I like my literature a little on the trashy side

Without a heart, I can never really know what it would be like to love someone, or every really understand a trashy novel.
~ Tin Man, some weird anime version of The Wizard of Oz

I have always surrounded myself with books. Man, I love those things. I don't ever remember a time when I didn't read. When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was read the novel synopses in the back of the volumes of the supermarket encyclopedias my parents "bought" with trading stamps. I knew more about Tobacco Road than any seven-year-old should have.

Now, that's not to say that I didn't read standard kid stuff -- Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler -- all took up space on my bookshelves. Then there were magazines -- I learned about life from the "Can This Marriage Be Saved" column in The Belle's Ladies Home Journal magazines. Cultivated my love of cooking from Bon Appetit. Read classic sports journalism in Sports Illustrated. I have a good friend from high school whose indelible memory of me from those days is me reading Gone with the Wind. Still have the copy I read then, held together with ancient masking tape.

But all that changed the summer I was 12. I discovered Harlequin romances. Each volume dirt cheap at the grocery store. I wasn't much for the historical versions -- I was more the contemporary romance kinda girl. Even tried my hand at writing one -- my hero's name was Van Doren. Don't remember what the beautiful, spunky heroine's name was, but she was an Olympic swimmer slumming as a life guard at a resort in Florida.

Go ahead and gag. I know I am.

Harlequin romances. My gateway drug. To my still-current dirty little secret.

True Confession I: I love trashy novels. More than anything.

First it was Judith Krantz with Scruples. Then more of her genre. Jacqueline Susann. Valley of the Dolls. Sidney Sheldon. My goddess Jackie Collins. A truly deliciously horrible set of books about a group of deliciously repulsive women called The Crazy Ladies, written by a woman called Joyce Elbert. In that quinella, the "hero" was a pervy physician named Fingerhood. Yes, really.

True Confession II: At this moment in time, I pretty much read only trashy novels. Or silly little murder mysteries.

Nothing of literary value. Nada. It's all fluffier than the cotton candy kiosk at the circus.

Yes, I have a degree in English literature. Yes, I've read some of the world's greatest novels. I love to talk about those books still to this day. And there was a time when I read worthwhile things for pleasure. But somehow I've slid into the lazy crazy habit of not engaging with books that make me think past "wow, that's an interesting sexual scenario" or "my goodness, that woman is a slut."

My literary side right now is the equivalent of a Kardashian.

I am vapid. And I am unashamed.

When you are to the point when you order your beach trash from Amazon.uk, you just need to own it. By the way, just because a book text contains words like colour, glamour and dodgy, doesn't mean it's not a smutty book. It's just posh trash.

Not sure how I ended up here mired in literary muck. Maybe it's been collateral damage from my crazy, stressful life. Or perhaps I still have a little burnout from my crazy college schedule when I would have to carefully read at least two novels a week while holding down a full-time job -- and then have to be versed enough in them to participate in class discussions. Hammering out One Hundred Years of Solitude in a week isn't for the faint of heart. (But oh, what a beautiful book.) Or perhaps it's more that I came to need that discussion and interaction with others when it comes to a book of significane, now that I think about it. I'm a girl in need of a book club. Maybe.

PS: I got my English degree with a GPA of 4.0, thankyewverymuch. And my nine hours of grad school credit -- 4.0. Just for the record. *Cheshire Cat grin*

The new year always heralds a clean slate in terms of personal goals and objectives, hopes and dreams. A full calendar with all its pages on one side of the spiral signifies options and opportunity. Think I might add reading books that might engage something than my endorphins to the list. Add a little protein to the junk food literary diet I've been on. It'll be good for my mind to have something to process so that the mush my brain's become isn't so, well, mushy.

But for every Jeffery Eugenides book I add to the top of my nightstand, for every Chuck Klosterman essay I mentally process, I'll guarantee that there'll be a Jackie Collins or Brit Posh Trash book to match it.

I am woman. I like smut.

The truth is, everyone likes to look down on someone. If your favorites are all avant-garde writers who throw in Sanskrit and German, you can look down on everyone. If your favorites are all Oprah Book Club books, you can at least look down on mystery readers. Mystery readers have sci-fi readers. Sci-fi can look down on fantasy. And yes, fantasy readers have their own snobbishness. I’ll bet this, though: in a hundred years, people will be writing a lot more dissertations on Harry Potter than on John Updike. Look, Charles Dickens wrote popular fiction. Shakespeare wrote popular fiction—until he wrote his sonnets, desperate to show the literati of his day that he was real artist. Edgar Allan Poe tied himself in knots because no one realized he was a genius. The core of the problem is how we want to define “literature”. The Latin root simply means “letters”. Those letters are either delivered—they connect with an audience—or they don’t. For some, that audience is a few thousand college professors and some critics. For others, its twenty million women desperate for romance in their lives. Those connections happen because the books successfully communicate something real about the human experience. Sure, there are trashy books that do really well, but that’s because there are trashy facets of humanity...

