Go Readers Go!

This post is going live at 8:00 am today, which is when the October 24-hour-readathon starts. I’m actually writing this right now at 12:52 am (Toronto time) because no way am I going to be up at 8:00 am. Try 10:00 am and we’re looking at a possibility.

So it’s a good thing I’m a cheerleader for this wonderful reading event, and not an actual reader, since the aim is to read for the 24 hours.

I’m a member of the Romantics cheerleading squad, and I’ve committed to four hours of cheering.

Has this ever happened to you? You’re looking forward to an event, and you’ve been talking it up with your family the whole day before. “Yes, I’m cheering for the 24-hour readathon tomorrow. I’ll be making lots of comments. Writing lots of tweets on Twitter.”

In the meantime, your husband is preparing for another event that you also “know” is happening – except that it’s the kind of “knowing” that hasn’t quite sunk in.

Two hours ago, I realized, “OMG, that’s right. We’re having a DINNER PARTY tomorrow night!”

Now, you may not think this is a problem. But around here, a dinner party means “having people over” which automatically turns things into a full-day event.

Because, you see, the house has to be cleaned. At least, the parts of it guests will have access to.

Not only does my husband usually teach on Saturday mornings, this particular Saturday morning he has a student grading (he runs a martial arts dojo), which means he’ll be home even later in the afternoon than usual.

He normally does more of the housework around here than I do, but because of the grading, me and my current audiobook (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) will be shouldering most of the cleaning-the-house burden.

I’m also responsible for the usual host duties once our guests arrive, since my husband will be in the kitchen, chopping away and performing his usual food magic. And I think everyone does expect me to sit down to dinner with them.

I don’t know HOW the fact that these two events are actually occurring within the same time frame could have possibly slipped my notice. After all, I knew that today is the readathon. I also knew we are having a dinner party today.

I just didn’t put two and two together adequately enough to notice that they would be happening at the same time.

(Did you notice? No-one around here – ie my husband – clued in to the fact that both events were taking place at the same time, either.)

Thankfully, I’ve committed to four hours of cheering. I can do four hours. I’ll be commenting during my breaks from cleaning the house. I might have to discreetly keep my iPhone on my lap under my napkin at dinner and tweet encouragement to various readers, but I will meet my commitment.

In fact, I’m hoping to exceed those four hours. Plus, everyone who’s coming has either young kids, or teenagers who play hockey at the ridiculous hour of 4:00 in the morning on Sundays. They’ll all be out of here by 11:00 (okay, 12:00 at the latest), and since I’m a night owl, that still leaves me a couple of hours to cheer before bed.

I will update this post with my cheerleading thoughts as the day progresses.

Good luck, everyone! And have fun! I know I will.

Cheerleading Update Number 1 (1:24 pm Toronto time)

Cleaning? What cleaning? :) I’m going to start now. I have now visited 85 blogs and commented at every one of them that had a readathon post up.

I also spent about half an hour on Twitter, having fun tweeting away.

I didn’t know cheerleading could be so fun. But … my husband is vacuuming and I’m feeling mighty guilty. A-cleaning I go!

Good luck, everyone!\

Cheerleading Update No. 2: 1:11 am Toronto Time

I think I must be doing a good cheering job – I just got booted off Twitter for making too many updates!

Related posts:

1. Readathon Cheerleading: I Got Booted Off Twitter
2. [TSS] International Book Giveaways, Readathon and NaNoWriMo

Tagged as: Readathon, reading fun