what is the last thing you do before bed?

Tonight’s prompt: What is the last thing you do before bed?

Which is funny since I’m writing this blog post in bed. But it won’t be the last thing I do. The last thing will be to read some portion of the latest New Yorker currently sitting on my bedside table. I used to have no interest in the New Yorker. It’s Scott’s subscription, predating our relationship. But then, a short while after we moved in together, I started reading the movie reviews. Nothing else. Just that second-to-last-page.

Something shifted after Jonah was born. When I started to be able to focus on text on a page again. I didn’t have the brain space for books — other than the sleep and parenting advice books I was utterly compelled to consult. But I could consume the tidbits in the front of the New Yorker, the short stories in column format and the one-to-two-page comedy pieces. And slowly I was drawn in to the profiles, and then, gasp!, the fiction.

I can’t say why it was so hard for me to fall in love with the New Yorker, but it was a long journey. Now, when the issue arrives, it’s mine first. Without question. Scott teases me by grabbing it and flipping through. Hmmmmm… this looks like a good one, he says, while I flail my arms out in front of me; Give it!

There are some weeks that are better than others. The food and fashion issues are my favorites (no surprise here). If an issue is politics or finance focused, it gets passed to Scott’s nightstand sooner rather than later.

The current issue feels especially challenging and controversial in that there seems to be an obituary for OWS and a series of profiles of IMPOSSIBLY wealthy people in the same pages. And also a profile of an artist whose public works dramatize the lives of oppressed and poor citizens whose concerns and who themselves are invisible. Well played, dear editors, well played.

I am avoiding the movie review this week, because it’s of a movie I want to see and movie reviews ALWAYS ruin the movie for me. It’s confusing. I want to know that the movie is going to be good but if I know too much about it, I miss out on the suspense of the story unfolding. Not to mention the opportunity to form my own opinions and make my own discoveries. Fortunately Scott read the review for me and saw that it was good. Bookmarking Hugo for our next date night.

On the other hand, date night is so rare in our lives, maybe twice a year, that I appreciate reading the movie reviews. It’s almost like I was there. And there, and there, and there. Good, don’t have to see that one…

Of course date night is every night also. After Jonah goes to sleep, around 8, when we have a late dinner and watch our favorite TV shows on our big flat screen TV, huddled under a blanket on the couch. When we’re both on the couch, instead of one on the couch and one in the big easy chair, that’s date night.

So I read, and Scott hides his head under a pillow to not be bothered by my bedside lamp. And when the letters start to blur, I go to sleep.