Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Reading...

Inside The Pocket Muse –Endless Inspiration by Monica Wood is this advice on reading.

“When was the last time you read something by an author you’d normally avoid? If you’re twenty (yrs of age), ask for a recommendation from your grandmother (or someone over sixty). If you’re sixty, read something your son, niece, or grandson, (or someone over sixty).” This advice insists on reading the whole recommended thing; that is, the whole story, the whole poem, the whole novel.

A few years ago, I came across a book with so-full-of four-letter words that I immediately thought that book or writer would not be for me, but being the mule-headed one that I am, I read the entire book, and then, the others in the same series. Even if I would rate the books as 18+ or GC, they are about teen-agers and those around their early twenties. Better yet, from reading these books, I gained a special appreciation for the writer, Megan McCafferty, and yes, these books make up the Jessica Darling series. At the end, I even regretted not having Megan McCafferty's writing during my youth in dinosaur time. So, there you go, grandmas and grandpas and all those over sixty.

Thus, I seek advice from our youth. Any recommendations, please?

Talking about reading, My hubby and I spend a good deal of our time in the library or in the bookstores. Today, we spent most of the afternoon in Barnes and Noble. The Starbucks café in the middle of the store with the authoritative coffee menu (don’t let my doctor in on this) is a big draw for us, but the biggest lure for me is the conversation around me. I don’t think the speakers are aware of my misdemeanor -of listening in- because I don’t lift my head from a book or my long-hand writing, or if I do, I only glimpse past them.

This afternoon I eaves dropped to the advice of one twenty-plus guy to another twenty-plus (both with laptops they left untouched) about how to handle a girlfriend and his mother. Lol!

If that was something, the better happened on our way out. In front of us, a fiftyish couple were also leaving the store. Just then, from the entrance door, two scantily clad, young, and pretty girls walked in. The man in front of us ogled them, which the woman saw for she suddenly tossed her hair with a tiny head flip. The man must have seen the resentment in the woman’s face because he sneaked a look at her and then he glanced ahead immediately. (Unfortunately, we were behind them and I didn’t see the expressions in their faces. And if my hubby ogled the ladies also , I am not aware of it. The couple in front of us had my full attention.)

The fiftyish couple kept walking just ahead of us outside the store to the parking lot. The man (I guess to excuse himself or to get to the better side of the woman) pointed to a white Mercedes that drove by and said (something like), “Now, I’d really like to buy you that car, if I had the money.”
Her answer was, “So I could make a roadkill of girls you salivate over…”

I couldn’t make these things up, even if I tried.

I love bookstores.