I Blame The Bike

Posted by Emma Wayne Porter, 02/09/08 03:00 PM

Jessica Jarman and I were talking in IM the other day, and it turns out we share a bad habit: reading at the gym.

Now, the exercise part isn’t bad, and reading sure makes that hellish twenty minutes on the stationary bike go faster. But we both had to laugh that the only thing we’d remember about the books we’d read would be those twenty minutes of sheer hell.

After she and I finished talking, I started to take the idea of bad reading associations a bit more seriously. See, I don’t always read for fun. Sometimes it’s my job, and what would happen if my reading experience was wrecked by my open weeping when the fat burn cycle hit level seven?

I know it could happen. To this day, I’ll scramble to shut the radio off every time Phil Collins’s Take A Look At Me Now comes on. It was popular when my best friend died, and twenty-three years later, I still can’t bear to hear it.

So how about you? Are there things you won’t do while reading? Or are there books, songs or movies forever ruined for you by bad associations?

Emma
(who will be taking the indestructable Chronicles of Narnia to the gym next time)
EmmaWaynePorter.com
Emmatyville

Category: | 02/09/08 03:00 PM
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Comments: [3]

  1. 1 JustMe

    Yes, I hate, detest, abhor and despise the book “The Horse Whisperer”. The ending was thoroughly wrong and it ruined a really nice Christmas night’s reading for me. I was so excited to get a copy, and opened it immediately; waited patiently the entire day until the house was quiet and mine. Read it in one sitting, and when my friend woke up and saw the book in shreds thrown up against the wall, she just had to ask. To this day, if I am up at 4 am on Christmas day, (which is no surprise to some people that know me) I can’t help but think of a rotten book and a ruined post- holiday.

    Comment by JustMe · Feb 9, 09:03 PM
  2. 2 Rene Lyons

    I cannot, and I mean absolutely cannot, listen to Eric Clapton’s Tears In Heaven. It was the first song I heard after the death of my grandfather and whenever I hear it I just break down.

    I’m a pretty emotional person and a lot of things take me back to certain times in my life. Mostly, though, I’m rather upbeat, so I can laugh off the rotten memories and shake off the sad ones.

    Comment by Rene Lyons · Feb 10, 08:10 AM
  3. 3 Rebecca Goings

    I tear up at the end of these movies:

    The Last Unicorn
    Neverending Story
    Labyrinth

    Why? Well, these movies aren’t exactly tearjerkers. LOL However, they remind me of my craptastic childhood, when I would watch these movies voraciously on HBO, then be saddened when they were over because I’d have nothing else to do. Literally. I was alone night after night from the ages of 12 to 18, so the house would be lonely and quiet after the TV was turned off.

    So yeah, that’s why. I do watch these movies with my kids, but I still get a little teary-eyed at the credits.

    ~~Becka
    www.RebeccaGoings.com

    Comment by Rebecca Goings · Feb 10, 03:02 PM

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