Disclosure on my dorkiness

I tend to have a somewhat obsessive personality. I don't really like that I'm like this but it's not really something that I can help. So, what have I been obsessing about for the last couple weeks that has caused my sleep to suffer and my mind to race in the middle of the night contemplating different scenarios and options and outcomes?

The Hunger Games Trilogy.

Yup, I jumped on that bandwagon when I went to Oregon a few weeks ago for Jess' wedding. I actually bought The Hunger Games on accident on my Kindle while reading the synopsis (it's hard to be on a cardio machine at the gym and have steady fingers to click away on the Kindle). But I decided it's vastly popular so it must be good and worth reading and I like series books anyway (I sometimes hate when books end, I think it's because I fall in love with characters and want to know everything about them). So, I stopped reading the synopsis and started reading the book. I was hooked before the first chapter finished, it's so intriguing, and I didn't have any clue what was going to happen.  So when I find out that the main character, Katniss, volunteers to go to the Hunger Games in place of her sister I found myself crying at the gym. (You know she goes into the games for her sister by reading the back of the book, but since I didn't read that, I didn't know.)

Unfortunately this reading kept me awake on my across the country flight to San Francisco (I read the entire way and finished the first book) and because of plane problems I missed my connection to Eugene and had to spend the night in San Fran. And, unfortunately the only available hotel rooms were smoking rooms and it was hard to sleep from the smell. But I mostly didn't sleep peacefully because I was replaying scenes from the book in my head all night long. Pathetic.

I started the second book the next day on the flight to Eugene, Catching Fire, but stopped about a quarter of the way into the story because my sleep was suffering still, and I took a break with a "fluff book". (fluff book. n. a book that has no real value other than being an easy, fun, read. These books are usually associated with shopping, girly-ness and New York City. Examples are Confessions of a Shopaholic, Something Borrowed, and other novel to chickflick movies, which both of these are.) I ended up reading two fluff books before finishing Catching Fire and then continuing on to read Mockingjay.

While reading Catching Fire and Mockingjay, in an attempt to keep myself from becoming too obsessed (and so I could sleep), I had to start doing yoga stretches before bed and include in my prayers "to keep myself calm and be able to sleep" and I also may have sang a few primary songs in there, you know, just a few things to calm my over-active/hyper imagination.

Anyway, I finished Mockingjay last Friday. (I was satisfied with the way they ended.)

And now I can sleep.

(But the best part about finishing the book was that the next day the author, Susanne Collins, was at the  National Book Festival in DC. And it made me really happy that I live in DC. And I loved hearing her background, hearing why she is interested in war and how the idea of the book came together. And, if you really want to know, I'm Team Peeta.)