Earth, My Butt, and other Big Round Things - Carolyn Mackler

Big round things.

Yep. I finally got around to reading The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. And you know what? It wasn't anything like I thought it would be. I've had a couple of patrons mention that it wasn't as funny as they thought it would be, so I was expecting dark humor. Regardless of title and cover art, this wasn't a belly-laugh kind of book--I wouldn't really put it into the 'funny' category at all. There was plenty of angst, though.

Even with the angst-factor, it was really good--I felt that the author got a lot of the high school stuff dead-on. Specifically, she captured Virginia's realization that she didn't have to try to fit in OR be invisible. That was the part that really resonated for me, anyway.

It just wasn't nearly as fluffy as I thought it would be. It wasn't mega-heavy or anything, but I felt that there was a lot more substance than I was expecting. The mom-as-famous-child-therapist-who-is-actually-crappy-at-parenting is becoming a bit of a cliche, but it didn't really bother me much. And even though I found the Ani DiFranco references annoying, they were right for the book and the characters.

Word of warning to any Red Sox fans (can you really like another team? I mean, come on. Really.): Virginia is a die-hard Skankees fan. She specifically has a huge crush on nasty Derek Jeter. Barf.

Epicure's Lament - Kate Christiansen

Film version to star Billy Bob?

Throughout The Epicure's Lament, I pictured the main character as Billy Bob Thorton. Possibly because his character reminded me of a more educated version of his character in Bad Santa (which, if you haven't seen it, I recommend, but only if you have the necessary sick sense of humor to enjoy it. Otherwise, you'll just be horrified and disgusted).

Hugo Whittier is dying of Buerger's disease at age forty. If he stops smoking, he'll recover and be fine, but he refuses. He lives in his family's crumbling mansion, alone, and is fine with the situation. Then his brother and his brother's wife split up and his brother moves back in.

But Dennis is down there in the kitchen, all chipper and clean-shaven and wanting to talk to me. There's nothing I dread and resent more first thing in the morning than the double-headed monstrous hydra of obligatory pleasantries. It makes me want to bash his head in with a tire iron. As long as he's here, my life is ruined. Not to put too fine a point on it.

Imagine how entertainingly he chronicles the return of his (Hugo's) estranged wife, Bellatrix, his ten-year old daughter (or is she?), and other assorted people from his past. He was a character that I liked despite myself. He was selfish and immature and obnoxious and sneaky, but there's just something about Hugo that I couldn't help liking. It helped that he was really, really funny:

Artists have sold you so-called hoi polloi a bill of goods for centuries. They're just trying to justify the fact that all the have to do all day is drink too much and make mud pies and feel everything much too intensely because life just hurts too much. They're socially inept malcontents who can't hack working for anyone else.

To add to all of the other wonderful things about this book, there are recipes. And now I'm hungry again.

Almost-married white couple seeks house.

If anyone comes across a house for sale, preferably in a rural part of Maine, but still close enough to our jobs in Kennebunk, let me know. Also, it has to be built no later than 1950 (and that's pushing it), and cost in the $100,000 range. (HA hah aha aha ha hhahah a!!!)

We looked at one this weekend, we loved it, loved it, loved it, but we're still thinking about it because it's right on the road and more expensive than we want. On the up-side (other than completely being in love with the house), the town's name is Limerick. COOL. The land thing isn't a big deal--as Josh keeps saying, we DO have 25 acres of feral land to wander around whenever we feel like it. This househunting thing is crazy. I feel like a grown-up. Almost.

From the horse's mouth.

"Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign. He can find another way to advertise himself."

Happy, happy day.

My copy of Found came today. I'm so happy--so happy, in fact, that when the Stephanie brought it down to me, I almost ran her over in my haste to get my greedy little (actually monstrously huge) mitts on it. We can buy books wholesale here--the discount is way better than it was at WordsWorth. Due to being poor, I have yet to really take advantage of it, but when we win the lottery, B&T had better LOOK OUT!

Ha ha ha. I win.

I found a tagboard thingie that doesn't create horribly annoying pop-ups. And new messages go on the bottom, where they belong.

Four to Score - Janet Evanovich

A new-ish guilty pleasure.