~ Brent Weeks

It's the Thought that Counts... Isn't It?

If it's the thought that counts, then why do we have fingers?
~ Piglet

Y'all will be pleased to know that I've created a new spin on that tired old thing known as mathematics -- something geared more towards the fabulously right-brained members of society. It's called JaneyMath and features such premises as "rounding up to the nearest whole dollar when entering check amounts in the ledger assures you of always having more money than you think you do in the old bank account." See. Perfect sense. (I can feel the heads of all the accountant-types I know exploding in five-four-three-two...)

In JaneyMath, there's also something called the Present Theorem: For every gift-giver, there is at least one gift-receiver. Seems obvious, no?

However, there's nothing in said theorem about the intent of the gift-giver nor the attitude of the gift-receiver. We add our own subjective colors when it comes to that.

Picture it: Christmas, 1998. The Mister and I had just been married for a year and were still trying to figure out the whole "whose family do we spend what holiday with" chore. We'd done Thanksgiving with his mother in Baltimore, taking the AutoTrain in order to pick up some furniture she had for us. Christmas was split a bit, with an early celebration here locally with my folks and then several days with my father and step-mother-in-law at a mini family reunion in north Alabama. Whew.

Opting to have a little celebration at home before we hit the road on Christmas Eve night, we packed the car and then sat down for a little dinner and present unwrapping. There were lots of oooohs and ahhhhs as we revealed all sorts of treats underneath paper and ribbon.

And then we got to the boxes from The Mister's mother. I can't remember specifically what they all were -- most likely a pullover sweater for him, along with probably a Home Depot gift card and maybe a weird book by some religiously fundamental author or a "doctor" espousing a kooky unorthodox position on health and healing. There's not a lot of variety in her gift-giving repertoire. Actually there is, but let's save that conversation for another time. When I have more wine available.

Finally, there was a large box for me. I'd already received some bolts of fabric she'd picked up on a mission trip to Central America. Gorgeous cloth, but damned if I still don't know what to do with it. Anyhoo.

I tore the paper off, opened the box, pulled aside and discovered... a set of cat stove burner covers.

Wow. Just wow.

It was at that moment that I was immensely thankful I was opening the gift without the giver present. The look on my face said it all.

At the time, my beloved kitty-witty Roxanne was still around, afoot and underfoot. Black, with the exception of a white bib and white paws, she was my spoiled little minx, named after the iconic song by my favorite band, The Police. And the cats on the burner covers looked a lot like Roxanne. Nifty.

The way I see it, there are two sort of people who have cats as pets. People who like cats. And cat people.

People who like cats are just that -- they dig felines. It's not necessary to have cat images a-go-go on myriad things in their possession. They like their pet. That's kind of it.

Cat people, well, are the opposite of that. Please note that I'm not judging cat people. Some of the nicest folks I know are cat people. You do your thing (meow), I'll do mine (le mew, le purrrr.)

But. In the dictionary, next to the phrase "cat person, subgenus obsessive," is a picture of my mother-in-law.

And she assumed that because I had a cat, I liked cat stuff. That I was a cat person.

Ai yi yi.

I was extremely thankful that we had a gas stove at the time and the covers didn't even fit, saving me from having to whip them out when the M-I-L came to visit. This gift was a mismatch literally and figuratively.

And a classic example of "it's the thought that counts."

It's provided me with a good lesson in the art of gracious acceptance, though. Which has proved invaluable.

See. Silver lining. Even in the form of some cat stove burner covers. WIth some help from JaneyMath.

Gracious acceptance is an art - an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving... Accepting another person's gift is allowing to express his feelings for you.
- Alexander McCall Smith

A Present for a (Semi) Pretty Girl

The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.

~ Richard Moss

True confession: I rather run hot/cold when it comes to Christmas "stuff." Not talking about the pure essence of the season, for that is one of the cornerstones of my Christian faith. I'm always fired up and passionate about that. My pre-Will years of writing and/or directing my church's Christmas programs have provided me with some wonderful experiences using my God-given talent and a lifetime's worth of stories.

No, I'm talking about all those other trappings. The ones that probably qualify as pop culture. Christmas specials and oft-cloying cutesy holiday themes and symbols-of-the-moment. I'm not really an Elf on the Shelf kinda girl, for example. And although I love it as a rule, some Christmas music leaves me meh. (Yep, Michael Bublé, I'ma lookin' at you. Don't get me started on The Biebs.)

