Daniella had a plan, but she wouldn’t tell me what the plan was.
That wasn’t fair, I thought. I’ve always had a philosophical problem with people who tell you they have a plan but then won’t tell you what it is. I understand not telling the plan if the reason is “a need to know basis, and you don’t need to know.” I get that, but Daniella never said that. She just grinned at me whenever I asked about her new plan.
Our original idea was to go to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, establish ourselves as a couple, and then break up. Daniella would be the jilted girlfriend who had been betrayed, and some wealthy Episcopalian would take my place, marry her, and then Daniella would take all his money (probably through a messy divorce) and be financially stable the rest of her life.
What did I get out of this? I got to live in sin with Daniella for a few more weeks. It’s not that I wanted to break up with her. When she put on her thick, black glasses and spoke softly, I could completely fall for her like that, but then she’d loudly curse out a mom in public, and the illusion would shatter. I couldn’t live for long with someone who picked loud arguments in public. I’d get stressed out too much.
“Why did you change your mind about the plan?” I asked after I realized Daniella wouldn’t reveal her plan. She had ways of making me talk, but I couldn’t use her own tactics on her.
“Father Murdock,” Daniella said. “He made me understand how important marriage is.”
I was a bit skeptical.
Daniella continued. “He told me that if somebody isn’t ready to get married, it’s wrong to put pressure on him.”
I was tempted to laugh. Father Murdock thought he was talking about me.
“You listened to a priest?” I said.
“He’s right,” Daniella said. “Besides, marriage is years and years and years of work. I don’t want to waste years and years.”
“When did you talk to Father Murdock?” I couldn’t remember ever seeing Daniella talk to him after church. She was usually surrounded by women in the community center.
“I don’t know,” Daniella said. “Maybe when you were in the bathroom. He probably didn’t want to say anything about us while you were around. He disapproves of you.”
He disapproved of us living in sin, I thought, and he probably blamed that on me. It was tough to blame anything on Daniella when she was in librarian mode.
Once Daniella abandoned our original plan, her behavior changed. She hugged me a lot. She used her own money to pay for dinner at a couple nice restaurants. She started talking about buying a house or a condo together. Since I had used up all my savings paying her bills (and my brother’s debt), she would have to use her money as a down payment, and she was acting like she was okay with that. That really threw me off. But until she committed to using her own money, as far as I was concerned, it was just talk.
The whole idea of breaking up had been pushed aside just like that. It made me uncomfortable. When I had known we were going to break up, things were easy. I could be a little detached. I didn’t have to worry about her “crazy shit” behavior too much because the whole relationship (or whatever it was) would be short-term. As long as Daniella didn’t put me in a life-threatening situation, I was fine, but now she wasn’t talking short-term. When the relationship is no longer short-term, the “crazy shit” matters.
The shocker was when Daniella announced she was going to Jerome’s birthday party. Why was this a big deal? Jerome’s 30th celebration was on a Saturday, and Daniella never missed work on a Saturday night. Never! It was her biggest money maker. If it had been my birthday party, maybe I wouldn’t have been surprised, but this was Jerome. Daniella didn’t care about Jerome. Why would Daniella be so eager to go to Jerome’s birthday party, I thought. I wondered if she was trying to get close to Jerome. Maybe he was her next target. Maybe she was already seeing him behind my back. But no, then she wouldn’t go to the birthday party. Unless she was going to the birthday party to keep me from thinking that she was…
I was bring stupid. Daniella wasn’t the type to cheat. If she met another guy she liked, she’d break up with me clean. I was pretty sure that was how she would handle it. I’d come home from work one afternoon, and all the (stolen) furniture would be gone, and a note would be left on the kitchen counter. Daniella prided herself on being monogamous.
Jerome’s 30th birthday party was typical Jerome, with more than a hundred people moving around his three-story house. Food on the patio and in his kitchen and in his dining room, dancing in his high-ceilinged living room, kids running around in a couple game rooms upstairs. The place was packed, the music was loud, I had to yell to talk in most rooms, and I felt myself getting annoyed. I knew maybe ten people, and I never would have been invited if not for my best friend Kirk. The last time we’d come to a Jerome party together, Daniella had gotten me drunk without me knowing it, and I’d caused a scene. Now, I was getting annoyed, even without the help of booze. It was tough for me to relax around large groups of people.
To make things worse, Kirk’s ex-girlfriend Linda showed up, wearing a tight mini-skirt and walking in with a tall brute of a guy. She clung to the brute, kissed him hard in front of Kirk, and even danced slutty with him in Jerome’s living room. Linda had never acted like that when she’d dated Kirk. If she had, they might have still been dating, which was kind of the point, I guessed. Kirk was pissed, so I had to act pissed with him. It would have been wrong to act like I thought it was kind of funny, which it was, considering what Kirk had done immediately after their breakup.
“This is against the rules,” Kirk complained as we sat in a quieter side room watching a basketball game. Football season was over, so we weren’t really paying attention to the game. It was only basketball. “Jerome was my friend, not hers. She doesn’t get to show up to his parties anymore.”
“Did Jerome invite her?” I asked.
“He says he didn’t, but he’s too polite to ask her to leave. What made her think this was okay?”
I leaned forward to look over at Daniella, who was talking to a tight circle of women in the next room. They were all spellbound. Then they all started cackling. God knows what Daniella had said to them.
Mitchell, a guy I knew from previous Jerome parties, sat down next to me, head shaking. “Your girlfriend is telling dirty limericks and saying that Sylvia Plath wrote them,” he said. “A couple of those ditzes believe her.”
It was the beret, I thought. Daniella wore a beret, and now people who didn’t know better thought she was a poet, or an expert on poetry. I wondered if she had written her own limericks or gotten them out of a book. I hadn’t seen any limerick books around the apartment.
“Isn’t the term ’dirty limerick’ redundant?” I asked. “I thought limericks were supposed to be dirty. If the limerick isn’t dirty, then you call it a clean limerick.”
Mitchell scooted away. “Not this again.”
“It’s not like Frankenstein’s monster,” I said. “I knew I was right about Frankenstein’s monster. I’m not sure I’m right about the dirty limerick.”
“I hate basketball season,” Kirk said, trying to avoid another literary dispute. “I want to like it. I need something to get me to baseball season, but I just can’t get into it.”
The women in the other room cackled again. The high-pitched noise grated on Kirk’s nerves, but since his ex-girlfriend was acting slutty around another guy, everything pissed him off.