I recently finally broke down and read the first Stephanie Plum book. And then the next one. And the next. So, last night, I read the fourth one--the brilliantly titled Four to Score. (Unlike Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich is lucky--she's never going to run out of numbers with which to construct her oh-so-clever titles). All snarkiness aside (I think that I feel the need to be snarky so I can make myself feel better about enjoying these so much), these books rule. How can you really go wrong with an extremely unskilled bounty hunter with huge hair and blue eyeshadow from Jersey? She does things like squirt hairspray at people. And she likes doughnuts. But even better than Stephanie are her friends:

Stay out of this, fatso," Joyce said.

"Fatso," Lula said, eyes narrowed. "Who you calling fatso?"

"I'm calling you fatso, you big tub of lard."

Lula reached out to Joyce, Joyce made a squeak, her eyes went blank, and she crashed to the ground.

Everyone turned to Joyce.

"Must have fainted," Lula said to the crowd. "Guess she's one of those women can't stand to see men fighting."

"I saw that!" I said to Lula, keeping my voice low. "You zapped her with your stun gun!"

and family:

"Other mothers have daughters who get married and have children," my mother said. "I have a daughter who blows up cars. How did this happen? This didn't come from my side of the family."

We were at the table, eating dinner, and my father had his head bent over his plate, and his shoulders were shaking.

"What?" my mother said to him.

"I don't know. It just struck me as funny. Some men could go a lifetime and never have their kid blow up a car, but I have a daughter who's knocked off three cars and burned down a funeral home. Maybe that's some kind of record."

Everyone sat in shocked silence because that was the longest speech my father had made in fifteen years.

And, of course, there's the hot guys--Morelli, the cop, and Ranger, the bounty hunter. The books have all been pretty much the same (so far), but they make me laugh out loud. A lot. I've heard that the series goes downhill around book seven or so, but I've got a while until then.

It was so bad that I forgot to post about it.

So, we saw AVP on Saturday. It was bad. Not just because they got the alien gestation time wrong (spider-walk alien jumps on face, five minutes later, baby alien jumps out of stomach), which thankfully I was forewarned about so I didn't get mad, I just laughed. No, it was bad because it was just bad. BAD. They were in Antarctica and you never saw their breath. But I learned a lot--the movie explains why there are similarities in ancient civilizations that supposedly never had any contact--so if you're taking an Anthropology class, just save yourself all of that reading and just watch this movie.

But it was really fun because:

a) We were the oldest people in the theater except for the people that were escorting the 8 billion middle school boys

b) The movie broke 4 times, resulting in the middle school boys saying things like, "This is unbelievable! I can't believe I paid $5.50 for this!"

c) We got to see an almost-fight between two people over who was first in line at the snack counter, resulting in the poor 16-year-old manager saying, "Excuse me. Please! No fighting in the movie theater!", followed up by (I swear I'm not making this up) the 50ish woman saying, "He started it!" (This was all in front of her kids. Great, lady. Wonderful example to set. Now your kids are going to turn into another generation of beasts.

Do you think it would be possible...

for people to NOT leave big ploppers in the toilet in public restrooms?

Would they do that at home? Are they afraid of embarrassing themselves with a double-flush? Are they flushing at all?

This one was left in combo with quite a few short 'n' curlies on the seat. And by quite a few, I mean, quite a few. Enough to be visible from across the room. (I checked).

GROSS. Gross gross gross.

Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

A veritable sobfest.

So I finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife last night. It falls into the category of science fiction, but the kind of sci-fi where you actually care about the characters. And I think that it would also fall into the category of science fiction that people who normally don't like science fiction would like, and that hard-core sci-fi people might not like. And it was a love story. And, yes, a major tear-jerker. At least, I thought so.

So will someone else please read this? Because I want to know if it's really as good as I thought it was, or if I'm just getting sappy in my old age.

Oh, right. I've discovered (and I'm not the only one--I talked to Collomia and she said the same thing) that due to only reading YA books for so long, sex scenes in grown-up books totally freak me out.

Oh. My. God.

We just got pre-approved to buy a house. No down payment, nothing.

Josh called me at work and I burst into tears.

A big load of crap.

This book review is about a book by a lady who apparently thinks that she knows it all about YA books. She apparently thinks that there is no range within the YA realm, so obviously, she's completely out of touch with reality. She probably liked Shadowmancer. Which, as everyone knows, is a major insult. And, since this was in the NY Times, people will think that she know what she's talking about. (The author of the book as well as the author of the review, who obviously doesn't know what she's talking about, either). I'm going to be irritated all day.

