Bibliognost in the Big City

I arrived in NYC on Monday, where I spent the afternoon in Word Brooklyn, buying books, because I don't own any. Or because I have an addiction to buying books. One of these things is true. Then Stephanie took me to lunch at Five Leaves, where they make dreams THAT YOU CAN EAT. These are the ricotta pancakes. I want to move to Greenpoint so I can eat them every day. 

After lunch, we went shopping, where I discovered it is legal in New York to sell house cats in convenience stores.

Later, we met up with Josh and Jenn and Rebecca, where I  posed with Stephanie and Rebs for the greatest redhead picture in the history of redheads.

After dinner, we attended the fantastic Bookrageous party at Housing Works Bookstore. I finally got to meet dozens of people from the internet that I had never met before - it was great! It turns out, I'm a hugger.

The next day, I headed out for my first day of Book Expo America. This is the lobby of the Javits Center, where BEA was held. Javits is ENORMOUS. You could fit all of immediate downtown Portsmouth inside. But you wouldn't want to, because then there would be no place for books.

Lots of vendors were nice enough to hand out tote bags. I filled two with books almost immediately. Quirk Books reps wandered the floor, and if they saw you with their bag, they took your photo to hang in their booth, and gave you a prize. (Notice I am not holding up my bag - it's because I wouldn't set down the cookie Emma Straub gave me.)

This is my new favorite title.

One of the best things about BEA was getting to meet all my Book Riot cohorts! It was an amazing evening. They are all really awesome. We went to dinner at The Half King, where I fell a little in love with the cute tatted waitress who called me Momma. Rachel ordered the fried baby spaghetti monsters.

I stayed with Stephanie most of the week. This was my roommate, Dmitri. He didn't snore, but he did talk a lot. And drool on my pillow.

The next day, I hauled ass to the Javits to make sure I got a place in line for this:

Yes, this happened. Neil Young sat down with Patti Smith and had a conversation about music and writing and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced. They were brilliant and funny. I cried a little. What? Shut up.

I got to spend another dinner with Book Riot cohorts. We sat outside, where the trees dropped annoying little flowers on our meals and in our hair the whole time. I had to pick Rebs clean like a monkey. She and I write the Well-Readheads column together. Here we are enjoying beverages: 

BEA is like summer camp for book people! I got to see so many of my friends. I went to Andrew Shaffer's signing for his new book, "Fifty Shames of Earl Grey." I'm pretty sure the hand sign we're making in this picture means "We miss you, Jerry." 

I also saw this book, and I was disappointed that they didn't have any ARCs to give away, because I have a friend who I think would really like it:

Really. It would have been for a friend.

I spent the last day of BEA like all the other days - filling my arms up with books, and visiting with friends. And I had a meeting next to the Brooklyn Bridge. THAT was impressive. And there was ice cream! All meetings should include ice cream.

On my last day there, I insisted on revisiting the ricotta pancakes before I left. Seriously. I can't get over them.

Thank you to everyone who helped this country mouse find her way around the big city. I had the best time this year! Especially since last year, my front tooth got knocked out. (It's a long story - let's just say there were ninja werewolves and I was outnumbered.)

Here's my haul from my trip. The bag of books I brought home weighed 42 lbs.

And here are Millay and Steinbeck jumping for joy upon my return:

Despite the fantastic time I had in NYC, it's like what Dorothy (that witch-squishing, red-shoed, self-centered bitch) said: There's no place like home. 

I Am a Reader

I am a reader. I have been shaped by books. I have a thirst, a need, a hunger, quenched only by reading. When I open a book, the pages of all the books I have ever read fall open before me. Every book leaves its signature on the fibers of my being. Words swim through my brain like little silver fish. I am born of ink and paper.

I am a book shark - I eat and I eat and I eat, never satisfied. I see a book that I think looks interesting - I take a bite. Sometimes, it's a surfboard. Sometimes it's a delicious seal. No matter - I swallow it down and go off in search of more. Must keep my two rows of teeth sharp. Must keep my brain swollen with information, fact or fiction. I sleep very little. I am a book predator.

I am a reader. Don't fuck with me.

The Books I Love

I had this weird thought earlier, about the books I love: If I put on a big, fuzzy sweater, and that sweater represents my brain, and I take a big jar of glitter, the glitter representing the books I've read, and I dump it over my head, most of the glitter will fall to the floor, but the glitter that sticks to the sweater, those are the books I love.

So...that was my thought.

