HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANET !!!!

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a big cyber-hug to you!Janet, I'm so glad that you've joined this group. I relate to just about everything you say and appreciate your smart sassy honest advise. If I were there, I would give you a book as a gift for your 56th birthday. Since I'm not, I'll instead recommend a great book, one that has nothing to do with Aspergers. It's Exit Ghost by Philip Roth. That was by far my best read of 2007.wishing you a wonderful day,DanekaJanet Zimmerman wrote: Don't get me wrong, I love to read...but I

do agree that reading can be so compelling that a person really cannot give full attention to anything else while they do it. Reading and eating is it's own subject matter... and reading at the table does not allow for interaction with others. My husband also reads and watches tv. when we were in counseling (pre-AS diagnosis) I brought this habit up and told how it made me feel ignored and unimportant when he did this. It was bad enough to have the only time we spent together be spent watching tv, even though he seemed to think it was a mutual shared activity. I found it to be a poor excuse for quality time together. and even less of a quality experience for me when he read a book at the same time. At the time, it was really getting to me how he could go for days without looking at me or talking to me. When I tried to talk to him about how his actions made me

feel, he said he was not making me feel anything, that I was making myself feel that way because he was perfectly content. He said that we were together sharing the same life because when we looked out the window, we saw the same view. How romantic. I wanted to hit him with a brick. NOW I UNDERSTAND. So I don't try to interact beyond what he initiates. In case anyone suggests that we discuss the book he is reading, I am afraid I do not share his tastes. He consumes (2-4 per week) what I call pulp fiction... murder mysteries adventures or the most lurid content that I find very disturbing and boring. He does not share my tastes either.. l like mostly non-fiction, history, politics, social commentary, bios. Janet ZEE with my 2 bits worth on my 56th b-day on which there was no gift or card, same as xmas or

25th anniversay a week later. WAH. At times I urge my husband to read because it relaxes him as well. I'm so happy if he gets into a sci-fi book on a Saturday and doesn't stop reading until he's done. It's a great way for him to relax and when I see him reading like this, I know he's happy. It's all good.My only objection to his reading at the table is that if he reads, he doesn't interact with the rest of the

family. He is so removed from the rest of us; he really is in his own world. As my oldest daughter says, "when he's here, when he is he really here." Even when he's physically present, he is mentally engaged elsewhere -- the computer, newspaper, something.Daneka Jennie Unknown <mossbtweenmetoestds (DOT) net> wrote:Interesting, growing up we all read at the table, we read everywhere as a matter of fact. I was so dedicated to reading that I even read while I walked to school. LOL In all truthfulness I didn't get much read because I wasn't coorinated enough to just walk and read without wandering out into the road (no sidewalks) so I would look

at one line and look at the ground back and forth all the way. Not relaxing but I enjoyed the challenge. Dinner found us with books propped up against various things so we could read and eat at the same time. No one seemed to care one way or the other. My husband doesn't like books at the dinner table though so we don't do that in my family now. But I still read while eating breakfast & lunch, just not dinner. To me it's very relaxing. JennieBe a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

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