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December 01, 2005
LeVar Burton
I’ve recently become a bookworm, like hardcore reader.
I probably should've become a bookworm (what an awful word, bookworm) a million years ago because of the fact that I like to write, but no, I wasn't big into books. Stupid, I know.
I’ve always liked magazines. I currently have a subscription to BlackBook, Dwell, Vanity Fair, Elle Decor, Reader’s Digest, Domino and Lucky. I read Parenting and Vogue at the nail salon. And I get my celebrity gossip online now. I devour magazines, cover to cover, and I can’t stand it when someone else (clears throat, you J, you) gets his mangy little fingerprints all on the slick pages, opening them all wide letting the new magazine smell escape. I really hate it when a female comes through and opens the perfume samples, even if the magazine’s already been rifled through. Don’t know why. Females don’t really come through here though because this ain’t that type of party.
When it comes to books though, I’ve always been much more selective. I start but I hardly ever finish. I feel guilty about it too, but it doesn’t stop me from putting the book down. I tried really hard to finish White Teeth. Couldn’t get through it, but the upside is that that particular book looks really nice on a piece of freshly polished furniture.
I am capable of finishing a book though. And recently, due to both Oprah and my inability to go outside for fear of activating my eczema, I have been a voracious reader.
I finished Da Vinci Code because I just needed to know all the answers.
I just bought and finished Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America because there’s a part of me that enjoys the rush of getting pissed off about inequality. Enjoy is probably not the right word, but I always feel like I might be smarter having read an essay or a book written by an activist or someone that gives a shit about something important. Not that my other interests (vintage Louis Vuitton clutches and Making the Band) are unimportant, but a girl can have range, damn.
Thanks to Oprah, I read A Million Little Pieces in two days. Stayed up until 4:20 (oh, the irony) in the morning the first night with it. J is so annoyed now that I’m a reader. One, the lamp is on his side of the bed but that’s what he gets for putting a lady by the door. That’s bad feng shui, plus if a killer comes up in here, I’ll be the first shot. There’s no proof or logic in that, but for real, should a true gentleman let a lady sleep on the side nearest the door? I don’t think so. And two, he’s not a fan of being shhhhushed all day and all night.
It’s not easy to be a reader in this house either. J’s always got something musical going on. Right now, he’s producing some metal band. Every day, in the basement, they’re down there tinkering away, playing the same parts over and over. It always sounds the same to me, no better or worse than the last 47 times, but repetition is the key to perfection, I guess. And every night, J’s got his headphones on listening to the parts he played all day and I can’t believe he’s not deaf yet. Through the headphones, I can hear the screaming and the ten minute metal riffs.
I just try to get my read on though.
A Million Little Pieces was awesome. Not even because the man is a master of metaphor or anything like that. It was just straightforward and insane. Drugs will fuck you up, basically, and I like all stories about drug addiction. I especially love documentaries on crystal meth when the addicts start taking VCRs apart and shit. I’ll never understand it. Don’t you need that VCR to pawn for your next fix? Addiction makes people crazy. I know for a fact that I have an addictive personality so I stay away from crack and other evils like Twinkies and chocolate covered pretzels and entire boxes of Lucky Charms and any artificial fruit snacks for children. I’ll just eat it up until it’s gone and then look in the mirror at my pooch and say “damn you” to myself.
I’m starting My Friend Leonard tonight. And this morning, I read Shopgirl. I’d hate to ruin it for anyone that hasn’t read it yet (so skip the next couple of sentences) but um, eww. I was a little grossed out by the ending. And also, I couldn’t picture the characters as they were written because all I see are the actors playing the parts in the movie that I will see this weekend with a member of my book club (details to follow). I had to think of Claire Danes and Steve Martin in nasty entanglements of the sexual variety and I was like, eww. Yes, my boyfriend will one day have sagging ass balls and white hair but still, I am not trying to think of that today. I only want to think of that when I look down at my damn self and see that the end is near, thank you very much. (Off topic, but about fighting age – has anyone tried Strivectin and if so, holler at your girl here: realworldmelissa@gmail.com).
My book club, you ask? Yeah, I am in Oprah’s officially now, but I have my own here on Long Island. J’s business partner’s little sister (this anonymity shit is getting long-winded) likes the same stuff I like for some reason and we’ve decided to start reading together. We discovered our similarities one day when I was at her brother’s house and I noticed a copy of Amy Fisher’s autobiography. I took the book, and when I was done reading it, J’s business partner asked me to return it to its owner, his sister.
I screamed, “You love Amy Fisher?” as I slammed the book on her desk. She works for her brother, isn’t that adorable?
She said, “Yes, I love her…”
From there, we discovered a bunch of things we both love up to and including the following:
Making the Band, America’s Next Top Model (eye roll, ugh ugh ugh Nicole, why!), Dog the Bounty Hunter and Jeopardy.
She hasn’t converted me over to The O.C. just yet, but I got her started on The Apprentice, yes the Martha Stewart one. And I think I can get her into Intervention. She says I should watch some tattoo show, but I could just look around J’s office if I wanted to do that. Everybody’s tatted up in there. Neck tattoos, too, umhmm. I have to take her suggestions easy though. She loves this insane show called Lazy Town on Nickelodeon and I couldn’t get down.
So, she lent me Shopgirl and I gave her A Million Little Pieces. Tonight, I’ll have to dig through her library to see what I’ll be reading after My Friend Leonard.
It’s a shame I can’t share my new love of reading with J. He’s never read a book in his whole life, just like Posh Spice. Isn’t that crazy? He blames astigmatism (undiagnosed), but seriously, how can he not have read a book ever? How’d he get through Hebrew school without having to read?
And he’s somebody that needs to pick up a book because he can hardly speak English. The other day we were arguing over the TV. I wanted to watch Designed to Sell and he hates that show. He said, “Babe, it’s stupid. These people decide to buy houses over $50 scones! It’s just stupid.” Scones? Like biscuits? What, I said! Turns out he meant SCONCES, like the lighting.
Another time, he said he couldn’t believe the DMV is located here in this “run of the muck” plaza, just your every day “run of the muck” plaza. I said, “Run of the mill, asshole” (lovingly, of course) and he insisted he was right.
Then there was the time that we disagreed on how to actually get into the world of “Blacktino” vampires on MySpace. Yes, we sometimes spend a cozy evening by the fireplace looking at the fascinating MySpace profiles of black folks and Latino folks that believe themselves to be vampires and they live in the Bronx. He said, “Babe, let me click on them! Do you want to get into a physical alteration?” Oh really, J, are you going to hem the shit out of my pants right now?
He also calls stray, scraggly hairs in his perfect beard “strangle hairs.” There are millions and millions more and I need to start writing them all down. In his defense though, it might be because he speaks fluent Malaysian and fluent Spanish and so his English has just taken a backseat. That’s what he thinks it is anyway.
Whatever, that fool still needs to read a book. That's not to say he isn't brilliant, in many ways he is absolutely genius, but reading is just not his forte as it is mine. And yes, I know a club of only two readers hardly makes a club, but if you'd like to join start reading My Friend Leonard and we can discuss in a couple of days. The cover is pink too, really cute on the table.
Posted by melissah at December 1, 2005 08:30 PM