Trigger Happy

When I was little, my dad would tell me stories about what it was like growing up on Guam. (His father was stationed there when he was ten.) The idea that my dad, from plain old Maine, could have grown up on an island, was fascinating to me, and I was transfixed by his tales. My favorite stories were about how they would wake in the morning to find their house infested with geckos, the little lizards attached to the walls and ceiling, and how they would have to go around and collect them all in a bucket and release them outside. (The whole process would have to be repeated the next morning - tenacious little buggers, them.) And about how he would chase tropical fish through the shallow waters, trying to catch them to bring home for his aquarium. One of the fish I remember him telling me about was the trigger fish, so named because when pursued, the fish would swim into a crevice in the reef or rocks and release its "trigger," a fin which came up off its back and made it impossible for prey to pull it out of its hiding place.

Vanessa Veselka's ZAZEN is like that trigger fish - it is a brilliant, weird, brightly-colored book that swims through your eyeballs and into your brain, where it releases its trigger in your amygdala, and doesn't come out. ZAZEN is one of the first releases from Red Lemonade, a publishing imprint of Cursor, created by literary giant Richard Nash. (He is, to the book world, what Quincy Jones and Martin Scorsese are to their professions. He's a rock star, capital 'ROCK'.) I had the privilege of receiving an advance copy, and was just floored by it. I immediately began telling everyone within arm's reach and on the internet how amazing it was. I couldn't stop thinking about it - it swished through my brain like the sound of skis on snow: Za-zen. Za-zen. Za-zen.

ZAZEN is the story of Della, a twenty-something waitress in a vegetarian restaurant, and the social and political upheaval that is taking place around her (in a country that is just one click of the dial away from being America's actual future.) War is breaking out across the States - some people are leaving the country, some are sticking it out, and some are using this opportunity to carry out their own agendas. The city Della lives in is rife with bomb threats and actual bombings, and she soon finds herself swept up in the revolution. The book is intense and funny, and Della is such a witty, incredibly flawed character - I loved her so much.

I am so unbelievably thrilled that Vanessa is going to be here at RiverRun Bookstore on Wednesday, August 17th at 7pm! (For those of you not in roundhouse-kick range, we will be live-streaming the event, too.) And don't just take my word for it - ZAZEN is getting amazing praise left and right, and Vanessa herself is a really fascinating person. Here is a mini-interview I just did with myself:

Me: Will you ever stop talking about Vanessa Veselka's ZAZEN?

Me: No. *knocks camera out of my hands* *shoves self out of my way*

I hope you can join us and find out for yourselves.

52 Weeks of Twitter Authors: Week 2

Like most people, I have irrational fears. And one of those fears is sharks - I am terrified of sharks. I think they are amazing creatures, but I do not go in the ocean. Or in lakes or rivers. Or swimming pools. (Don't roll your eyes - I saw Jaws 3-D!) Because, with my luck, the one time I go swimming, I will be eaten by a shark. Which makes for a great story, but I am awfully attached to my mortal coil. (I have so many more books I want to read!) Large bodies of water kinda freak me out, anyway. There's, like, stuff in them. This creeps me out. It will surprise no one when I say I also do not go on boats. Because if they stop floating, where do you end up? That's right - in the water. With the sharks and the other creepy stuff, like jellyfish. And Squidward.

However, a few of the books I have read recently involve boats and water. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, told of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who spent 40+ days adrift in a life raft after his plane crashed in the Pacific during WWII. I also read The Curse of the Narrows by Laura MacDonald, which is an amazing account of the day in 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, when a munitions ship crashed into another vessel, and the resulting explosion leveled the entire town, and caused a tsunami so large, it lifted people and objects up and set them down miles away from the blast site. They are both incredible stories.

And that brings me to the second book I read for my 2011 goal: Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye. I first heard about Peter's book on Unbridled Books Twitter feed, and then a few weeks later, at our Emily Mandel / Dan Chaon event at RiverRunBookstore, our rep gave me a galley, along with a rave recommendation of it.

Safe from the Sea is the story of Olaf Torr and his estranged son, Noah. When Noah was young, Olaf was in a boat wreck that altered his life, and changed his behavior, making his home situation tense and difficult. Now, 35 years later, Olaf believes he is dying, and he wants Noah to come visit him at his cabin in Minnesota. Noah's first instinct is to say no, so he is surprised when he agrees. The book alternates between the events that caused the chasm between them as Noah was growing up, and the time they have left to spend together, trying to reconcile.