Everything on a Waffle - Polly Horvath

How did I miss this one?

I don't understand how I've managed to convince myself for the last three years that I had already read Everything on a Waffle. While shelving books on Saturday morning (I was a work, guys. I'm not that nerdy.) I read the inside flap, and realized--WOO HOO!--there's a Polly Horvath book that I haven't read yet! I'm going to have to buy it, because I can picture reading and re-reading this one. Mostly I just wish that there really was a resturaunt called The Girl on the Red Swing, where everything was served on a waffle.

This is one of those books with recipes. But good ones, like Caramel Apples:

This is perhaps the easiest recipe of all. Buy a bag of caramels and melt them slowly in a double boiler--that is, in a saucepan that is over a saucepan of boiling water. When the caramels have melted, take apples that you have stuck Popsicle sticks through and dip them in the caramel until they are coated. Let dry on waxed paper. Do not muck around with chocolate or nuts or anything else fancy that may tempt you. It will only gum up the works. Sometimes you get tempted to make something wonderful even better but in doing so you lose what was so wonderful to begin with.

I love Primrose. She was so matter-of-fact about everything, when it would be really easy to be snippy and sarcastic:

I got the feeling that Miss Honeycutt didn't even know what issues she was talking about--that she just liked using the word "issues" and would use it when ever she could slip it into conversation. Certain people do get attached to certain words this way. I kind of like "solarium" myself although it did not lend itself to such easy usage.

And with chapter titles like, "I am Almost Incarcerated", "I Lose a Toe", and "I Set Fire to a Guinea Pig", how can you go wrong?

Yokota Officer's Club - Sarah Bird

Weekend reading.

I finished The Yokota Officers Club Saturday.

I've been sitting here for the last five minutes trying to think of a way to describe the book that really does it justice. I give up. It was a super book, from the family angle, the growing-up angle, the cultural angle, and the era angle. The author hit the feeling of going home and all of a sudden seeing your parents as REAL PEOPLE instead of PARENTS. She hit it perfectly. I'll probably read it again, it made me want to read more about military brats. It made me laugh out loud at moments, which is always a plus.

I Dig rock and roll music.

The worst of all the bad rocklike songs that are Okinawa's sound track wakes me. Through sleep-filmed eyes, I watch Kit gyrating in front of the mirror, dancing to the clock/radio. It is almost two in the afternoon. I wonder if I'm falling into Moe's lethargy. Kit has her shoulders hunched up around her ears and appears to be doing an impression of a hyperkinetic dwarf digging for something. Perhaps his chestful of treasure. Her face is even squinched into a pruney dwarf expression. As she throws wee shovelsful of imaginary dirt over her shoulder, I marvel, realizing that it is possible for my sister to look unattractive.

I groan and bury my head under the pillow. I am so grateful for the sound of an electric drill that obscures any further proclamations of Peter, Paul, and Mary's passion for rock and roll music that it takes me a moment to wonder who might be driving a hole into the concrete hallway.

I'm going to recommend it to my Navy brat mom--I'm curious to see what she thinks.

A Ghost is Born.

The new Wilco album rules. It's so good that it makes my stomach hurt. (High praise indeed!)

Transmission - Hari Kunzru

Catch-up continued. Two nights ago.

At the risk of sounding like one of those jerks that used to come into the store screaming about how wonderful Daniel Pinkwater is and how they have to own 87 copies of the book he read on NPR even though they've never even seen the illustrations... I heard a piece about the book Transmission on NPR. (It is a grown-up book, so Daniel Pinkwater wasn't the guy doing reading, so it isn't the same anyway). And I immediately wanted to read it--to the point that I requested that the library get it so that I could read it. And I read it. And it was super.

Basic premise. Indian computer programmer gets a sketchy job in the states, gets here, finds out that, "Oh, crap, the computer job market isn't so great here", gets laid off, creates a virus so that his company will need more manpower to figure it out, assuming that they will hire him back, and it just goes from there...

Across America citizens started to look with suspicion at the computers on their desks. These machines--which had always terrorized them in small ways, by crashing, hanging, demanding meaningless upgrades or simply scolding them in the persona of an annoying cartoon paper clip--were now revealed to harbor something more sinister, something with an agenda. This was it, the enemy within, a technological fifth column in the homes of ordinary Americans. By the time talk radio got hold of it, a consensus had emerged that the attack should be avenged in blood.

