Every night before I turn out my light to go to sleep, I have to read for a bit. It doesn't matter how late it is, or how tired I am, I have to read. If I don't, my brain doesn't get the message that it's time to sleep, and I end up tossing and turning for at least thirty minutes.

The only exception is when I've had far too much to drink, but that has only happened a handful of times.

I've been reading this extremely fat paperbook called And Ladies of the Club for the last three weeks or so. I'm on page 1100-and-something, and I have 400 pages left to go. It is a fantastic book, although the beginning is hard to get into because there are so many characters and I was easily confused. Now that I'm deep into the book, I can't put the damn thing down.

Last night I was doing my normal reading, plunging ever deeper into the lives of the characters of this book, completely oblivious to the coming tragedy. All of a sudden, BAM! A character who had been present since page 1, a husband of one of the main characters, dies of pneumonia.

I bawled.

No, seriously! Even thinking of it is making me teary-eyed now. I could not believe this man was dead!! How could the author kill him off like that??

And the wife's reaction once she got home from the funeral did me in all over again. The book takes place in the late 19th century when folks still used coal to heat their homes, and the now-dead husband always teased his wife about how she excelled at causing a fire to die. It was a recurring joke between them. She comes back home from the funeral, sees how low the fire is, and starts to think, "My husband's really going to tease me when he sees what I've done to the fire!" only to realize her husband isn't ever going to tease her.

I lost it all over again.

My pillow was drenched by the time I got to a point where I could put down the book and go to sleep, around 1:30am. All I kept thinking was I'm glad Kurt wasn't home because I would have kept him awake with my crying, and he normally has to be up by 4:30am.

Then again, I was glad I'd gotten through this passage here at home. I have a doctor's appointment today (one that is making me nervous, in case it's bad news -- keep your fingers crossed), and I always take a book with me to keep me company. Can you imagine how pathetic I'd look with mascara running down my face from crying over the death of a character in a book, sitting in a doctor's office wearing nothing but a hospital gown??

Thank goodness for small blessings.