Stretching My Mind and Booking Out

I'm getting so good at 'booking out' when whatever's going on doesn't feel good (to ME) - who'd 'uv thought I could be so 'selfish' and impolite, eh? I'm still helpful at times, and still do most of the laundry and a large part of the groceries and 'adult-food' cooking 'round here, but when the conversations lag 'n drag, or the kiddie noise level gets even slightly way-too-much-for-me, I vamoose. Works for me!
I've been reading Brian Greene's 'The Fabric of the Cosmos'- which is amazing. The book is amazing, but it's also truly amazing that I'm reading it. Never having had any school physics is maybe in my favour as I don't have to UNlearn anything. But 'the universe' is far beyond anything I thought I was interested in! I'd never been interested in the night sky - it seemed to be about memorising names and getting interested in configurations that are recognisable and "i should know', neither of which did it for me (especially as I've been short-sighted since I was 12). Now THERE's a metaphor i want to get curious about (later!). The book has fascinated me because for the first time I'm reading a somewhat easy-to-understand explanation of currently accepted theories about, as the cover says: space, time and the texture of reality. The 'fundamental nature of the universe' is WAY bigger than my focus had ever wandered: my reading over the last 40 years, when not novels and the news, and the New Yorker, had been about current politics and economics, international development, sustainable cities and social history and geography. All here/now issues and Interesting Problems To Fix. And more recently I've been reading, mostly, books listed on or leading out of from to the Wel-Systems Institute suggestions that are more 'scientific' and are certainly getting me into areas I'd known NOTHING about : Bruce Lipton, Candace Pert, Lynne McTaggart, Ervin Laszlo. (See wel-systems.com) So I suppose the progression outward to 'the universe' has been a 'logical' expansion of my horizon, but i still find it amazing that I can hardly put Brian Greene's book down . . . And next on my pile is Michio Kaku and Stanislas Grof.
No wonder I'm booking out of as many boring and/or mundane conversations as I can, 'round here and r econsidering how 'ehlpful' I'm going to be. - There are SO MANY other ways to have a good time and stretch my imagination.