The wreck, told in flashbacks, is terrifying, and Peter has done a wonderful job making it an entirely believable novel. The character of Olaf poked at my heart a bit, as he reminded me of my laconic grandfather I adored so much. Looking forward to more great things from Peter!

To learn more about Peter Geye, visit here.

52 Weeks of Twitter Authors: Week 1

Last month started off great - I was nearing the end of a great year of reading, and I actually came up with my goal for the new year before 12:59pm on December 31st. I decided for 2011 that I will read one book a week by an author I interact with on Twitter. Having already read wonderful books by several authors on Twitter, I was so excited about this goal, I decided I couldn't wait until January and wanted to start right away.

Hahaha - silly bookslinger!

In return for my enthusiasm for starting a project before the last minute, the universe made me its bitch: I got bronchitis, the heat in my apartment was broken for a week, I took a nasty fall, and my dad had a stroke. December definitely thought that negative attention was better than no attention at all. So, I took my godsmacks and retreated under my blankets to hide until the new year. Once I was ensconced in 2011, I felt safe enough to attempt my goal again. My first pick: Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea.

So, here's my PSA for the day: if you're thinking of throwing a party, and are worried you won't be able to keep your guests entertained, invite Luis. We hosted him this summer at RiverRun Bookstore, and he was marvelous! There can hardly be a more charming storyteller out there. He's a natural at telling tales, and funny, funny, funny. He and his lovely wife Cindy were kind enough to come to see @readandbreathe and I when we traveled to Brooklyn this past fall, and Luis was a rock star at the Brooklyn Book Festival.

Into the Beautiful North is the story of a Nayeli, a teenage girl who convinces her friends to illegally cross the border into the States to help her find her dad, and also seek out 'warriors' to help run the drug dealers out of their Mexican village. Luis's writing is a warm breeze - even in the face of sad situations, the story radiates hope and joy. The teenagers are so delightful, and their adventures are, for the most part, very funny. I particularly enjoyed the road trip Nayeli and her friend Tacho take to look for her dad in Kankakee, Illinois. The descriptions of the scenery and the tourist attractions along the way reminded me of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, a classic. I also really liked their 'bodyguard', Atómiko. This book is great fun. Viva la Luis!

To learn more about Luis Alberto Urrea, visit here.

Well-Redhead

2010 is the best year I've ever had - I saw Wilco, tried cheesecake, posed for the Bookrageous calendar, and visited Brooklyn, just to name a few of the awesome things I did. And thanks to all the lovely Twitter-people who made book recommendations, it also turned out to be my best reading year, too! I enjoyed more of the books I read than any other year I can remember. Here are some highlights, er, a lot of highlights:

TINKERS by Paul Harding Two words: Pulitzer winner.

THE PASSAGE by Justin Cronin Virals are the new black.

MATTERHORN by Karl Marlantes The Center for Fiction's 2010 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel winner.

BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy The bleakest thing I've ever read. Loved it.

THE INFINITIES by John Banville I would take a bullet for John Banville.

FATHER OF THE RAIN by Lily King Never sobbed so much while reading - a fabulously cathartic experience.

SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW by William Maxwell Beautiful 1982 National Book Award winner.

THE TIGER by John Vaillant Best nonfiction I've read in the last five years. RAWR!

ONE BLOODY THING AFTER ANOTHER by Joey Comeau Delightful disturbedness.

ANIMALS by Don LePan Soylent Green is people.

AWAIT YOUR REPLY by Dan Chaon Dark and lovely.

THE CANAL by Lee Rourke Doing nothing can prove to be chilling.

LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry I didn't want this to end.

THE VAULTS by Toby Ball Delicious dystopia!

THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET by David Mitchell I am obsessed with David Mitchell.

TAROKO GORGE by Jacob Ritari "Picnic at Hanging Rock"-creepiness.

THE OTHER by Thomas Tryon Now I know where "The Wasp Factory" came from.

KINGS OF THE EARTH by Jon Clinch Unflinching brilliance.

MY NAME IS ASHER LEV by Chaim Potok Wish I had read this when I was little.

YOU WERE WRONG by Matthew Sharpe I am an unabashed Matthew Sharpe fangirl.

THE REAPERS ARE THE ANGELS by Alden Bell Zombie apocalypse, FTW!

NUMB by Sean Ferrell "And I don't feel a thing..." - Pedro the Lion, The Fleecing

BAD MARIE by Marcy Dermansky I want there to be a Marcy Dermansky Day.

