Right on Track

There are only a few interests that I have had almost all my life.  One of them is reading (and subsequently writing).  I was reading at four or five.  I even had my own library card.  Although I don't really remember it, my mother says I was reading to the other students in class on the day she signed me up for kindergarten.  To be honest, I would have been five-and-a-half and older than many of the other kids there, but it was still an accomplishment.  I owe it all to the comic books my mother got for me.  I still get at least four or five a week, although most are not suitable for young children (some still are!).  I got to start reading adult level books fairly early, although I didn't fully understand everything.   My mother also kept getting me activity books.  I wasn't too fond of the coloring portions.  I had a tendency to color outside the lines.  Not just over them, but I would color the portions around the actual subjects as well.  I almost failed coloring in the first grad because of this.  I preferred the puzzle portions.  While I wasn't able to do all of them, I still loved doing those that I could.  My mother had to start buying books for adults just to keep up with my appetite.  I still didn't do every type of puzzle, but I started to become an expert in those I did do.  I still love doing puzzles and games.  That is what this blog is supposed to be about, anyway.  One final interest of mine is television.  I admit that I probably watched way too much of it when I was a child.  Fortunately, I mainly watch educational television.  I could watch Kentucky Educational Television for hours.  Much of it was geared to older children, or even adults.  I really liked the GED prep series.  Because of it, I somehow learned the basics of algebra when I was seven, years before I would get to pre-algebra in eighth grade.  On many occasions, I would find out about something on a show only to be introduced to it officially later in school.  In all honesty, I still watch too much television, especially cartoons geared for children, of all age ranges.  I might watch more now than when I was a teenager.  Anyway, I do have a point to all of this.  This blog began a way for me to get back into writing, particularly on the subjects I was most interested in.  However, I have strayed in the last few months into my opinions and observations.  This has to be curtailed.  I need to be writing more about my passions than I have been.  Sure hiding the occasional message is fun, but it should done in conjunction with other puzzling topics and not be just an afterthought.  For example, let's take a passage my one of my most favorite Shakespeare plays Twelfth Night, since it would be slightly appropriate this time of year.  Some scholars say it isn't there, but if it is, I think it is a great example of wordplay.  Check out Act II, Scene 5, lines 89-90.  Read it aloud, pronouncing "and" as 'n' and accentuating the long 'e' of the "P."  I know it is somewhat bawdy, if it is true, but I still kind of like it.  Starting next week, I will be trying something new.  At least, I hope I will.  I might not finish it in time, but be on the lookout for it.  It will be quite something.  It is time for me to get on the track again.