“Don’t you want to hear her limericks?” Kirk asked.
“I live with her,” I said.
“Dirty limericks,” Kirk said as he got up.” “I want to hear these.” I hoped he wasn’t using this as an excuse to talk to Linda. I wasn’t in the mood to be a witness to an uncomfortable situation.
After a minute or two of watching basketball (I didn’t hate it as much as Kirk did), Mitchell asked, “So you and that hot librarian are still going out.”
I nodded.
“How serious are you two?” I thought Mitchell might be infatuated with Daniella, even though she had called him a douchebag at the Halloween party a few months earlier. Jerome was infatuated with her too. Both of them were probably hoping she’d break up with me. Jerome would have a shot because he made a lot of money. Mitchell had no chance.
“She’s talking about buying a condo with me,” I said, wondering why I was talking to Mitchell about Daniella. “She says she feels me. I guess that’s good.”
Mitchell laughed. “If some broad told me that, I’d tell her to get lost. But your girlfriend’s different.”
He was right about that, but I couldn’t say anything. That was the problem with talking about Daniella. They saw a cute girl with the beret and the thick glasses and the poetry. They knew nothing about the topless dancing, the stolen furniture, the fights she picked, the plan to marry a rich guy and then take everything he had (even though the plan had apparently changed). I couldn’t tell anybody about that.
“You look like a guy who wants to get married, settle down,” Mitchell said. “If she feels you, if I was you, I’d feel her right back.”
The way he said it didn’t sound vulgar.
I noticed that the circle of women had gotten quiet. That was weird because Daniella was still there, but was speaking very softly. With the way all the women were hunched forward, it all looked conspiratorial. Once again, I wondered what she was talking about. She was a natural talker, but put her with a group of women, and she could get out of control.
A minute later, Kirk snuck back into our side room, whistling with a smirk.
“Jimmy,” Kirk said, his voice softer than usual, “you would not believe what Daniella is saying about you.”
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: A Perfect Place To End The Story .
If you want to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning (it’s gotten kind of long), start here.
It’s never good when you see one of these coming right at you! (image via wikimedia)
I have to admit to you before you read any further that I’ve never punched out Holden Caulfield. It’s just that sometimes I make up stories or exaggerate, and then I’m stunned when people actually believe me. I even wrote an ebook about that, but I’m not trying to pitch a book right now. I’m trying to make a point about The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
A friend of mine who doesn’t know anything about Dysfunctional Literacy is reading The Catcher in the Rye and really likes it. When he raves about it, I smile and nod. I don’t tell people not to enjoy the books they enjoy. I might write it in a blog, but I don’t tell it to their faces.
And I don’t really want to punch out Holden Caulfield. First of all, I’m not a violent person. I haven’t been in a fight in over 30 years. Secondly, I hit like a girl. I know girls who hit in a more manly fashion than I do. If you want to insult a man’s fighting ability, don’t say he hits like a girl; say he hits like Jimmy Norman. Thirdly, Holden Caulfield isn’t a real person. Even if I wanted to punch him out, I couldn’t because he doesn’t exist. The only thing dumber than trying to punch out a fictional character is trying to go on a date with one. I wanted to ask out Becky Thatcher when I was a kid, but I knew that Tom Sawyer would want to punch me out. I used to have a tough time distinguishing fiction from reality, but I’m better now.
The only reason I mention punching out Holden Caulfield is because he’s a whiner. I hear a lot of whining nowadays. I hear whining from younger co-workers (one of whom is my boss). I hear whining from my kids. I hear whining from parents who whine about their whining kids. Maybe I’m whining here, but I have a point.
I don’t know if people used to whine as much in the old days before my old days. But I don’t see much whining in old literature. I see everything else. I see greed, lust, betrayal, murder. Just about every negative characteristic around is portrayed somewhere in classic literature. But I don’t see much whining.
I think Holden Caulfield was the first literary whiner. I could be wrong. But Holden Caulfield whines a lot in The Catcher in the Rye, and a lot of readers sympathize with him. I never have. Even when I first read The Catcher in the Rye as a young adult (before there was a section in bookstores for Young Adults), I thought Holden Caulfield was a whiner. I even said it. Then people told me to shut up. I think one Holden Caulfield apologist even said “Shut up like hell.” Maybe he was being funny.
Just because Holden Caulfield says “hell” and “damn” all the time doesn’t make him cool. I said “hell” and “damn” when I was a kid, and nobody thought I was cool. I even said “sh**” and “f***” and “***hole” and “mother*******” and nobody thought I was cool. Now I say things like “heck” and “darn” and “dulgernet” and “dagnabbit,” and people think I’m just as uncool as when I said those other words. If people are going to think that I’m not cool, I might as well say things that aren’t cool.
Plus, this is one of the lamest book covers ever!
I wouldn’t want to try to punch out Tom Sawyer, or Huckleberry Fin, or Jim, or any other fictional character. They could all take me down. I wouldn’t want to fight D’Artagnan, or Ahab, or Oliver Twist, not even Ebenezer Scrooge (a cane is pretty good weapon). But I could take Holden Caulfield. I’m pretty sure of it. Anybody who spends that much effort whining has never learned how to fight. A guy who knows how to fight usually doesn’t whine. A guy who knows how to fight would rather punch you out than whine.
If I get the chance (I know he’s not real), I wouldn’t punch out Holden Caulfield, even if I got one free shot with a promise of no retribution. It’s just that maybe if The Catcher in the Rye had been universally panned, if readers had rejected Holden Caulfield as a whiner instead of embracing him, maybe there would be less whining in the world today. I’m not blaming all the world’s problems on Holden Caulfield; I’m just blaming all the whining on him. So if I HAD to punch out a literary character, absolutely had to or the world would end, then I’d punch out Holden Caulfield.
*****
Am I wrong? Is Holden Caulfield a whiner? What literary characters would you like to punch out (even if you wouldn’t really do it)? Is it wrong to use the phrase “punch out?” Am I being a bad role model for impressionable youth? Or is Holden Caulfield a bad role model for impressionable youth? Are youth impressionable anymore, or are they more impressionable than ever?
Just because I have a copy from the library doesn’t mean that I’ll finish it.
In the old days, it was difficult to read samples of books. If I tried to read the first few page of a novel in a book store, the clerk would clear his/her throat and say something snide like “This isn’t a library.” Sampling books at the library was easier, but the selection of newer books was kind of sparse. Consequently, if there was a new book that I wasn’t sure about, I pretty much had to buy it before I could decide if I wanted to read it.