AFTER CLAUDE by Iris Owens For anyone who ever wondered if they were the crazy one in the relationship.

SKIPPY DIES by Paul Murray I feel bad for parents of teenagers...

THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST, 1 & 2 by Rick Yancey Gooey, gory, scary, monsterlicious!

ELEGIES FOR THE BROKENHEARTED by Christie Hodgen Gorgeous - slipped under most radars.

THE REPORT by Jessica Kane Powerful account of a horrific tragedy.

THE ILLUMINATION by Kevin Brockmeier Brockmeier's writing swims in my blood.

PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ by A.S. King Being a teenager is hard - King makes reading about it easy.

UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand "Seabiscuit" author astounds again.

A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY by Laura Grodstein It's like Richard from "The Secret History" grew up and had a son.

BOUND by Antonia Nelson Are we still allowed to call books haunting? Well, it is.

THE ORANGE EATS CREEPS by Grace Krilanovich One of the year's 5 under 35 - she's *amazing*.

TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis Simply wonderful - love it.

There are 10 more days in December - I'll update this list if I read anything else I loved.

Structurally Sound

Every new year, I like to come up with one or two small goals I want to achieve. One year, I sat in a bathtub filled with Froot Loops and milk (see picture below). Another year, I went to see every movie they screened at the Music Hall. I never pick anything unrealistic, like 'climb Mount Everest' or 'read every book I own' (the more unachievable of those two, believe me). Just something fun. And it usually revolves around reading: last year's goal was to read more science fiction. This year's goal was simply to read more than I did last year. I like having a little bit of structure to follow. As 2011 approaches, I have been racking my brain for a goal - and yesterday, I finally hit on it: I want to read one book a week by someone I discovered through Twitter.

Now, while the Twitter haters still be hatin', let me say this: this year, I have read just under 100 books. Almost all of those books were recommendations made to me on Twitter, and this achievement was also significant in that I have enjoyed more of the books I have read this year than any other year I can remember. That says a lot to me. Also, 21 of them were books by people I met on Twitter.

I have 17 more books in my house I bought because I met the author on Twitter. For instance, I still have to read "Edinburgh" by Alexander Chee, one of my favorite human beings, both on the internet and in person. January will bring the release of the lovely Emma Straub's first book, "Other People We Married", which is sure to be wonderful. And I'm sure as the year goes by, I will acquire more.

In thinking about this all day, and now, while writing this post, I realized I am so excited to get going on this goal, I am going to start early - this week, in fact! For my first book, I have chosen "Into the Beautiful North", by Luis Alberto Urrea. I came across Luis on Twitter this spring, and then had the pleasure of hearing him speak at RiverRun this summer. He was fantastic - I believe there isn't a more charming storyteller out there. And his wife Cindy is wonderful, too.

All right, all right, enough talk already - I'm off to read. I'll try and post a blog about the book I choose each week. And please feel free to make suggestions - you have yet to steer me wrong, my Twitter lovelies.

Gimme Fiction

"We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck them. " - John Waters

Ready for one of the most obvious statements of the century? Here it is: I love books. LOVE books. And not the candy, flowers, and i's-dotted-with-hearts kind of love. I'm talking the obsessive, unreasonable, warrants-a-restraining-order kind. I have hundreds and hundreds of books in my apartment. Books stacked from floor-to-ceiling. Bookcases with shelves buckling under the weight. Books piled on the kitchen table, on the counters, on my desk, on my nightstand. Books shoved under the bed, in closets, in drawers. Thank goodness I still have enough wits about me to know I need to go to work so I can afford to buy food and pay the rent. Otherwise, I would never leave the house - I would be in here day and night with all my books (my precioussssses!), wearing the same pajamas for weeks and ignoring the phone and the landlord's knocks at the door. I'd be reading books by candlelight because the power had been shut off and worrying that I may have eaten the cat, until I find the note from her, reminding me that she's rented an RV for the summer to follow Wilco around on tour.

This isn't a recent obsession of mine. It's not like those stories you hear about people who hit a certain age, and wake up with a driving need to collect Tiny Tim memorabilia or tea cozies made out of panda skins. No, my love of books goes way back, even before Joanie loved Chachi. My mother, also a raging bibliophile, taught me to read well before I entered nursery school, and she would bring my younger brother and I to the library at every available opportunity. Eventually, she got a job there, and from then on, all my free time was spent lounging on a yellow plastic whistle seat beside her desk, reading Hardy Boys mysteries and Choose Your Own Adventures. I had an unlimited number of books at my disposal, and the idea that I could amass a collection of my own had not yet occurred to me.

