Wham, Bam, Thank You, Bev!

In other words, it's a quickie. We like quickies sometimes, yes? I thought so.

To be perfectly honest, you might not hear from me much this week until I've had a chance to finish all 784 pages of this amazing novel that I started reading yesterday:



This book is in-fucking-credible. It's engrossing and scary, but not scary in a "jump out and grab you" kind of way. It's like a slow burn; the author plants these little seeds of very bad things in your brain and gives them time to grow, then before you know it you're afraid. This book is "read it at stop lights" good. It's "Just one more page and then I'll make dinner" good. It's "Okay, I'm really going to stop reading at midnight and go to sleep" good.

Let's put it this way: I'm 150 pages into it and nothing too crazy has even happened yet, but when my husband went to bed last night I decided to go up and read in bed because I didn't want to be alone downstairs with it. It's the kind of book you that you need to read with another warm body nearby. It's not even horror - but it's unnerving and a little too real.

So what else is new?

My weekend was good, thanks for asking. Yours?







Lindsay Lohan got out of jail today and Snookie went in.









Alicia Keys got married to some fugly guy with a stupid rapper name.






Chelsea Clinton also got married and her wedding, which lasted exactly ONE DAY, cost more than I'll earn in my lifetime as a working-class schlubb hero.

To quote my almost-three-year-old son, who has taken to singing "Buddy Holly" by Weezer under his breath lately, "I don't care 'bout that."

Gotta run... the siren song of The Passage is calling to me! Too bad I can't answer the call until later tonight because my in-laws are coming in tonight and staying for the next two weeks. *face palm*

**smooooch**

A Great Read is Hard to Find

Hi, all!

I wasn't going to write today, but as always I couldn't stay away. I'll be leaving soon to go to the lake with my family, so I'm sitting here in my bathing suit and shorts with greasy hair - just to give you a visual. While you're visualizing, let it also be known that a few moments ago I realized that the shorts and the bathing suit combo give me a bit of a camel toe. So there's that.

I've been in a bit of a blogging funk lately. It's not you, it's me. I've been busy and preoccupied, and I'm sorry about that.

I've also been reading a lot of good books, which makes me want to write one. Not long ago I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't read any books that weren't like the type that I want to write, and I've kept my word to myself on that deal.

Recently I started The Secret Diary of A Call Girl, for instance, but I put it down around 100 pages in and most likely won't return to finish it. Frankly, it bored me. The writing isn't all that good or engaging, the protagonist is completely unlikeable in every way, and the shock value of hearing about sex with paunchy middle-aged married men for money wore off rather quickly. Sure, it was interesting to read about things that I'd honestly never pondered for more than a moment or two: Fisting. Double-penetration. Anal beads. Lesbian sex.

But the writing was so banal that even those titillating subjects got dull. Now that's bad!

Also in keeping with my promise I picked up a book that my favorite magazine, Entertainment Weekly, has been heavily pimping for some time now: One Day by David Nicholls. Now this - this - is the kind of novel that I want to write.



It's the story of a man and a woman, Dexter and Emma, who spend time together right after graduating from University in London and begin a life-long friendship. Every year on the same day, July 15th (my birthday!), the story finds them each in their lives and you get a snippet of what they've been up to and how they've been growing and progressing (or not, as the case may be). Some years they spend the day together, some years they don't, but the story nimbly weaves in and out of their lives and offers a wonderful and truthful glimpse of what it is like to age from early twenties to true adulthood.

The writing itself is gorgeous. Funny - so funny! Concise. Simple yet descriptive. Many times the narrative reminded me of watching a Woody Allen film, but even better. Nicholls easily switches between character viewpoints and before long you feel like you're in both of their heads. He never judges his characters, he just presents the facts for the reader to draw their own conclusions. There are moments of such poignancy that I found myself dog-earring corners as I read so that I could come back and look at them again later. If I were still a student, this is when I would have underlined a passage that spoke to me.

As you're reading you can easily picture everything that happens as if watching it on a movie screen. Perhaps that is why the book rights have already been purchased by a Hollywood studio and the movie is in the works.

As I read, I thought about who I would cast. For Emma I had Emily Blunt in mind the entire time.

For Dex, I kept picturing Bradley Cooper even though he isn't British and Dex was meant to have dark hair. I just think Brad sums up the whole "raffish, charming, good-looking" type perfectly.

So, if you're looking for a great read that goes by quickly and will make you think and laugh, check this one out.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this quote from the book:

"And maybe that's what happens; you start out wanting to change the world through language, and end up thinking it's enough to tell a few good jokes."

Happy Hump Day!

Gaga... and VILF's.