Times have changed. Now I use an Amazon Kindle (or any other e-reader), and I sample each book for free before I (occasionally) purchase one. Life is much simpler now.
At the end of last year, I realized that I hadn’t read any books published in 2013. It’s tough to read books the year they’re published because that’s when the books are most expensive. But sample a book? It’s just as cheap (free!) to sample a new book as it is an older one. Now if I don’t read any books published in 2014, I will at least have read samples from books published in 2014. I figured that’s the least I can do since I have a blog about… you know, books.
RECENT BOOKS THAT I HAVE SAMPLED
The Counterfeit Agent– by Alex Berenson
The book starts off with a couple spy novel clichés, the seemingly heartless but beautiful female (possible antagonist) and the aging superspy who is losing some of his physical ability. Plus, the aging superspy proposes to his girlfriend. Uh oh. When a superspy tries to get married, bad things usually happen.
Apple Tree Yard– by Louise Doughty
A court scene and a murder set-up and a husband/wife situation. I can see why this one is a best-seller, but I don’t have much to say about it.
Caught– by Lisa Moore
A guy escapes from prison with help from a relative. I was interested in the details about how he escaped because it sounded kind of easy. I don’t think escaping from prison is easy, but I don’t know anything about Canadian prisons. Maybe Canadian prisons are easy to escape from.
Runner– by Patrick Lee
Another thriller with a one word title. The protagonist, who was running/jogging right before he rescues a teen girl, now will probably have to “run” instead of “jog” some more since the title is Runner. Jogger is probably not a good title for a thriller. The protagonist makes a critical mistake in the first few pages of the book. I like it when the protagonists screw up. Too many books have perfect action hero protagonists.
This Dark Road to Mercy– by Wiley Cash
Whew! It’s tough for an adult (especially one writing literary fiction) to write from a kid’s point of view. The entire time I read the sample, I thought, this sounds like an adult writing from a kid’s point of view.
In the Blood– Lisa Unger
From the dramatic title and the opening scene, I think I know where this book is going. But the main character is a college student, and the antagonist (I think) is a teenage boy, and I’m getting older and grouchy, and I don’t feel like reading about a college student and a super-intelligent/ maybe-evil teenage boy in a mystery/thriller.
The Good Luck of Right Now– by Matthew Quick
I like the author’s writing style, but this is a personal journey novel, and I’m not into those right now (because I’m getting older and grouchy). Plus, the Richard Gere thing seemed a bit overdone, and this was only in the first 30 pages.
Worthy Brown’s Daughter– by Phillip Margolin
For a legal thriller, there seems to be no moral ambiguity. The protagonist’s side is clear-cut right, and the villains are always wrong (so far). Plus, there’s a poorly done scene where a 15-year-old girl discovers her… yeah, that didn’t need to be in the book. At least it should have been written better.
BOOKS I DECIDED NOT TO SAMPLE
The Book of Jonah by Joshua Max Feldman
If you’re going to retell a historical or Biblical story in modern times, at least have the creativity to change the protagonist’s name. Even James Joyce changed the name of Odysseus when he retold the tale of The Odyssey in his novel Ulysses. The name Ulysses has nothing to do with The Odyssey, and I respect James Joyce for coming up with a completely unrelated name. And I appreciate my public school education which taught me that the name Ulysses has nothing to do with The Odyssey.
It’s this kind of knowledge that allowed me to start a blog like Dysfunctional Literacy.
Chance by Kem Nunn
The protagonist’s last name is Chance, and that’s all I need to know.
The Bat– by Jo Nesbo
The protagonist’s name is Harry Hole. I think this is supposed to be a serious crime novel. I refuse to read a serious crime novel with a protagonist who has a joke name. Is Andrew his middle name (Harry A. Hole)? If Harry Hole has a wife, I… I… I don’t know, maybe I SHOULD read a Harry Hole book.
I know that NOT reading/sampling a book because the character’s name is Harry Hole or Chance or Noah is a bad reason, but there are a lot of books out there to read/sample. I need to have standards.
*****
Hey, I might not finish any of these books this year, but I now know a lot more about books published this year than I did last year.
But enough about me! What books have you sampled? What books would you like to sample? Do you agree with the concept of sampling? Which books do you wish you had sampled instead of read? What books have you read that I sampled, and what do you think of these books?
“How do you kill yourself by putting your head in an oven?” Daniella asked once when we were just sitting around in the apartment. “Wouldn’t that hurt too much?” Daniella had started reading poetry a couple weeks earlier, including some Sylvia Plath. “Seriously, how could she keep her head still while her face was burning up? Jesus Christ, it would have been easier just to jump off a bridge.”
“Gas,” I said. “Oven.” I breathed in deeply.
Daniella processed the information and then snapped, “You didn’t have to say it like that!”
*****
Oops! I’m sorry, but I have to cut it here! This scene from The Literary Girlfriend appears (with some changes) in my novel The Sunset Rises. I’ll probably bring it back, though, once the novel is published. In case you can’t tell, I don’t like spoilers.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: Feeling You .
If you want to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning (it’s gotten kind of long), start here.
I tried throwing that book on the right, but I pulled a muscle. (image via Wikimedia)
Last night I threw a book across the room. Actually, I threw two books across the room. I didn’t dislike the books. I just wanted to see what it was like to throw a book across the room. I had never done it before. There are lot of things I’ve never done before (and I probably won’t get to do a lot of stuff that I’d like to do), but I figured I could at least throw a book across the room.
The only reason I thought of throwing a book across the room is because a couple commenters on Dysfunctional Literacy have said they’ve done it when they didn’t like the books they were reading. It seems strange to throw a book across the room just because you don’t like it. If I don’t like a book, I just give it to somebody I don’t care for. But maybe that’s wrong, so I decided to try throwing a book across the room.
The first book I threw across the room was a thin paperback copy of World War Z by Max Brooks. I read it a few months ago. It was okay. That’s my book review, it was okay. My book reviews have gotten lazy recently, but at least I finished reading the book, which I don’t do often anymore. There’s no resale value in a paperback copy of World War Z, so it was a good copy to throw. The problem was that I have a ceiling fan in the room so I couldn’t put my full arm strength into my throw, and I throw like a girl, and the pages spread out when I threw the book, so the book didn’t go quite as far as I had hoped. I was aiming for an ottoman on the other side of the room, but it didn’t quite get there. It fell to the floor and scared my dog, who really wasn’t close enough to be scared. Maybe I should get a new dog, but I’m not going to throw my dog across the room.
