For this month’s Exchange, Book Bloggers International asks:  What’s your favorite reading spot?

Is it a comfy chair?  A sweet sofa?  A reading nook by a window?  A place in the park?  A coffee shop?  Your bed?  Your deck or front porch?  Where do you find yourself loving to crack open a book?

As with my last Exchange response, I kind of have more than one answer.  It’s never simple with me, is it?

If we’re talking about my most common reading spot, that would be a tie between the living room sofa, the other living room sofa, and my messy, unmade bed…and I think I’ll spare you that photo.  Where I feel most comfortable reading also shifts around–I may start on my stomach on Living Room Sofa #1, until my back gets sore and my arms go numb.  Then I’ll shift to sitting-with-knees-up in Sofa #2, until I decide I’d be more comfortable lying down, which after about half an hour makes me sleepy and/or sore…

But what’s my favorite reading spot?  I do love reading in cafes/coffeehouses, because (a) I like coffee; (b) don’t coffee and books have some sort of poetic relationship or something? (3) I feel cool when I read in a cafe; and (d) I like coffee.

So, yes, you may find me at my local Caribou or, if I happen to be in Milwaukee for the day (an increasingly rare treat), at Alterra at the Lake.  I srsly ❤ that place.  I love the industrial-meets-artsy look — the building used to be a water treatment plant, and you can still see some of the machinery in the back room.

Of course, in any such public reading spot, there’s always the risk of getting distracted by the surrounding conversations, the eclectic music, the deliciousness of the coffee and pastries…

So I’m going to show you some pictures of myself in a hammock instead.

I sort of “discovered” this as a reading spot last summer, though we’ve had the hammock for ages; my dad brought it over from Colombia years ago.  This year, since Dad took care of all the wasp nests under and around the deck, I plan to partake in this quintessential summer experience even more frequently.  Sure, there’s still the occasional wasp buzzing about now and then, but I no longer feel like telling whoever’s inside that I’m entering hostile territory and don’t make any plans, just in case we have to make a quick hospital run.

. . . . . . . .

P.S.  I swear this poem must’ve been written just for me.

P.S.2  How cool is that greeting card that I use as a Kindle cover because of the glittery, eerie-eyed owl, and because it says “Dreamer” at the top? SO COOL.

P.S.3  That’s The Restaurant at the End of the Universe I’m reading.