I want to read his other book, which is completely unrelated, but I really liked this one. And hey, he won the Whitbread for the other one.

Ella Minnow Pea - Mark Dunn

Playing catch-up. My book from the night before last.

So, I'd been eyeing Ella Minnow Pea (say the title out loud) for quite a while, because hey, let's face it--it's got a great cover. I'd like to say right now that it was my library director that finally pushed me over the edge and got me to read the book--and regardless of what she says, she is a nerd--anyone who likes this book as much as she does is a huge nerd.

It was a lot of fun--people who love playing with language (or reading about playing with language) should give it a whirl. The story is told in letters (epistolary), set on an island of people that revere Nevin Nollop, the man who (in the novel, beats me who really wrote it, but I refuse to believe that's a real person's name) came up with the famous sentence that includes the entire alphabet (pangram): The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. There's a statue of Nollop in town, and the letters of the sentence start falling--as they fall, the Town Elders start banning the usage of the letters, so the letters get more and more interesting as the town inhabitants try to continue communicating without using certain letters (lipogram)-- and those are just the first four.

Oh, right. The first offense of using a banned letter: Verbal condemnation in front of the entire village. Second? Stocks for a day or a whipping. Your choice. Third? Banishment or DEATH. These people are not fooling around.

Fun. Funny! I might even need to own it.

Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd

So I finally read The Secret Life of Bees. And yes, everyone who told me, "Oh, Leila, you have to read this book, it's SO GOOD!" Yes, you were right. You win. I loved it. Although it made me cry on and off a lot. But not it a bad way. And even with everything that's been going on in the last couple of days, I loved it to the point where I HAD to finish it last night--I didn't want to wait to find out how everything worked out. I started it at lunch yesterday, and was really honestly MAD when lunch ended, because I just wanted to keep reading.

This conversation is one that sticks:

"You know, some things don't matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall sceme of life? But lifting a person's heart--now, that matters. The whole problem with people is--"

"They don't know that matters and what doesn't," I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.

"I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

Also, I loved the way that Lily uses the word "shitbucket". I've tried it out a few times, and it's really satisfying. I have a feeling that it might end up in my regular vocabulary.

I think I'll probably eventually work it into my high school reading group. But I'll have to pick others to go with it. Hmmm. Southern theme? Honey/Bees theme? Religion theme? Sixties theme? There are a lot of possibilities.

Before I say anything else, she's okay.

Jane got hit by a car yesterday. Again.

She's okay, she had to stay overnight at the vet's because they had to put her under to stitch her up, but she'll be okay. She's pretty pissed off about having to wear one of those collars, though.

She didn't break any bones or tear any muscle. She has third degree burns over her belly and a big gash down her back leg. Josh had some pretty hefty bites, because she (understandably) went bonkers.

I guess that she saw a dog across the street and booked out after it--a couple of teenage girls hit her, and would continued running over her if the lady with the dog Jane was after in the first place hadn't yelled at them to stop. (They didn't know she was under the car).

I haven't even seen her yet.

Blast From the Past.

So I was just at Garden Street Market, minding my own business (staring at the Entenmann's, willing one of the chocolate-frosted chocolate cakes to morph into a marshmallow-frosted chocolate cake), when I heard a familiar giggle. Weirdly enough, I knew exactly who it was without even looking, even though I hadn't heard that laugh since I graduated from high school.

Not counting my cousin's wedding, I haven't unexpectedly run into anyone from Maranacook in a million years (well, about nine, I guess). It was crazy. And so we stood in front of the Entenmann's for about a half-hour and talked about what people were up to and who we were in touch with, etc. It was a little awkward, which is bound to happen, but not too bad. She admitted to being one of those people that shows everyone her baby's photo, and proceeded to do so, but coming from her it was nice and funny and not annoying or lame.

It ended really well, because neither of us felt the need to say, "Oh, yeah, what's your number, yeah, we'll definitely get together blah blah blah...". Because really, that's usually a load of crap.

Possible windfall!

A patron just donated a box of children's books to the library--and the book contains about 40 different Three Investigators books--the old editions with the Hitchcock intros and the good covers. If the Children's Director doesn't want them, I'm totally going to buy them.