The second book I threw was a hardback copy of The Columbia History of the World. I bought it decades ago when I was trying to pass myself off as an intellectual. Every once in a while, I would read a section, especially when a long historical fiction novel became popular. For example, every time Colleen McCullough wrote a new Rome book, I’d read about Rome in The Columbia History of the World and save a lot of time.
I haven’t read The Columbia History of the World in years, and it’s still in pretty good shape, so I knew it could take a good throw. I really had to be careful with the ceiling fan this time. The Columbia History of the World could take out the ceiling fan, even with one of my girlie throws. This heavier book led to a more accurate throw, and I actually hit the ottoman, but The Columbia History of the World bounced/rolled off and hit the floor. This time the dog barked, and my wife asked (yelled) from upstairs what was going on. I told her I was throwing books across the room, and she told me (nicely) to stop.
I’d kind of like to throw an unabridged copy of The Oxford Dictionary or even an unabridged Merriam-Webster, but I’d need two hands to throw it, and I’d probably hurt myself. Still, it would be entertaining. Since I don’t have my own copy, I’d have to use the library’s, and I’d probably get kicked out of the library for throwing an unabridged dictionary. The library would rather have a homeless guy talking to himself than a guy who throws unabridged dictionaries. The library would rather have guys who watch porn on library computers than a guy who throws an unabridged dictionary. It’s a safety issue. Nobody has ever been hurt by guys who watch porn on public library computers. The noise of an unabridged dictionary hitting the floor is probably pretty loud too. Librarians don’t like loud noises.
Now that I read (or read samples of) a lot of books on my phone, it’s really not a good idea to throw a book across the room. The paperback copy of World War Z that I threw across the room was less than 10 bucks. My phone cost a bit more than that. I’ve been tempted to throw my phone across the room a couple times, but never because of the book that I’m reading on it.
Now I don’t throw books across the room anymore. But at least I’ve done it. The next time I feel disappointed in a book, I will NOT throw it across the room. Some people talk about throwing something at the television when they get mad at it. Maybe I’ll try that next. But if I throw anything at my television set, it won’t be a book.
It’s no mystery why it’s a good idea to read some books more than once.
First of all, you don’t need a reason to read a book more than once. When I was a kid, reading a book was the only form of entertainment you could do twice. You could go to see a movie once in the theater, and the next weekend it would be gone forever, replaced by another movie. If you missed a television show, you waited six months for a rerun, and then that show was most likely gone forever. There was no cable, no internet, no tablets. But books? If you liked a book, you could read it as many times as you wanted. Sometimes we read a book more than once simply because we could.
But in these modern times, there are other reasons to read a book more than once. Even with so many other forms of entertainment, even when there are so many books out there that it’s impossible to read them all, sometimes it’s still better to reread a book that you’ve already read before.
SIX REASONS TO READ A BOOK MORE THAN ONCE
1. Every other book you try reading sucks
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Sometimes you need a sure thing when you’re reading a book. Whether you’re waiting for good/bad news in a hospital or sitting at an airport, you want something that you know will get your mind off of whatever you don’t want your mind on. That is NOT the time to experiment with an unfamiliar book or author. There are times you need a sure thing, and The Godfather is my sure thing.
Yeah, the movies (the first two) are okay, but the book has so many sub-plots that you can randomly pick a page and find something interesting. It’s not a perfect book (a couple sub-plots are out of place and stupid), but it’s very readable. And I turn to it when I need to know that I’ll enjoy what I’m reading.
2. Just because you like it
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
I read The Three Musketeers a couple times when I was in middle school. It might have been the first novel that I ever read twice, but I’m not sure. I liked it. That was the only reason I reread it. Just because… I liked it. It might be the best reason. But it’s not an interesting reason. The Three Musketeers is the only classic literature on my list. I have fond memories of the 1970s movies with Michael York as D’Artagnan and Raquel Welch as Constance, and those movies spurred me on to read the book. Even without the movies (and the Classics Illustrated comic), I would have loved this book.
3. To relive the experience
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
I accidentally found this novel during a low point in my teen years (I won’t go into what was going on). This book was lying around the house (I don’t know who bought it), and I liked the title because people often commented that I was thin, and it wasn’t meant as a compliment. I realized as I read that the thin man was the murder victim, but I liked the mystery novel anyway. The Thin Man got me through a really bad weekend. I don’t want to relive that bad weekend by reading The Thin Man, but I like remembering the joy of an unexpected great book. That doesn’t happen very often.
4. To win a contest
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
When I was in ninth grade, I got into a reading contest with another kid to see who could read The Lord of the Rings the most times. I had read it three times, and he had read it four times, and every time I read it again, he’d read it again just to stay ahead of me. The fourth time I read it, I skipped The Fellowship of the Ring (I claimed to have read it over a weekend). And the fifth time, I just lied and carried The Two Towers with me while I read something else. It may have been the first time I had ever lied about reading a book that I hadn’t really read. But it wouldn’t be the last time.
I always vowed that if I ever got into another reading contest, it would involve a short book and not a trilogy.
To be honest, I might never read this again. I read it several times in junior high/high school. Back in the 1970s, the rip-offs hadn’t been written yet, so there was nothing else quite like it (as far as we knew). TLOTR was a trilogy to be savored. It was a trilogy before trilogies were common. It was a trilogy that made sense as a trilogy. It even had a prequel. Any youngster reading The Lord of the Rings might not see anything unique in it because it’s been copied so many times in so many exciting ways (from a youngster’s point of view).
Referring to people younger than me as “youngster” probably makes me sound older than I really am.
5. To avoid reading anything by James Patterson
James Patterson writes too many books, so any time you reread a book, it keeps you from buying a James Patterson book (or a book with written by somebody else with James Patterson’s name on it).
6. To find details you didn’t notice the first time
Some people read books a second time to catch details that they missed the first time. That’s a great reason to read a book more than once, but I’ve never done it. I usually don’t care if I missed details the first time I read a book. I might notice details the second time I read a book, but that’s never the reason I reread a book. I hope I’m not being disrespectful to people who reread books for this reason. It’s not a bad reason. It’s probably a better reason than trying to win a contest.
