Some days, I feel very lucky to be married to this man

My husband reads me bedtime stories. I read to him sometimes, too, but he really does the lion's share of the reading. I think he does this in part because he can get me to listen to books that I might not otherwise read myself, like In the Beginning... was the Command Line. The biggest undertaking so far has been the Ender series by Orson Scott Card, which was four books long (not seven, as Jeremy refuses to acknowledge the Shadow books) and read to me during a period of my life in which I barely had time to sleep, let alone listen to bedtime stories. I think the Ender series took us about two years.

Right now, Jeremy is reading Cryptonomicon to me, which I had twice tried to read to myself but never completed before it had to be returned to the library, so we finally just ended up buying it to fill out an Amazon order (does that tantalizing free shipping on orders over $25 seduce you, too?).

Last night, I kept dozing off while he was reading, so I told him I'd better just go to sleep. He stopped reading, then, and left me to my sleeping. Unfortunately, my nose was stuffed up (I get more colds in the summer than in the winter - darned air conditioning), and try as I might, I just couldn't seem to fall asleep. After half an hour of tossing and turning, it suddenly occurred to me: I was falling asleep with no trouble at all when Jeremy was reading to me.

I re-recruited my bedtime story reader, who was more than happy to oblige. I didn't want to miss any of Cryptonomicon, however, so he picked out a book that we had both read before and started reading to me from the middle. I was asleep within a few pages.