Years later, my mother left her position at the library for a job at the local bookstore. I would go there after school each day, and in return for unpacking boxes and straightening the shelves, the owner would let me choose a book to take home. Holy cats - I was allowed to pick out books to read and actually KEEP THEM! It was around this same time that I finally got a room of my own. Books quickly started piling up on the floor, so my parents bought me a bookcase. I spent night after night arranging my books in different ways - by author, by title, by publisher, by color. I bought book plates, and proudly marked each one as my own. I soon became so enamored with my library, I decided I didn't want anything else in my room *but* my books. I gave away my desk, my dresser and my bed, and began sleeping in my closet, so my books could have a space all to themselves. (My parents made no objections over this, probably finding a bit of bibliomania less worrying than boy-craziness or partying.)

When I graduated and moved out, I had a few hundred books of my own. This number quickly quadrupled. Left to my own devices, my mania raged. With no one to keep me in check, I began spending money for bills on books instead. (I once existed on peanut butter crackers and cans of vanilla frosting for two weeks, because I spent all my alloted grocery money buying $250 worth of Penguin classics.) I would read a book that I really enjoyed, and then go right out and purchase everything else the author had ever written. I would buy every book I could find on a subject that interested me. (Holy cats, there are a LOT of books about Lizzie Borden.) Though I was reading a book every day or two, my ability to keep up with the unread stacks spiraled out of control. Complaints about lack of living space were lodged, by boys and housecats alike. By the time I was 30, I owned 3,500 books. And then I found out I had to move again. (Insert 'Charlie Brown has just had the football pulled away again' noise here.)

Enter my savior, Tom Holbrook. I stopped in RiverRun Bookstore one day to ask if he knew of any place I could sell books. Instead, he mentioned that he was opening a used bookstore soon, and would be happy to take them. I spent the next few days culling my collection. I thought it would be difficult to choose, but I adopted a tough love stance when selecting. When SecondRun opened, it started out with 900 of my books on the shelves. I also donated another 35 boxes of paperbacks to Goodwill. This made moving so much easier. Of course, what I didn’t know at the time, is that Tom is actually the devil, because right after I made tons of space on my bookcases, he offered me a position working at the stores. This was like hiring Imelda Marcos to work at Steve Madden - I started putting my staff discount to use immediately, negating all my hard work. Clever man, that Tom.

Fast-forward four years - I find myself moving books just so I can set a plate down and shoving books aside so I have a spot to sleep in bed. Stacks regularly crash to the floor in the night, waking me in a panic, certain that Perry Smith is in the house. It takes longer and longer for me to find where the fur shark is hiding. (I'm told she has lost her hearing in her old age, but I think she just chooses to ignore me.) So, I've decided it's time to whittle away at the stacks again. In pulling books to bring to SecondRun, I realize I possess copies of books I still haven't read that I've owned longer than Justin Bieber has been alive. I love having tons of books - keeping them around gives me a cozy pancakes-for-dinner feeling. It would be great if I could read every book I owned, but realistically, even if I read one every day, it would still take me over three years to get through them. And, on top of that, I still buy one or two new books every day. So, I have thanked 400 of them for their years of service, packed them in boxes, and sent them on their way to SecondRun. There's an entire case devoted to the new batch of books I brought in - I hope you'll stop by and check it out. These are wonderful books in need of a more attentive parent than myself. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for some delicious peanut butter crackers.

Woah-oah, Here She Comes

In case you haven't heard me say it a million times already, I have the *best* job in the world. And one of the perks of this job is receiving advance reading copies. It's when publishers and authors send us copies of their books before they're released, in the hopes we will read them and get excited, and, in turn, get you excited to read them. And no other non-fiction book has gotten me so wound up in the last five years as John Vaillant's "The Tiger." It is a phenomenal book! I read it back in March and then had to wait *five* whole months before I could start selling it. But that didn't stop me from talking about it to everyone in a ten-mile radius. I talked about it so much that it was driving my coworkers crazy. "Please" said Tom, "please tell people about other books, too. Books we can actually sell right now." I conceded - a little. And in August, when "The Tiger" was released, my enthusiasm was validated! Not only did it get rave reviews, but many of you read it and loved it, too.