BONUS BOOK to read more than once
The Bible– by God
When God writes a book, it’s probably a good idea to read it. Maybe it’s a good idea to read it more than once. Any of the above reasons would be ideal for reading The Bible more than once. I would have included The Bible as the example for all six reasons, but it wouldn’t be fair to the other books. No human author can compete with God, not even James Patterson (I hope James Patterson isn’t thinking of writing his own version of The Bible, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.). So I hope God understands why I didn’t include The Bible as an example for any book that’s worth reading more than once.
*****
But enough about me! What books do you turn to when you need a sure thing? What books have you read more than once and why?
The way I see things, it takes a lot of nerve to introduce yourself to the priest on the first day you attend a church. Maybe you might accidentally run into the priest. Maybe somebody else will introduce you to the priest. But Daniella strutted right up to the priest standing at the center exit and introduced herself. And then she introduced me.
Daniella said she had enjoyed the sermon (she probably hadn’t been paying attention). She said St. Luke’s was a beautiful church (she knew the church had money). The priest introduced himself as Father Patrick, and he welcomed us to St. Luke’s (but he hardly looked at me when he spoke, which might have been because Daniella had done all the talking, or it might have been because every man liked checking out Daniella and a priest wasn’t going to be any different).
Daniella was a talker, and I’ve never been that social. With her plain dress and thick, black glasses, she looked like the type to go to church and participate in biblical discussions. She didn’t look like she’d dance topless, or steal furniture, or over-curse in public, or put ex-boyfriends in the hospital. But that was part of the plan. Since she was the one with the personality and the looks, she would be the one to attract attention. I would be the sour boyfriend. And when we broke up (hopefully not too soon), the church would provide several wealthy suitors for her.
Father Patrick invited us to the community center for fellowship, and Daniella agreed before I could say anything. I wasn’t going to disagree or start an argument. I simply was trying to get a word in. Daniella took my hand, and instead of bee-lining to my car as we’d originally planned, we followed a bunch of parishioners out a side door into another more modern rectangular brick building.
“We’re not following the plan,” I stage-whispered in sing-song voice.
“Sometimes you need to improvise,” she replied in the same tone.
“Then why bother even making a plan?”
“I know what I’m doing!” Somehow she maintained her fake smile through the exchange. I’m pretty sure I appeared grouchy.
The lobby of the community center was a high-ceilinged atrium, and on the sides we could see upper level offices and maybe a few classrooms. On our left was a church library with several lengthy shelves, too many for all of them to be religious (I hoped). There had to be something interesting in there. On the right was a mini-auditorium. On the other side of the lobby was the snack/coffee bar. Behind that were a couple wide hallways. I looked around for a bathroom, hoping I could slip away before we got coerced into some conversations.
I had a good reason for wanting to get away. I knew what was about to happen. I’d hated this part of church for years. When I was a kid and the church service was over, I’d always wanted to go straight home. I’d done my time (maybe that wasn’t the best attitude to have). But my parents were both talkers, and they’d linger after church for hours (it felt like hours), drinking coffee, and talking, about what I never knew. I had to wait around, tug at sleeves, play with other church kids, whom I never really cared for. When I got older, I just brought a bunch of books and would read them in the car or on the stairs, but then everybody thought I was anti-social. I didn’t like the notion of Daniella and I hanging around after church, but for our plan to work, Daniella was going to have to do it. I’d hoped it wouldn’t be this week. I’d hoped that the lingering wouldn’t begin until for a few more weeks. I didn’t want to break up yet. By starting this phase so early, I didn’t know if Daniella was planning on breaking up soon. I hadn’t expected this yet.
The first couple that approached us looked familiar. “We were sitting in front of you,” the wife said. “You have a beautiful voice.” I knew she wasn’t talking to me. “You should see about joining the choir.”
“I’m not Episcopalian yet,” Daniella said. “He’s the Episcopalian.” She leaned on me.
“We’d love to have you here. I hope you consider joining us.” Again, she looked at Daniella, not me.
And then several other middle-aged people started introducing themselves. Daniella kept repeating their first names, but it was all a blur to me. I knew I wasn’t going to be coming to church for long, so I wasn’t putting any effort into learning names. I didn’t want to be rude, but I was glad I didn’t have to try that hard either.
Some guy in our group asked me what I did for a living, and when I started explaining it, he began gazing around at other people, and his wife yawned. I tried to ask him what he did, but I guess he didn’t hear me because he was talking to his wife.
“I’m a paralegal,” Daniella was saying to five people around her. All of them were listening to her. I’d warned her about going with the paralegal story. There’d be a bunch of lawyers at the church, and they might start asking questions or get too curious. Daniella knew Darren B. Smelley, a defense attorney with cheesy TV ads, and she said he’d vouch for her if any lawyers started asking questions about her. If Darren B. Smelley was in on our plan, I… I… wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“That guy?” a woman asked. Everyone knew who Smelley was. He was almost universally hated by anybody who watched television after 10:00 PM, except for those who’d been arrested.
“He’s not that bad,” Daniella said. “I respect our police a lot,” she continued with no sarcasm in her voice, “but sometimes they get carried away.”
A few people nodded. They might have disliked defense attorneys or Darren B. Smelley, but they weren’t going to argue with Daniella after church about it. To them, Daniella was probably just a sweet but naïve and misguided little girl.
Somebody brought another priest to our social circle, and we were introduced to St. Luke’s other priest, Father Murdock. He was in his early 30s and looked a little bit like me, except he had darker hair that flopped over his forehead. Daniella smiled at him too long, and I thought, no, no, no, not the priest, anybody but the priest. But then Father Murdock gestured to a tan blonde woman next to him.
“This is my fiancée Amy,” he said.
Whew!
“Are you two planning on… getting married?” Father Murdock asked us.
Daniella grinned at me. “I do, but Jimmy wants to take things slow,” she said.
I got a few friendly but dirty looks. Some guy slapped me on the back and said, “You’d be crazy not to marry her.”
Another said, “Get her before she changes her mind.”
Daniella eyeballed me hard with her cheese-eating grin. “Yes, Jimmy, before I change my mind.”
I smiled sheepishly but kept my mouth shut. If only they knew…
“We have a couple’s group at our church, if you’re interested,” Father Murdock said, with a little hesitation.
“Couple’s group?” Daniella said and then shut her mouth. Whatever she’d been about to add, it had been vulgar (probably a crude joke about groups and couples), and she’d barely saved herself.