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Sometimes,

late at night, I find myself watching bull riding on TV. I don't know why it's so fascinating to me. I have never actually been to a rodeo, but there's just something fun about watching wirey young men with names like "Kody" and "Skeeter" tying their hands onto a bull saddle and getting flung around like rag dolls for as long as they can stand it. I love how these modern cowboys take off their cowboy hats in favor of hockey goalie style headgear and body pads; it's about time they got wise and dressed appropriately for their sport, after all! Not that a little bit of padding would save them from getting trampled by a couple thousand pounds of pure aggression, but it can't hurt.

I've always had a thing for cowboys. In college, I read a book of short stories called Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Huston. Her writing style is like Hemmingway for girls, and her narrators are tough and reckless and athletic, three things that I am not. In her stories, the cowboys in question are self-absorbed, withholding assholes, and her women, while outwardly tough, are incapable of distinguishing between the half-hearted pseudo-love men offer her and real human connections.

I've always wondered what real cowboys are like. Something tells me I wouldn't like them, as a whole. I'm picturing Skoal and stubble and being called "little lady." But I'm a northerner, born & bred, so I really have no idea. Maybe that's why they're so intriguing to me.

A buncha stuff... just me babbling, really

What's happenin', hot stuff?

I'm just relaxing on what remains of my day off. I had a great day - DH's on school vacation this week so I got to sleep in till 7:45 this morning. Woohoo! Got up, drank coffee, did laundry, and played with the boys for a bit, then brought LS to daycare and had a big kid date with BS.

We went to see Coraline in 3D. It was awesome, and very, very creepy. BS amazes me because be never seems to get afraid of scary stuff; I was kind of cowering a couple of times, but he was enraptured the whole time. It's also a cool message - "be careful what you wish for." Basically, kids, your parents may be boring, but at least they're not scary witch creatures who try to eat your soul, so be grateful! Yay!

Now I'm home and DH has taken BS to the dentist, so I'm just chillin', folding laundry, listening to music, watching Grosse Pointe Blank on TV, AND blogging. Look at me multitask! I've got some fun activities coming up that I'm looking forward to, and life is good!

Lessee... in other news. I haven't been writing much, but I have been reading like a fiend. I am convinced that reading is as good as writing; I honestly think it puts my mind in the right place and helps me establish my own voice and style. Or, maybe that's just what I tell myself to justify gobbling up books like they're made out of candy and leaving my own novel half finished. Dunno.

At any rate, it is my habit to go to author's websites when I find one whose work I admire. Almost all of them have tips for aspiring writers, and they all say: if you want to write, READ!

So, I'm taking their advice, and am currently devouring the Outlander series. Damn, this woman can write. She is both prolific and, at times, overly verbose. I found myself thinking in a Scottish accent this week; I became so enmeshed in her language and world that I felt like my brain was in the book. Wow. Her work can be a little too descriptive at times, and I find myself skimming certain sections since there is really only so much detail one can use when describing something like a garden, right? But, her style is fantastic - she manages to create these believable and realistic characters that you feel like you know intimately, she has a massive and impressive vocabulary, and her stark intelligence is just palpable. On her website, http://www.its.caltech.edu/~gatti/gabaldon/ , she says some things that stick in my memory and spur me on more than any of the other "reach for the stars" stuff I've read on other author's websites. I'll paraphrase, because I'm lazy and have provided the link above so you can go read it yourself if you're so inclined. Basically, she says the idea is the easy part, the writing is the hard part. And you won't know if you can do it until you try. And the more you try, the better you'll get. And the hardest part isn't starting, it's keeping it going.

I think she's my new hero, which is why I had no qualms about ordering the rest of the Outlander series from Amazon just now, and why I look forward to every historical, romantic, overly-descriptive word and sentence that she has sent forth into the world for us to read. And yes, Jill, you can borrow them when I'm done. ;)

Well, well, well, what have we here?

Santa brought me a very interesting Christmas present. Well, okay, in reality, I ordered it myself from Amazon and DH wrapped it and "surprised" me, but whatev. :) Details, details.

What I got was Charlaine Harris's complete Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire series of books. These are the books that HBO's True Blood series was based on. I watched about 30 minutes of the pilot episode of True Blood while visiting Jim's parents (we cancelled HBO after the Sopranos was over in favor of Showtime because we like Weeds & Dexter) and was really into it, but a little irked by some similarities between the show and the Twilight series.

I thought, at the time, that HBO had borrowed from Twilight on some key plot points. Turns out, after reading some of these fun little supernatural mysteries, that it might have been vice versa. The first Sookie book, Dead Until Dark, was published in 2001, whereas Twilight came out in 2003. By then, Harris had already cranked out 2 more Sookie novels. Hmmmm. Inneresting, eh?

I can't believe that Stephenie Meyer (author of Twilight) never read these books. The similarities are TOO blatant.

