She Might Want to Play a Different Part

     Just read something super-funny over at Texts From Last Night:
(505): Thank you for holding my vodka while the police let me ride their horse.
     I'm currently reading three books.  The first is Anti-Story, a collection of alternative short fiction.  I've been reading it for three years.  It's fantastic.  I keep re-reading selections, and am reading others for the first time.  It's my "leave in the car and take with me everywhere" book.  I can read a shorter or longer piece depending on the wait I have... or a harder piece if I'm around Pink Velour and Co., like last night.

     The second book is my "leave at work" book.  When I'm not distracted by customers or the internet, I do read a lot here.  It's Umberto Eco's On Literature.  It's a collection of essays and lectures he's given.  I like it at work because it's a lot of short pieces, and I can skip selections.  I mean, really, I don't and shouldn't read some of the articles because a few are on specific works with which I am not familiar enough to get that deep into.  An article that mentions Karenina?  Sure, I know she dies and even how.  But an article solely on Dante's Paradisio?  Don't know enough about it, just the Inferno.
     My bedtime book is also Eco, Limits of Interpretation.  These are my first experiences reading about literature, reading about theory.  I'm very relieved that I can follow this.  His writing is very...well, palatable.  Even knowing that English is not the language it was written in, it still has a clear voice to it, and the vocabulary is accessible.  I read this at home as an excuse to lay in bed, not watch television, and stay up late.  Pretty interesting stuff, too.  Other than a linguistics class I once took (that turned out to be cross-listed as a cognitive science class and way over my head) I've never thought of literary theory as having graphs and charts.  I guess it makes sense, though.  My mentor always drew things to help us get what she was talking about.
     Going back to Pink Velour and Co.:  Spent a bit of yesterday hangin' with MommyJubs and her husband.  She said she usually has too much going on (remodeling the house and watching two kids) to get into a book.  I told her she should read short stories or poetry.  It's better than vacummig while the baby's asleep, right?  She's got potential to learn things.  Went to Pink Velour's house later last night, MomFace was there as well.  I had some pictures of my new neice (cute as a button) tucked into the pages of On Literature.  Pink Velour's comment was, "Wow, that's a big book, I don't know how you read so much."  "Oh, it's not that bad.  This is mostly short stuff."  "I could never bring myself to read such a big book; it's too hard."  She really thinks that the bigger a book is, the harder it is to read. 
     This summer, just to pass time at work when HR said we couldn't get on the internet, I read Terry Goodkind's entire Sword of Truth series.  It was a fantasy series written for adults (lots of rape and BDSM).  It was a nice series; I enjoyed it.  The great thing about libraries is that I can read a metric fuckton of books for free.  An added bonus to the library is that most of their copies are hardcover, and in excellent condition.  Pink Velour honestly thought for a while that I was reading one or two HARD books a week!  I was so honored. 
     I'm a bit of a book snob.  This is shocking to me, because, well, I'm not that well-read.  I know a lot about literature without having actually read most of it.  Moby Dick, Invisible Man, Wuthering Heights, Eliot, Blake, Shakespeare- I'm a pro at most of it.  I'm familiar with a lot of American Lit, but I am more educated In British Lit.  World Lit is my weakest point, but I can still hold my own in a conversation if the other person isn't too into it.  That's what makes me a big ol' book snob:  other people. 
True Conversations between DaVinci and the girl who cuts his hair:
     "I just bought this book.  I mean, I don't really read or anything.  But it's about how to keep your boyfriend from cheating on you."
     "Sounds like a good book."
     "It's okay.  I mean, well, it doesn't say what to do if he's already cheated on you."
     "Does it say to leave him?"
     "My BFF said I should leave him too, but I dunno.  I just bought that whole book."
and, yes, it gets better:
     "My wife and I watched Hamlet 2 last night.  It was pretty funny, you might like it."
     "I've never seen the first Hamlet."
     "Well, you can watch Hamlet 2 without having seen the first one.  It's like a separate movie."
     "Well, was that one good?"
     "Yeah.  It's a tragedy by Shakespeare.  It's not as funny as Hamlet 2, so I don't know if you'd like it as much."
     "Wow, how do you know so much about Hamlet?"

     DaVinci is my genius.  My own pocket book of facts; my go-to guy for do-it-yourself projects.  He cannot take care of himself, but he's a pro if you're not him.  He went to college for accounting, and dropped out because "it was bullshit that I had to take so many classes about shit I already knew."  He still helps MommyJubs' husband, and he's the next in line to be the VP at the bank for which he works.  Does DaVinci work at a bank?  No, DaVinci works in a marine supply warehouse.  Yeah, doing manual labor.  He has done it on and off for about nine years.  But he does damn near everything on his own.  He enjoys being his own man, and knowing everything and how to do anything.  He was told as a child and later on as an adult that he may have Asperger's- a high-functioning form of autism.  He's never been officially diagnosed.  I do see it sometimes, in his little odd characteristics.  However, (and this shocks people because he's not really a nice person) he's friendly and people seem to love him.  He's honest and really efficient.  He is a loyal friend, and hates bullshit.  I don't know.  I don't think it's Asperger's; I think he's just a great person.