“I overheard someone talking about a gym,” I said to change the subject. I knew about the gymnasium from when I’d attended a service a couple years ago. “Does this church really have a gym?”
“Yes,” Father Murdock said proudly. “It’s on the other side of the community center. Would you like to see it?”
“Sure,” Daniella said.
“That’s more her thing than mine,” I said, gesturing to Daniella. I leaned in and whispered to Daniella, “You check it out while I go to the restroom.”
“That might be a good idea,” she stated.
Might be a good idea? That was a curious way to phrase it, I thought.
As I watched the crowd follow (or guide) Daniella to the lobby, I realized that she was the type of person I usually despise, charming but shallow. If Daniella had been a guy, I’d probably dislike her. But she was really pretty and I couldn’t help myself. I liked being around her. I was going to miss her. That probably made me as shallow as the charming guys I despised, but at least I wasn’t shallow all the time. It was okay to be selectively, situationally shallow, I thought, as I entered the men’s room near the mini-auditorium.
After I’d used the facilities, I washed my hands, looked in the mirror, and stopped. I squeezed my eyes shut and muttered a self-censored curse. I couldn’t believe it. I opened my eyes just to make sure. Yes, there it was, a stringy booger dangling out of my nose. Ugh. This had happened to me a few times in high school, but it had been years since I’d had a dangler in public. I almost cursed, but even in the bathroom, I was still at church. I grabbed some toilet tissue and blew my nose hard.
No wonder Daniella had wanted to introduce us today instead of waiting. I’d been quiet and borderline anti-social with a booger hanging down. To the rest of the church, I was a loser. Daniella had set herself up perfectly, the charming, beautiful young lady who had a surly boyfriend with bad hygiene. When we broke up soon, everybody at the church would understand why. I couldn’t be angry at her for improvising. Daniella had made the right move.
I wasn’t ticked off at Daniella. Normally, she would have figured out a way to tell me (coughing/sneezing in code), but nobody else had told me either. That’s what made me angry. Somebody should have pulled me aside. I would do that for others, and I wasn’t even social. It was common decency. In college, I’d notified another student before class (very quietly), and the guy later acted like I was his long-lost friend whenever he saw me after that. It was like a modern version of “Androcles and the Lion.” If I’d been at a sports bar or football game and nobody had said anything about a dangling booger, I would have been disappointed, but I would have understood. But this was church! Somebody should have said something. Just for that, they’d get no tithe from me.
When I stepped out of the men’s room, Daniella was strolling back from the other side of the lobby with a woman on each side, both a bit older but not so old where they couldn’t be natural friends. Daniella grinned and then nodded just a little bit. That look told me everything. She’d been accepted. I knew we would be coming to church every week, and we would linger after every service, and Daniella would start building relationships very quickly. She would make friends, and I would continue to come across as a bore. Daniella would be the one who wanted to get married, and I was the one trying to stall it. Daniella would be the good guy, the victim, and I would be the villain. It was all set up perfectly for her.
And I knew that we would be breaking up very, very soon.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: The Sunset Rises .
If you want to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning (it’s gotten kind of long), start here.
This comic book isn’t as misleading as the movie. (image via Wikimedia)
The great thing about watching a movie based on classic literature is that there should be a sense of familiarity that comes with it. If a movie is based on classic literature, you should know ahead of time what the story is. There shouldn’t be many surprises. But this is Hollywood we’re talking about. Sometimes moviemakers want to update the book and end up with a movie that is unrecognizable from the classic novel it was based on.
I’m not complaining that the unrecognizable movies based on classic literature are bad. The problem is that anybody who sees a misleading movie based on classic literature might try reading the book afterward and then have a “What the F…!” moment. If you try reading certain classic novels after seeing a movie that changed everything up, it could keep you from reading more classic novels (not that avoiding certain classic novels is a bad thing).
The following is a (not complete) list of movies that took waaaayyyy too many liberties with the classic novels that they’re based on.
The War of the Worlds
Tom Cruise is not in the novel, and the book is not very exciting by today’s standards. To be fair, no modern film maker is going to set War of the Worlds back in the early 1900’s, but it could be awesome if they did! I might go see it, as long as Tom Cruise isn’t in it. I’ve seen too many movies with Tom Cruise in them.
BEST TRICK EVER (to play on teenagers)!
- Tell kids about the Orson Welles radio program based on The War of the Worlds and explain how a bunch of listeners thought the radio program was real and started panicking.
- Listen to the kids as they make fun of people who panicked (probably calling them “dumb” or stupid”).
- A few minutes later tell the same kids that you just heard Justin Bieber is going out with Katy Perry.
- Watch the kids as they react with disgust, disdain (or whatever probable negative reaction they have).
- Explain to the kids that they just fell for a vicious rumor without verifying it (just as the radio listeners automatically believed what they heard on a radio program).
- Laugh at the kids as they completely miss the connection.
Frankenstein
The Frankenstein monster in the novel is far scarier than the movies’ Frankenstein’s monsters, but it’s tough for some readers to understand that because of Mary Shelley’s writing style. And whenever somebody tries to make a version of Frankenstein that is close to the novel, the audience always gets mad, and the movie tanks. Sorry, Mary Shelley, but Frankenstein’s monster has a flat head with a bunch of staples in it. And he’s not very introspective.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney animated version)
This has to be one of the most bizarre animated movies I’ve seen, with a happy ending (what?). I’d love to see what Disney would do with Romeo and Juliet, or Oedipus Rex, or The Awakening. Some classics are not for little kids.
The Last of the Mohicans
I can watch the last hour of this movie, and it always seems new. I can read the novel over and over again, and it always seems new… but for a different reason.
The movie doesn’t take that many liberties for Hollywood, but the movie is far more watchable than the movie is readable. Therefore, somebody trying to read the book after viewing the movie might toss the novel away in disgust (not that I’ve ever done that with The Last of the Mohicans or any other book).
I, Robot
Yet another movie where Will Smith says, “Aw, Hell no!” But at least none of his kids were in it.
Sherlock Holmes
The movie was kind of fun, but c’mon; that wasn’t Sherlock Holmes!
Speaking of Robert Downey Jr….
