Things that keep me up at night..

Sorry loyalists, for the lack of blog updates of any worth, but it's been busy at work and sometimes during my "off" time my brain feels like mush and it's hard for me to put together a decent thought. I also try, and often fail, to redirect attention off the computer and mindless TV towards my guy, otherwise it feels like we're just passing each other by during the day ...

But that's been a little harder as of recently, somewhat because of my awkward scheduling, and somewhat because my guy's new temporary hobby has been reading. Like, books. Who knew? I normally encourage any activity that Jeff participates in that provides a physical or mental challenge, like playing basketball or writing a blog. Anything. I should say, anything ASIDE from video games. (How I loathe video games. Sure, I've been known to play once in a while, but I've also seen them devour lives of the people I love. I'm no one to tell people, 'Get out and see the world' but I can't think of anything of less consequence in this life than how you 'perform' in your virtual world. End of rant.)

So after Jeff's conquering of the watermelon eating contest at work, he was the proud owner of a $50 Amex gift card, and me, ever the CFO, told him he could spend half on whatever he wanted, then save the rest for help with groceries, etc. I was extremely pleased when he chose to spend the money on a book -- two books actually, 'World War Z' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'

He read through 'Z' first, and when he finished, passed it along to me. I can't tell you how long it's been since I've read a book. Actually, I probably could tell you, but I'd be embarrassed. It's not that I don't like to read, I spend most of my day doing it, actually. But people don't respect web reading like they do novels ... I digress. Often times I avoid jumping into a book because I'm the kind of person who will let a book take over their life. If it's a good book, I won't eat, sleep or drink til it's over. How can I put it down?! What happens at the end!?! One too many 4 a.m. nights in a few months in college, exhausted me on books for a while.

But Jeff said the book was good, and I was intrigued. The book calls itself "An Oral history of the Zombie Wars." It was a NYT best seller and is currently being made into a movie by Brad Pitt's production company. 

Can someone explain this to me? Here I am, a girl paralyzed by fear of scary movies. I HATE them. I don't enjoy them a lick -- why is it fun to be scared? I remember accidentally stumbling on Friday the 13th as a child, not sleeping for days. Even movies not considered 'scary' terrify me.

But show me a scary book -- about vampires (holla at the Last Vampire series when I was a teenager!), zombies, people pushed to homicidal madness, I'm hooked. That's weird right? My favorite book -- Lord of the Flies, is scary in movie form. I read a 600-page book about a group of Asian 8th graders forced to kill each other (Battle Royale) in two days. And while Chuck Pahlinuk books (read most of them) aren't SCARY per se, they are disturbing. I eat them up. The notable exception: American Psycho. How I HATED this book. It was so awful, so disturbing, so lackluster in it's resolution. I hated it so much I gave it away rather than look at the cover. Just reminded me how much I disliked reading it.

The same 'it's OK if it's just a book' theory applied to World War Z. It's not one of my favorites of all time, but it's real, real good. The difference between this book, and say, your run-of-the-mill zombie book, is that it aims to deal with the social, economic and ecological aftermath of a zombie takeover. It's a fun, fast read, that progresses, not through a singular narrative, but through a series of vignettes from 'survivors.' Really good.

I don't know if this will set of a reading spell, as what usually happens when I read a book I like. But I'm open to suggestions?