Grinning With Envy

Like most days when I'm blessed enough to spend an hour at the library, I rather brusquely collided with the fact that I....which metaphor to use here...have a rather ravenous literary appetite. Here was my process today: I checked my shelf for some new titles and jotted a few down. When we got to the library, I did a quick catalog check (only one was in that branch, but I requested two others).

I then went on what I lovingly refer to as a book binge. I wandered the shelves rather randomly, remembering certain titles (what was that book called? Oh, Snow Falling on Cedars, I should read that again) or authors (who wrote A Poisoned Season? oh right, Tasha Alexander. Where's the A's in fiction?), and skimming the titles for anything that catches my eye (Cold - why not?). Sometimes I get a vague impression of what I want, sort of like a food craving. I want a good mystery or when was the last time I read a good sci-fi?.

The point of this rambling is that at the end of the day, I wandered up front with a stack of about six rather randomly chosen books, knowing full well that I had another two at home and I probably won't read all eight of them even being unemployed.

Contrast this with my fiance, who I think indulges my library habit because either he thinks I'm adorable when I'm revved up or feels guilty about something. At any rate while I go slap-happy running around the genres like a pinball on crack, he methodically peruses the new book section at the front of the store and emerges with two books that are so compelling, so interesting, I'd rather trade my entire mystery-bag-du-jour stack for his meager but far more substantial one. In fact, I've had to tear myself away from reading one of them (Gum Thief, which you will definitely be reading about later) to write this.

After praising him for his judicious quality-over-quantity literary philosophy, I have laid down a literary gauntlet: our next trip to the library, YOU will choose all my books. You will choose one book that you know I'll love, one book that you love, and one wild card.

I'll be pretty interested to see what he comes up with (and who he seeks advice from).

Wove, Twu Wove

Just for the record, I want everyone to know I have the best fiancé ever.

"So, you want to go by the library?" he asked me this morning.

"Sure, but what do you want to go for?"

"Oh, nothing really. I just thought it'd be something you would enjoy."

Now there's a man after my own heart.

Iliad 2.0

Yesterday I spent over 12 hours in a Uhaul. I occupied some of that time reading a book on the classics. When my fiancé Nicholas asked, "so what did Paris do after Helen was taken from him?" I jauntily proceeded to retell the Iliad in the most ghetto fabulous way ever as a war between preps and gang lords (warning, some language used for comedic effect):

So Zeus got word from an oracle that one of his sons would bustacap in him, just like he did to his father. So he finds out that Prometheus knows and tortures him to find out which ho he gots to avoid. Turns out it's Thetis, so he shacks her up with Peleus. Unfortunately Zeus forgot to invite Eris, the goddess of discord, at this big Olympian shotgun wedding sort of like that one bad fairy in Sleeping Beauty. Anyway, this royal goddess like totally snubs them by throwing an apple marked "to the fairest" into the mix, and a mega catfight ensues.

Athena, Aprhodite, and Hera claw the other girls out of the running and go to Zeus to pick the coolest shorty of them all. But Zeus knows Hera will be a royal bitch if she doesn't get picked, so he's all like, "I ain't touchin' that bitches." All the other gods do too. So these three catty women all find Paris, this shepherd/frat boy/playa in Troy. They each promise him like, a whole hood to himself, or a badass reputation, or the love of the most beautiful ho in the whole world. Paris picks the last prize and Aphrodite gets the apple. She forgot to tell him that this girl, Helen, is actually already married.

See, Helen was so damn beautiful, her daddy was battin' off playas left and right. So he finally made them all have this big aggro fight and swear they ain't gonna go after the winner. Menelaus brushes all the other haters off and gets the girl. Yay for him.

But then Paris rolls up and is all like, "ho, come ride wif me" and she's all like "okay pimp" so they go back to Troy. Menelaus is all like, "dude that is messed up" so he goes to his brother Agamemnon and is like "go get us a crew and let's go kick Trojan ass."

So they assemble ALL their homies and storm down to the Trojan hood, except that well, it's a really rich hood so they have this huge wall. The Greek gang can't get in, so they basically tool around for 10 Freakin' Years.

In the middle of year 10, the Greeks are stormin' down this one town and they take a girl named Chryseis to be one of their hoes. But Chrysie's dad is like, this major big shot and stuff, so he offers all these Benjamins to get her back. When they don't give her, he calls down some networking skills and gets this nasty virus spread around them. So then they're all like, "oh snap what do we do?" and their oracle dude Calchas is all like, "give back Chrysie" so Agamemnon is all like, "well if I give her back one of y'all's gonna give me a bitch" and Achilles is like "that's so like you, dawg, you always be trippin on us." So then Achilles and Agamemnon have this huge aggro and Achilles goes off and pouts in his crib.

So since Achilles isn't fighting anymore, the Trojans are all like "sweet action!" and go down and really lay on the smack on the Greeks. Caps be bustin' every which way. So Agamemnon goes to Achilles' cousin, Patroclus, and is all like, "yo dawg, put on Achilles' chains and roll up in his chariot and they'll get all shitfaced." So he does, except, the Trojans totally call his bluff and he dies.

So then Achilles gets uber-pissed and starts slaughtering everyone. All the homies just about die. So then Hector, the best Trojan prince of all, he goes out and fights Achilles and gets killed, but then Paris kills Achilles, so everyone's dead now.

So Odysseus, the smart one, he comes up with this ghetto-tastic plan. They build this big-ass horse and leave it in front of the gates, and the rest of the Greek crews go sailing off. The Trojans think they won and so they have this all-night rave and get hammered. But then the Greeks totally bust down the horse doors and bust everyone's balls and basically take over the Trojan hood. Except for this one dude, Aeneas, but that's a whole nother story.

And so all the Trojans were killed but their condoms were good so the Greeks took all those and went home. Which is actually yet another story.