My most recent book coup was the Serendipity books--someone donated about 27 of the hardbacks, the library didn't want 'em, and now I'm the proud owner. I don't know why I love them so much--normally, they'd be everything that I can't stand in a book--overly moralistic, big huge weepy eyes, unicorns. But for whatever reason, they rule.

Housesitting has its advantages.

Other than getting paid and free laundry that is...

We're able to watch more Freaks and Geeks! Woo-hoo! It's taking us a really long time to watch the whole series, what with the no-TV-at-home thing and all... Josh gave me the boxed set for my birthday back in May, and we just passed the halfway mark with it last night. It might have been the best show ever. It kicks the crap out of stupid, tortured My So Called Life, at any rate.

It might contain the only fictional gym teacher that you genuinely love.

And James Franco as Daniel Desario is so much more likeable than James Franco as stupid Harry Osborne.

I have to go to Bull Moose...

On my way over to the farm (we're house-sitting, which is always fun), I heard an interview with Tom Russell on NPR (regardless of what Josh says, listening to NPR DOES NOT make me a communist). Apparently, he has a new album, which is awesome. He is of the opinion that country music was destroyed in the mid-80's, when the industry decided to cater to a wider market, so now most of it is geared towards "middle-class white golfers".

Unfortunately, I can't seem to link to Tom Russell's website because I'm using Tony's bizarro iMac. Rats.

Keep up with my reading groups.

So, starting this fall, I will not only be running the High School reading group at the library, but I'll be running the Middle School group as well. Here are the (awesome) booklists:

High School

You Don't Know Me, By David Klass
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, By Mark Haddon
Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher
About a Boy, by Nick Hornby

Middle School

The Wanderer, by Sharon Creech
The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner
A View from Saturday, by E. L. Konigsburg
Going Through the Gate, By Janet S. Anderson

As those of you from the Monkey can see, basically the lists have the same theme: "Leila's favorite books". (This summer I did Last Days of Summer--they loved it, as some of them will agree--right, ladies?)

Praying for rain.

Which is shocking, considering that it's been the rainiest summer that I can remember. We've had maybe three sunny days. BUT! Today is the last day of Storytime at the Beach, and I have no desire to do the Hokey Pokey in front of all kinds of scantily-clad teenaged sun-worshippers.

Which reminds me. A fashion don't. (Many who know me will say that I have no room to talk, but, whatever. Bite me). Yesterday afternoon, we were all at the Wharf, drinking drinks. There was a woman in her mid-30s across from us wearing Jo-Lo sunglasses, which was bad enough, but also this awful white tanktop that said, "Spoiled Rotten" across her nunga-nungas in rhinestones, with a magenta bra underneath. The tank tap was delibarately pulled down so that the bra was sticking out. Is this some sort of horrifyingly tacky trend that we up in Maine are unaware of? Am I just getting old?

Geek time (Thursday, after the weekly comics binge).

Whoever is not reading Powers regularly should be. It RULES! Also, even if you don't like comic books, the personal ads at the end make it worthwhile reading for anyone. Two shining examples from the new issue:

I need a girl to prove to family and freinds that I'm not gay. Please help, I'm desperate here.

...As long as you can reach all parts of your body, youre not too fat for me...

(Typos are theirs, not mine, thank you very much).

Also in regards to the new issue, I would just like to say to anyone who had doubts (Collomia!), "I told you so!". I knew that Bendis wouldn't have written about that little girl in the first story arc and just dropped her forever. I'm so smart that it's scary.

Shadowmancer - G. P. Taylor

Before I do anything else...

This is more important than learning how to upload pictures. More important than linking to my friends. More important than bringing my paycheck over to the bank and cashing it so that I can eat breakfast. I need to spread the word.

Shadowmancer, by G. P. Taylor, is the WORST BOOK IN THE WORLD.

I have provided a link to it--but only so you will know what to avoid.

Do not buy it. Do not read it. Run away screaming. If someone tells you that it's the next HP, they obviously don't know what they're talking about and should never be trusted again. Ever.

Now that I have that out of the way, I can continue living my (very exciting) life.

This is it...

I've finally moved on from Friendster and (possibly) joined the blogger revolution. Maybe. Unfortunately, I'm not feeling extremely interesting at the moment.