Curse You, Tom Botts!

Why am I so angry with Tom? He's actually a great guy. Tom is the author of the always entertaining and often inspiring Wilderness Blues blog. He is also the author of a book by the same title.

And that is where the problem lies... You see, yesterday I received an autographed copy of said book. It's published by the great people at Good Catch Publishing. I was giddy at the prospect of enjoying the book over the next few weeks as time would allow.

Tom is the father of one of my best friends when I lived in Hoonah as a teen. He and his family had been a part of a Christian commune of sorts not far from the logging camp where I grew up. It was near one of the best fishing streams and remember checking it out one time. Everyone called it "the farm". In the interest of being self sufficient they grew their own food and raised livestock. The farm was made up of buildings built from rough cut lumber connected by a network of boardwalks over the damp ground. Tom's book chronicles his time living at the farm and the struggle of dealing with the strict rules and ultra-conservative atmosphere.

It was Monday when the book arrived in the mail. The night before I had been up way later than normal. The boilers at the church were having issues and with temperatures dropping I helped Pastor Josh in his attempt to get them running. (And by helping I mean I stood around while Josh did all the work...) So I was operating on about 5 1/2 hours of sleep instead of my normal 7 or 8. The plan for Monday night then was to definitely be in bed by my bedtime of 10pm.

Amazingly enough, it was 9:43pm when I crawled into bed. The plan was to read a chapter or two if I could keep my tired eyes open that long. So I start reading. And reading. And reading.

A few times I had the thought that I should put the book down and go to sleep. But it would need to be after this page. Or after the next. Or the next. Or after a few more...

The conclusion of this long and pointless account: I finished the book at 12:34am. Stupid Tom. If you had wrote a book that sucked I could've gotten some sleep. Instead, I got less sleep last night then the night before.

So, curse you Tom. Curse you to heck. You are the reason I'm so tired today! The next book you write had better be a lot less engaging and entertaining. Oh, and it better be soon. Darn soon.