I was going to write up a little blurb to introduce my friend Glumpuddle, but if you read on you’ll see that she’s done it herself. Ah, well.

Hi. I’m Glumpuddle. If you read the comments on this blog regularly, you’ve probably seen me around. I don’t have my own blog, but I like reading what others write. I’m an academic – in fact, a job-hunting academic, a partial reason for anonymous postings – and so I’m a professional reader. I do also write, and occasionally get paid for that, which makes me a professional writer as well I guess.

All that is by way of introduction to the following context/rant and informal survey question.

Today was supposed to be a reading day – a scheduled day with nothing but reading, reading, reading. I was rather looking forward to it. Last night I arrived home to the news that the furnace in the house where I live had died. The house’s owner was scheduled to leave the continent for two weeks this afternoon, so the furnace guys were going to call me to arrange times for the work to be done. So much for a quiet day – but, I thought, surely I can still get some reading done even with the furnace guys coming and going – its not like I have to truck bits of furnace up and down stairs and disconnect then reconnect the right bits of various pipes and all.

At 8 am, Oscar the furnace guy called. What time should he come. I suggested 9 am. Good. He’d be there. I rushed around a bit and got dressed and moved a few things away from the basement door. At 9:10, Oscar the furnace guy called again. Sorry, one of his guys was late, but they weren’t far away and would be there “shortly.” Fine.

“Shortly” turned out to mean 40 minutes later. We toured the layout of the main floor and Oscar decided that taking the dead boiler out the back would be most prudent. This meant through my kitchen. I moved furniture and bits so that there would be a clear path to the back door. Meantime work began in the basement, and it was pretty loud.

It is now after 11 and there’s no reading time in sight in a day set aside for the same. Hours later, the new furnace has not arrived and instead of reading I’m ranting about interruptions and waiting for Oscar the furnace guy to call me back – and stressing that I’m supposed to meet a friend in 45 minutes and the cell number I have for her doesn’t work. This is not really a good frame of mind for reading, particularly the kind of reading (professional content-heavy academic) that I was planning for today.

This makes me wonder: what kind of reader are you? (professional, recreational, constant?) and what interruptions to your reading do you face?