Floridian Reading Time

I have not been lazy about updating this. Rather I have been in Florida, absorbing vitamin D, which will hopefully help my hypochondriacal self to believe all my hair is not, in fact, falling out.

 I optimistically brought a stack of books with me, despite knowing that I was going in order to visit my best friend who, in all likelihood, would rather drink than sit down and do some side-by-side reading. She plays in an orchestra down there, and so I had some time on my own while she did some concerts, and that was my main reading time.

The main reading focus was Aquamarine, by Carol Anshaw. I had never heard of this book, and how it came into my possession was thusly: my church, which is the best church of ever, has a large GLBT population since it falls under the "More Light" category (translation: we're way into gays). There are two older women in the congregation named Gail and Gerri who I like to refer to as our flagship lesbian couple. They've been together since the '90s and you can't really think about one without the other.

Anyway, so our pastor is leaving. I'm an elder (yes, I'm 25) and so I had to attend a three hour Tuesday night meeting the other week which was an information session on the steps we take to get a new pastor (my church is Presbyterian, and we like meetings). We finished around 10 p.m. and so Gail and Gerri were nice enough to give me a ride home. The first topic that came to my mind in the car was the lesbian lit I'd been reading, so we talked about that, they dropped me off, and I forgot about it. Until the next Sunday when Gail came up to me with a large paper bag and said, in a slightly conspiratorial tone, "These are concerning what we talked about."

 The bag contained four or five lesbian novels, most of them seemingly dated, but I'm kind of a fan of dated lesbian novels. Or at least I enjoyed An Emergence of Green, which is really, really '80s.

 So that's how, despite my mountains of unread books, I spent most of my Florida vacation reading time immersed in a book about an Olympic lady swimmer and the three paths her life could have taken. It was really good, or at least really interesting. She ends up with a lady in only one of them, but I would argue that that one has the happiest ending. When someone lends you a large number of books, solicited or otherwise, you have to read at least one fairly quickly. I don't know if that rule's written down somewhere, but I do have a gut feeling that not to would be rude.

 Now I'm back and working on Water for Elephants before the movie comes out, even though time and experience have taught me that to read the book right before you see the movie almost guarantees you will hate the movie. What adds to this possibility is that I, despite my own inclinations, really like this book. They sell it at TARGET and I really like it. How embarrassing. I'm going to have to read some kind of 'I'm not like all of you, masses!' book after this, like...like something by Trollope or maybe I'll finally finish Notre Dame de Paris, which I keep telling myself will happen someday.

 I have a fun reading adventure planned, the main point of which will be to prove to myself how stupid I am regarding Complex Ideas Thought of By Very Very Smart People.