WHAT ALMOST MADE THE LIST
Iron Man
Yeah, Iron Man is a comic book and not a classic (Maybe some of those Tales of Suspense comics were classic, but the Captain America stories were usually way better, except for that two-issue Iron Man vs. Submariner fight that crossed over into Tales to Astonish and…. Never mind). The point is that the first Iron Man movie was one of the BEST SUPERHERO MOVIES EVER, but Iron Man has almost always been a sucky comic book. Anybody reading an Iron Man comic book after seeing the first movie had to be disappointed.
Troy
The reason it’s not on the list is that Troy wasn’t that good of a movie (but had a few great scenes) so it didn’t make a lasting impression on anyone (except those who liked seeing a shirtless Brad Pitt with long hair). Also, it wasn’t called The Iliad.
*****
What other movies based on classic literature were misleading? How was The Great Gatsby? The Raven? Catching Fire? Do you enjoy the movies that are faithful to the literature, or do you like the ones that are misleading?
This was as close as I got to finishing Moby Dick. (image via Wikimedia)
When I first started reading, I took pride in finishing every book I started. In elementary school, I finished Harold and the Purple Crayon, even though Harold was getting out of control. In middle school, I finished The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, even though I was being mocked for carrying big books around the school (they were WAR books, I explained… luckily, I had a copy of Massage Parlor II that kept me from getting beat up). In high school, I finished Noble House, despite having to read a bunch of Willa Cather books in my English class. In college, I finished reading The Mists of Avalon, even after my girlfriend broke up with me for calling it a “woman’s book.”
But somewhere along the way, I lost my passion for finishing books. I became more critical of books I read and I began noticing how much time it took to read some of them. I finished Sarum by Richard Rutherford, but I gave up on Russka. I stopped reading a Colleen McCullough Rome book within the first hundred pages (I almost got kicked out of my family’s Thanksgiving dinner for that) because I already knew what was going to happen (and it was waaaaayyyy too long).
It’s an internal debate that many book readers have. If you don’t like a book, should you finish reading it? I try to be unbiased when I answer the tough questions.
3 REASONS TO FINISH A BOOK YOU DON’T LIKE
1. You get a Sense of Accomplishment.
I like to brag that I finished Moby Dick (even though I didn’t) and Crime and Punishment. I even brag that I finished War and Peace, Atlas Shrugged, and The Brothers Karamazov, but I’m lying when I brag about them. Still, it feels way better to brag and tell the truth than to brag and lie.
2. You can actually judge a book if you finish it.
You don’t really know if an entire book sucks until you’ve read the whole thing. A couple years ago, I gave up on The Passage by Justin Cronin about halfway. I heard later that the ending was pretty good and that I had missed out on a good ending simply because I was too eager to give up on the book. Maybe I should have finished it, but I’m glad that somebody else finished it for me.
Maybe I would have appreciated Moby Dick if I had finished it. I’m open to that possibility, but not open enough to finish it and find out.
3. You finish what you start!!!!!!
I grew up in a household where we were taught to finish what we started. I learned that you don’t leave a job unfinished or halfass…errr… halfhearted. You give 100%, or you give nothing. You eat all the food on your plate. You stay awake during church. You complete all your homework. And you finish every book you start. Once that’s ingrained, it doesn’t go away… until your parents aren’t looking.
To this day, I eat all the food on my plate (but I get to choose the food now), I stay awake in church (when I go), I make sure all my work gets completed (so I get paid). But finish every book I start? Not anymore.
3 REASONS TO NOT FINISH A BOOK YOU DON’T LIKE
1. There are always other books to read.
Every moment you waste reading a book you don’t like is a moment you’re not reading a book you might enjoy. Reading isn’t supposed to be an endurance test, unless it’s for academic purposes. Think of all the enjoyment you’re missing out on just so you can “endure” a book you don’t like.
2. You save a lot of time.
I hate it when I spend money on a book and then don’t finish it. To me, that’s wasted money. Yeah, wasted money ticks me off, but wasted time is even worse. I’m at an age where I’m much more aware of how much time I have left (even in the best case scenarios). I don’t mean that to be grim, but I’m not wasting my time reading an unenjoyable book if I don’t have to. Me reading a book I don’t like is similar to former President Bush (the first one) eating broccoli. He doesn’t have to eat broccoli anymore, and I don’t have to finish books I don’t like.
3. You don’t HAVE to read an entire book to judge it.
Once you read a few chapters of almost any book, you know what the rest of the book will be like. That’s true at least 90% of the time. I’m not sure where I pulled that 90% number, but it’s probably true. If enough people agree with me and keep repeating it, then it will be true whether it’s true or not. So I’m sticking with 90%.
FINAL VERDICT
This is pretty simple. It all depends on your purpose for reading the book that you don’t enjoy.
* If you’re reading for the challenge, finish the book.
* If you’re reading for the experience, finish the book.
* If you’re reading for enjoyment, don’t finish the book.
* If you want to make your decision on a book-by-book basis, then make your decision on a book-by-book basis.
Me? The only reason I read books anymore is for enjoyment, so my decision is always easy now. And it’s made life a lot less complicated.
What do you think? Do you finish every book you read? If not, how do you decide whether or not to finish a book you don’t like?
*****
If you start reading these books, there’s a 90% chance you’ll finish them. Again, I’m not sure where I got that number, but 90% sounds right.
Now only 99 cents each on the Amazon Kindle!
Even though we’d been living in sin for about three months, I didn’t know Daniella could sing. I’d never heard her sing before, not in the shower, not in the kitchen, not in the car with the stereo blasted up. I don’t think I’d ever heard her even hum. I’d known she could dance. I’d seen her dance crazy, and she was one of the few women who could look good while dancing crazy. But I hadn’t known she could sing, until she started doing it at church.
The St. Luke’s choir had just passed us during the processional hymn when Daniella started, somewhere in the second verse. I’d been surprised because she hadn’t even moved her lips during the first verse. I was a church lip-syncer because my out-of-tune, off-key crooning could throw off a whole section of the congregation. For the rest of the opening hymn, I didn’t even bother moving my lips. I just listened to Daniella. She didn’t sing in an overpowering way; she just had a quietly sweet voice and hit all the notes.
When the procession was over, I whispered to her,” I didn’t know you could….”
“SShhhh!” she said.
I stopped. What I wanted to say could wait until later. Maybe Daniella didn’t realize the implications, but her singing ability changed everything.
The choir was filled with a bunch of middle agers and a lot folk with white hair. They would welcome an attractive (extremely hot) young female who could carry a tune. If anything, Daniella might stand out too much, but if there was one thing that choir needed, it was youth. A soon as word got out that this newcomer could sing, she was going to get recruited. They wouldn’t even care she wasn’t Episcopalian yet. At least, some people wouldn’t care.