If you couldn't already tell from the title, the book is about, yes, a tiger. But not just any tiger - a badass Siberian tiger that decided to make Little Debbie snack cakes out of poachers in Russia in 1997. That's right - it's TRUE. The book follows Yuri Trush, the leader of a tiger conservation unit, whose job it was to find and stop the big cat. There are also appearances by the tiger itself, but Vaillant never over-anthropomorphizes the animal - you won't catch the tiger quoting Nietzsche or updating its Twitter feed. ("Hey, y'all! Just 8 a guy 4 breakfast. Was mostly gristle - for realz. Gave me a tummy ache, LOL. #rawr") But what I really loved about the book is that it isn't just about the tense events in 1997, it's also chock-full of knowledge, like the history of man/animal interactions, Russia, communism, and perestroika. And Vaillant makes everything he writes about, even pine nuts, seem fascinating. I also now have a new irrational fear - being mauled by a Siberian tiger. (Is it really that irrational? I'm awfully attached to my mortal coil.)

Now for EXTREMELY exciting news - John Vaillant is going to be at RiverRun on Monday, Oct. 18th at 7pm, to talk about "The Tiger"! I was thinking, in the spirit of the book, I'll dig a big pit in RiverRun and cover it with branches. Hope to see you there - I'm so excited for the reading, I can barely sit still. Someone had better bring a tranq gun.

Touch Me, I'm Sick

I have a touch of bibliomania. At last count (which was this morning, starting at around 5am, because I couldn't sleep), I have 1,037 books in my house that I haven't read. Haven't. Read. I moved into this apartment three years ago with only 200 books I had read. Since then, I have been gathering books like a crazy little red book squirrel, apparently storing them for when I have years of free time to read. I admit I have a problem - and that problem is the most awesome problem you can have! *high five*

My apartment is now like a tiny bookstore. Every few weeks I introduce the newest books into the stacks, most likely to be forgotten for a while. My next read usually ends up being the last book I brought home. Many times, I have accidentally purchased a book I already own. But it's a delight to go over the shelves and look at all the shiny books, waiting to be picked. It's a great habit, if you can get it.

Some numbers, at a quick glance:

-1, 037 unread books

- 486 are nonfiction titles

- 297 are hardcover

- 187 are advanced reading copies

- 78 are for young readers

- 45 are by authors I met on Twitter

- 28 have the word 'murder' in the title

- 23 feature vampires

- 19 have cats on the cover

- 17 have the word 'girl' in the title

- 13 have the word 'city' in the title

- 7 have the word 'tattoo' in the title

- 7 feature zombies

- 6 feature Abraham Lincoln, in some capacity

- 5 I bought to impress @bookavore

- 4 feature superheroes

- 4 feature pirates

- 3 feature ninjas

Imagine how much reading I could have done in the time it took to count all that? Does anyone else have it this bad?

Zombies Made Me Cut My Hair

On Wednesday, I cut off five inches of my hair. (From the bottom, of course, duh.) Hair is really the only thing you would want to sever from your body - it would stink to remove five inches of, say, your arm. Or your intestines. (That's a real buzz kill.)

Speaking of removing intestines - I just read THE REAPERS ARE THE ANGELS by Alden Bell, and I loved it. I am such a fan of zombies (those tenacious little monkeys). Has the story of people trying to survive after a zombie apocalypse been done before? Many, many times. But, it's not what you say, but how you tell it that counts, and Bell does it up right. The characters are realistic, the plot never drags and there's tons of gore. Delightful!

Somewhat related: while I was reading REAPERS, I got to thinking - what if there really were zombies? What if, one day, I got up and went downstairs for some juice and - whoa! Zombies! In the book, as in most zombie lore, the monsters are slow moving and easily outmaneuvered. So why do so many people end up as snacks? I'm not even close to athletic and I can't run very fast, but I'm sure I can manage enough of a pace to keep away from them. Unless, of course, they manage to grab a fistful of my hair - MY HAIR! I cannot believe I am going to be brought down in the zombie apocalypse by my long, lovely locks! That settles it - if/when the zombies come, I'm going to chop all my hair off, right before I outfit myself with handguns and a flame thrower.

This thinking progressed into trying to remember the last time I had received a haircut. Which I realized was two years ago. And, so, this is how I came to be holding five inches of detached hair. Sometimes, when I find myself wondering "How did I end up naked in Fruit Loops?" or "Whose blood is this?" I walk myself backwards through the thought process. Inside my brain = SCARIER than a zombie apocalypse. Better hope they eat me first.