends. We got to talking about life, the universe, and my blog and she called her husband over, got him to give her his cell phone, and called their son in his hotel room. "My son reads always," she told me, the gringo, in English.

While hot water jets blasted us in the back and she quite expertly demolished a whole glass of Tequila, we talked back and forth, she fielding questions to her son, me speaking in Spanish, she in English, the son in Spanish, though she wouldn't let me talk to him. The son's favorites: everything by Paulo Coelho, because he likes the messages in the books, and Alexandre Dumas -- why, I couldn't figure out, though, I suppose there is no explanation necessary.

On my way home from the trip I had excellent book karma. One row over was a man just about to finish Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright - Sided. This is the book my book group has chosen for November. A half hour before we landed we conducted a transaction: he sold it to me for ten bucks. His wife was carrying a really nice woven picnic basket. When we were unboarding I offered her another ten bucks for it, but she didn't think that was as funny as I did. The thing about a book, though, is that it's a pleasure to share it.

Thanks for reading. I plan on posting more frequently now.