Bald lovers and smokin' hot vampires

As previously aforementioned, I finally found the public library in my new home town.  

It's about time, I know.  My brain is absolutely starving.  And now I'm headed to the Twilight Zone to feed it.  Which, quite frankly, scares me spitless. What if I'm just like all those other silly gooses who obsess about sparkly vampires who are attracted to clumsy girls?  

Am I ready to know that about myself? 

On the other hand, what if I'm not like all the others and I hate sparkly vampires and clumsy girls?  

What's WRONG with ME? 

Why can't I ever fit in? 

You see my dilemma?

My daughter is scared spitless too. In rude and obnoxious ways. The other night my niece and I were having a conversation about how Stephanie Meyer had a dream that then inspired her to write Twilight.  

My daughter flipped her lid.  "Well I had a dream that I had DANDRUFF!  Should I write a book about that????"  

I don't know why she has such strong feelings about it because she read the whole thing in one sitting--all night long--and then declared in the morning that she hated it. Go figure! My theory is that she hasn't yet embraced her wounded inner clutz.

But anyways . . . at least I found the public library so I can read again for free. 

A LUB libraries with all my heart. They are my sanctuaries. A library to me is like an all-you-can-eat buffet to my in-laws. And I approach it that way. I wander around and around trying to decide which delicious books to consume first. Of course my eyes are always much bigger than my brain.

I read a lot like I eat too.  All at the same time. Why read just one book, when you can read a little of this and a little of that? Sometimes a book comes along like The Lovely Bones or Eat, Pray, Love that completely consumes me rather than the other way around, but I'm usually consuming 2-3 books at a time. 

Right now I'm reading a book called Cult Insanity about polygamy, and a David Sedaris book about being engulfed in flames. I go back and forth between the two depending on how much Prozac I have on hand (figure of speech, peeps. Just trying to fit in here).  

But fo' reals, polygamy's got that freak factor, you know? So then I switch to Sedaris, but he's SUCH a GOOOOOD writer that I always break the 10th commandment and have to start the repentance process. So then I switch back to polygamy and get FREAKED again. 

It's a vicious cycle.   

My problem is I jump ship too easily. My MIL blames it on my commitment issues. When she picks up a book, like it or not, she's 100% fully committed until the bitter end. I can't tell you how many times I've had to listen to her say "OH GAD! Honest to Pete! I just can't stand this book." But she's not a quitter.  No siree. 

Me, I don't judge a book by it's cover, but I neeeeeed the first paragraph to grab me and hold me fast, lest I get distracted and start doing Sudoku or playing Solitaire. 

But there are some books I know I must read no matter what the opening paragraph says.  For instance, on my last (well, technically, first) trip to the library I came across Life of Pi:

I checked it out because for years I've been dying to know what it would be like to float around on a life raft with a tiger, a zebra, and a hyena.   

I checked out books I'd never heard of too.  Like this one:


I don't know why it intrigued me. Maybe because both Amish people and covenants make me itchy. 

But listen to the first paragraph:

Gobbler's Knob had a way of shimmering in the dappled light of deep summer, along about mid-July when the noon-day sun--standing at lofty attention in a bold and blue sky--pierced through the canopy of dense woods, momentarily flingling light onto the forest floor in great golden shafts of luster and dust, causing racoons, moles, and an occasional woodchuck to pause and squint. 

I take issue with 66 word sentences about suns that are high and mighty, woods that are dumb, and woodchucks that are inconsistent.  But mostly I take issue with moles that pause and squint. Next thing you know they'll be wrinkling up their noses and wagging their fingers at all the other animals in the forest.

So I started The Painted Veil. 

The movie looked kinda sexy, but the book begins with a startled cry. 

A woman is terrified and she is quaking and her lips are trembling for a page and a half as she and her quote unquote lover watch the white china door knob turn slowly . . .

Who could it be? Could it be her hub about to find them tattooing a scarlet letter A onto their souls?

She asks her lover frantically, "where is your topee?" and he answers that he left it downstairs.

The problem with this opening is word choice. I accidentally read topee (which is a hat) as toupee. Therefore I imagined her quote unquote lover taking off his hair before they rush upstairs in a passionate embrace.

And then I imagined her hub coming home from work and finding some dude's hair on his kitchen table and thinking, "what the what?"

I was still imagining the bald lover as I read this paragraph:

He gave her a charming smile of which she had always found so irresistible. It was a slow smile which started in his clear blue eyes and traveled by perceptible degrees to his shapely mouth. He had small white even teeth. It was a very sensual smile and it made her heart melt in her body. 

At this point I'm thinking, who cares about his shapely mouth and white even teeth! His freakin' hair is downstairs on your kitchen table!

Then she leans a little towards him, her dark and shining eyes gazing passionately into his, her mouth a little open with desire. At which point she abandons herself with a sigh of ecstasy.

Ewww, lady! He left his HAIR on your TABLE!!!!

That's when I picked up Twilight!