But there's one piece of pop culture Christmas tchotchkes that is cherished by me more than any other. I know the dialogue by heart. My tree is full of representative ornaments. I have table tableaus and books and snow globes and and and...

A Charlie Brown Christmas.

My favorite then, now and always. The perfect blend of the sacred and the secular. Never mind that I *am* Lucy Van Pelt (just ask my family) and that I always tear up whenever Linus volunteers to tell Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about.

So when I saw Hallmark had put out a book "of" the story featured on the television special -- complete with sound buttons that correspond to the different parts of the tale, I knew I had to buy it for Will. He loves those books -- they're more about being able to push buttons and make noise for him than the actual story, though. However, I figured I'd give it a try. At the very least, I'd be amused.

Hush.

So night before last, after a chaotic day that involved him having a small seizure on the PE field (sigh), I sat down on the comfortable green couch in our kitchen and picked up the book. Pushed a button or two to see if I could get his attention.

And I did.

He sat down next to me. I figured we'd sit there for a minute or two, start reading, push a couple of buttons, he'd close the book with a resolute "THE END" and we'd be on to our next thing. Mr. Short Attention Span present and accounted for.

Color me wrong.

I began to read the story. He scooted over to me, to sit close. Peering down to look at the pictures on the page. Then looking up at me and smiling so wide and pure it took my breath away. He helped turn the pages. Laughed at the silly sound affects -- Charlie Brown's "Good Grief!" was a particular favorite. And kept smiling. All the way through to the end, when I sang along with the "Hark the Herald Angels" button and he giggled.

It was a perfect moment. At least for me.

Will gave me an amazing gift in those 10 minutes -- the gift of his attention. We engaged together in something that has a huge place in my heart. And he enjoyed it.

Yesterday was extremely trying -- my sweet boy had another very serious scary seizure early this morning that necessitated an ambulance ride to All Children's and a several hour camp out in the ER that included many tests and a whole bunch of poking and prodding. My heart and soul ached for him, watching him sleep and struggle to regain baseline. But my spirit was buoyed through the stress and fear and exhaustion by many things -- the support and love of friends far and near through texts, social media and a phone call; the amazing care given by his hospital entourage; and the time we spent together with Charlie Brown, Lucy and the gang.

I may receive tangible gifts this holiday season. But none will mean more to me than the gift of attention and love my Will gave to me as we read a Christmas story together.

Sacred. Precious. Unforgettable.

Oooooh! Shiny!

Lucy: Say, by the way, can you play "Jingle Bells?"
[Schroeder proceeds to play "Jingle Bells", which sounds like a traditional grand piano]
Lucy: [interrupting] No, no. I mean "Jingle Bells." You know, deck them halls and all that stuff?
[Schroeder begins to play again, with the piano sounding like an organ]
Lucy: [interrupting again] No, no. You don't get it at all. I mean "Jingle Bells." You know, Santa Claus and ho-ho-ho, and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls.
[gazes lovingly at Schroeder, who then out of frustration taps one key of the piano while playing "Jingle Bells," which sounds like a child's toy piano]
Lucy: That's it!

'Tis the season for giving. Unless you've been living under a rock or on Ice Station Zebra (and even there, I suspect Target might have bought ad space on a glacier or something) you've been inundated with tweets and texts and emails and tv spots and billboards and catalogs and and and... all touting DEALS! and SALES! and BARGAIN! for the PERFECT GIFT for that SPECIAL SOMEONE!

You know, presents to pretty girls. Ahem.

True (not so secret) confession: I LOVE presents. Getting, giving, selecting, getting. Many moons ago, when we could still be considered newlyweds, The Mister and I took a class with our Sunday School group about the five love languages. My number one love language -- by a HUGE margin -- is receiving gifts. I'm clapping my hands in glee at just the thought of getting a present. YAY!

Gifts to me signify a tangible representation of someone thinking about you. Don't have to be fancy or posh or... wait for it... expensive. It's really the thought that counts. And lest you think I'm one of those dames who just likes to receive, I love to give gifts to those I adore just as much. There's so much fun in seeing a little something-something that either reminds you of a person or is a piece that special someone would just love -- and then getting and giving it. I'm clapping my hands in glee again.

Yeah. I know.

Gonna be talking a lot about this particular subject this month -- I'm pulling off the bandaid and getting ambitious, participating in NaBloPoMo during December, which has the theme of, you guessed it, gifts.

Your "presents" will be most welcomed.

Ouch. That's really bad -- even for me.

But still -- thank you! I'm here all month! Try the veal! Maestro!