I thought about all of this as we knelt, stood, and sat throughout the service. Even during the sermon, which lasted only 12 minutes, all I could think was, Daniella can sing. How did I never notice that? I wracked my brain, trying to think of a time when I’d heard Daniella sing. Maybe she had sung and I had never noticed. It could have happened. I wasn’t the most observant guy, and Daniella had a lot of other noticeable traits (but it was tacky to think of those traits while at church).
Even though I wanted to ask Daniella about her singing, she had been right to shush me. I was glad she cared about my behavior. Earlier, I had been worried that Daniella might cough loud or fake sneeze or eat corn chips loudly (like she had done once in the public library), but so far her behavior had been impeccable. I was proud of her. If she could sing and behave well, we (or she) might become accepted into the church.
I was still lost in thought while we were all standing when I heard the priest say, “The peace of the Lord always be with you!”
And the congregation chanted, “And also with you!”
Oh no, I thought. I hadn’t prepared Daniella for what was about to happen.
The congregation got loud, and in a panic, I turned to Daniella, grabbed her hand, and said “Peace be with you!” really loudly. Then I leaned in and said, “Just say ‘And also with you.’”
“What?” Daniella said. All around us, people hugged and talked loudly and shook hands and said “Peace be with you,” and “Peace,” and “And also with you.” It was a grand moment of chaos in an otherwise solemn service.
“Just smile,” I said loudly. That, she could do.
An old couple in the pew in front of us turned and shook hands with us. A middle aged woman sitting next to Daniella hugged her and reached for my hand. I pivoted and caught some hands behind me. Daniella’s head swiveled back and forth, fake smile planted on her face, hand out to the right, quick turn to the left. I think I uttered “And also with you” three times, and once I could only get out a “Peace!” before turning to another church-goer. And then it was over, and silence once again reigned supreme.
“What was that about?” Daniella said low with tight lips.
“Something I forgot to mention.” My lips didn’t move either.
I tried to think of something later on that might surprise her. The service continued, and she still knelt and stood whenever we were supposed to, without any sighing or muttering. When the offertory plate was passed down our row, she didn’t snatch the twenty I had tossed inside. During the post-offertory hymn, Daniella even began to sing more loudly. She was getting confident, even cocky.
Something came over me. Maybe it was reflex. As we began the second verse, I pointed to the lyrics of the fourth verse in the hymnal, and Daniella sang the wrong words, belting out maybe four or five syllables before realizing the mistake. She halted, and several other people around us stopped and listened to the choir to see who was right. When Daniella gave me a dirty look, I mouthed a fake apology. My older brother used to point to the wrong verse in church 15 years earlier, to throw me off when I had still been at least attempting to sing. He’d be glad to know the old trick still worked. Daniella rolled her eyes, and I thought that would be the end of it.
During communion, Daniella remained in the pew while I walked to the altar and knelt. I watched her as I returned to the pew. She saw me, cracked a quick smile, and then returned to serious face. After communion was done, the organ got loud again, side doors flew open, and a bunch of kids came running in from Sunday school to rejoin their families. The kids were loud and high-pitched. They ran. One girl in a dress slid down our pew, jumped on a tiny empty space next to Daniella, and leaped to her family sitting behind us. The acrobat was so quick that it startled Daniella.
“What the hell?” Daniella exclaimed before she could catch herself.
I laughed out loud, and so did a few people around us. Daniella looked down. I gauged the expressions of people surrounding us, and the disapproval was aimed more at the kid, not at Daniella. I knew I shouldn’t laugh, but Daniella seemed so mortified that I couldn’t help but react. The church was quieting down, and I shook, trying to keep from making any noise, which is tough, when I know I’m not supposed to laugh, but something mildly humorous snowballs into an uncontrolled fit. I could feel my face turn red. Maybe my ears were purple. Daniella had gotten so close, she had almost made it through the service. Of course, it was a little kid that had broken her.
“Shut up,” she whispered, even though I wasn’t making any noise.
Daniella’s admonishment only made it worse, and I was losing my breath, and as I sucked in air, I committed the unforgiveable sin.
I snorted.
The church got quiet, and I froze. Even the raucous children had suddenly settled down. I pretended I hadn’t done anything. I couldn’t believe that I had just snorted. I never snorted! I could feel others looking around, wondering where the snort had come from. I forced a serious expression and turned my head in several directions. Daniella scooted a couple inches away from me. I remained stoic for the next ten minutes of the service and didn’t even mouth words. During the recessional hymn, Daniella held her own book and sang.
When the service was over, and people started heading toward the exit, Daniella turned toward me again. “You snorted at me… in church!”
I mumbled an apology.
Daniella stared me in the eye, and then her grin started to form. I’d seen that look. I knew I wasn’t going to like what was about to happen. Daniella held my hand as we exited the pew (not a bad start). The side aisle was congested with people shuffling shoulder-to-shoulder, but we squeezed our way through. A robed lay-reader stood at the side exit, shaking hands as the congregation exited.
“Where’s the priest?” Daniella asked.
I pointed to the center exit where most attendees were leaving. Daniella pulled me through an emptied row of seats to the center aisle. Puzzled, I followed her. She was taking the lead, which she hadn’t done at church. She was intentionally heading for the priest, a jolly looking bald guy with white patches of hair along his ears. This wasn’t good, but I couldn’t resist her. I couldn’t tug back at her arm and argue with her about this, not in public. I didn’t like arguing with her in public. If she was doing what I thought she was doing, Daniella was violating our plan. Our agreement had been to go in and get out for the first few weeks and keep a low profile. Now Daniella was taking cruel advantage of my character flaw (my inability to argue in public) and breaking the plan.
As we stepped closer to the exit, I attempted to move in front of her, but she smoothly stepped into my path.
The priest’s eyes lit up when he saw Daniella (that happened with just about every guy, so why should a priest be any different?). He held out his hand and before he could say anything, Daniella grabbed it, and said:
“My name is Daniella. I really enjoyed your sermon,” And then she turned to me. “And this is my boyfriend, Jimmy.”
I smiled, but inwardly, I was thinking, “No! No! No!”
I hated it when Daniella deviated from my plans.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: The Lingerer .
If you want to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning (it’s gotten kind of long), start here.
Dysfunctional Literacy 