Wendy C. Ortiz, On Reading

I stash them in my bag. I finger their spines. I spread them open and inhale. I move them around with my hands, stack them, sort them. My eyes take them in and my central nervous system responds with just the right combinations of words. Books have always been a welcoming place to me, so I started living with them right away, shacking up with them in my bedroom, reading late into the night. We used to have so much more time together, books and me. Every stolen moment I get now involves reading. Reading books ranks as one of my favorite all-time love affairs, and the best part is it the affair never ever ends.

{Wendy C. Ortiz is the author of Excavation: A Memoir (Future Tense Books) and the forthcoming Hollywood Notebook (Writ Large Press, Nov. 2014). She writes the monthly column "On the Trail of Mary Jane," about medical marijuana dispensary culture in Southern California, for McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Her work can be found in The New York Times, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Nervous Breakdown, The Rumpus, and many other journals. Visit her at www.wendyortiz.com.}