To wit:

Female protagonist who falls in love with a vampire? Check.
One of them is a mind-reader? Check.
Part of the initial attraction is that the mind reader cannot read the mind of the love interest? Check.
Vampires are cold and hard? Check.
Vampires are alternately unnaturally still or fast? Check.
There is a whole community/world of Vampires that humans don't know about? Check.
Vamps like to drive fast and have lots of money? Check.
Love triangle between Vamp/girl/shapeshifter? Check.
Werewolves exist? Check.
Becoming a vampire takes 3 days of agony? Check.

And that's just off the top of my head.

Now, there are some crucial differences between the two series, and I can't believe I am saying this, but these differences mean that I now love Harris's vampire books WAY more than Meyer's. I know!! I fell so hard for Twilight, too. Wierd.

Basically, Charlaine Harris's books are Twilight for ADULTS. Sookie Stackhouse is a no-nonsense Southern belle who is gorgeous, brave, self-sufficient, and strong. To the contrary Bella Swan comes off as a perpetual victim who can't go anywhere without running into life-threatening peril. Sookie can, and does, save herself about 80% of the time (and who doesn't need saving for the other 20% of the time? I know I do), unlike Bella, who is always swooning, falling, and needing to be saved. Also, Sookie has S-E-X. Hot sex.

Author Charlaine Harris may be a Southern lady who looks like the sort of person you'd want to sip sweet tea with after church on a big antebellum porch somewhere, but she delivers the goods when it comes to the sexy times. Unlike Mormon mom Stephenie Meyer, who comes off as a bit of a goody two-shoes after dodging the sex question for 3 novels then glazing over it & giving no juicy dirt in the 4th. Harris's world has a seedy underbelly. Meyers's world is all teenagers who don't have sex or drink and bad guys who are really just misunderstood. Hmmm....

More than anything, I am curious about the similarities between these two series of books. I cannot be the only one who has noticed them; I guess it's okay since they're marketed towards different groups (teen girls versus grown women). All I know is that I'm hooked. I've read the first 3 Sookie novels and have 5 more after that, and I'm loving every funny, flirty, scary, sexy moment of them! I may not be getting any smarter from reading them, but I'm certainly enjoying myself. And I can't be sure, but I think that is the point. ;)

Because, when it comes right down to it,

I am a 14 year old girl at heart.

*sigh*

I was bitten last Sunday by the worst kind of venomous creature: the Twilight phenomenon.


To the detriment of most other things, including housework, television, computer time, and even any kind of mothering beyond the absolute necessities, I read the entire Twilight series in one week. Four books. Sunday to Sunday. That's 2,379 pages, according to Wiki Answers. Sheesh.

As many of you know, I'm a bit of a manic-depressive kind of reader. I go for months without reading much of anything beyond Entertainment Weekly, then I find a couple of good novels and read fanatically for a couple of weeks, then go back to my "dormant" phase. I'm not one of those readers who can read a chapter, feel satisfied, and put it down for a day or two until I feel like reading again. Nope. I get obsessive and MUST know how it will end. I find myself pulling it out at stop lights, at lunch time at work, and while cooking dinner. It's kind of a problem.

Anyway, now I can't get my head out of the soapy, melodramatic world of Edward (swoon!) and Bella. Dude. I am officially immature. I couldn't feel more than mild annoyance over Bella's "frail", relatively helpless demeanor, or Edward being a bit of a control freak, or Jacob and Edward both having those "Bella is mine!" thoughts. I couldn't even get annoyed that the author uses the same stupid words over and over and over again to describe the characters and events. I don't get it - I don't usually go for sappy love stories. I've never even watched soap operas! I guess maybe it was the supernatural aspect that hooked me, because I've never met a supernatural thriller kind of thing that I didn't like.

And so, even though the movie is getting so-so (at best) reviews, and even though I heard it described as "a 1 hour and 45 minute Abercrombie and Fitch ad", I will go see the movie. I will go by myself if I cannot convince someone to put their dignity aside and come with me to a movie about teenage vampire love. Worse yet, I'm eagerly looking forward to it!

Ok, a small part of the reason I picked it up was because of an article in EW about the author, Stephenie Meyer. What appeals to me about her story is that she never set out to be a writer - she just had a vivid dream one night and then sat down and started doing it. Writing. After her three young sons were in bed, she wrote a novel. Then, she joined a small writer's group and got feedback, and then she Googled how to get published. And now she's a superstar with multiple book deals, a killer agent, a finished motion picture, and potentially another in the works....

Why can't I do that?? Where is the discipline I need to sit for hours, letting the imagination I've always prided myself on spill out into something people might actually want to read? Where is my drive to do something I enjoy rather than something that pays the bills?

Anyway, enough of me whining! Loved the books, despite their frothiness and "no mental heavy lifting" status. Loved 'em! Can't wait to see the film, no matter how mindless it may be. Oh, and Robert Pattinson is totally dreamy as Edward. Meow!