Chick Lit Blows

So I was wandering through Borders this week trying to find a quick read to get me through these next few days (I don’t have cable) and I realized that there are a lot of crappy novels out there.

These novels are written by chicks, for chicks. I love a funny, light novel every now and then, though I do tend to read more depressing stuff, but come on. Take Confessions of a Shopaholic, for example. I don’t even want to read that shit and I’m a shopaholic. I mean, when did it become okay to turn women into boyfriend obsessed shoe shoppers via the printed word??

Sure, we are like that. A lot of us anyway, but I don’t need to waste a day or two of my life reading about it when I could just spend two hours watching Bridget Jones’ Diary or an episode of Sex and the City. I like chick flicks just as much as the next chick, but at the same time I don’t think that novels should be devoted to the idea of needing an engagement ring. Literature should enlighten you to some extent, not make you believe that your future husband is just a stumble in Central Park or a bus accident away. Or that your true career can be found at a fashion magazine. Or that credit card debt isn’t really something that you need to worry about.

You can have your trashy romance novels and your John Grisham legal thrillers, but please, put chick lit out of its misery.

I could probably list about thirty chick novels that I’ve attempted to read, but never made it through. I suppose these novels are just modernizations of 19th century Jane Austen lit, like Pride and Prejudice and Emma, but at least Austen could write well. I guess novels that attempt to empower women just don’t hold my attention. I am a woman, I know how women feel, I don't want to read about it. Sometimes I think women just need to get over themselves.

If you want to empower women, run a marathon, run for president, don’t run to the nearest publishing company with some bonehead cliché idea for a manuscript.

Gift Receipt?

After a grueling semester of procrastination and paper writing, it was nice to come home and relax.

But I didn’t do much relaxing. Saturday morning I woke up at 8 (ugh! I NEVER get up at 8.. not even for class…) and went to baby-sit overnight. I was dragged around by a bossy six year-old girl all day and then woke up on Sunday morning at 7:30 to her bouncing on my stomach.

Then yesterday I woke up way too early again and went to work.

“Virginia Surgery Associates, this is Kerry, how may I direct your call?” If you want to hear my professional phone voice, give me a call at 703-359-8640.

Today Susie and I shoveled pistachio nuts into Ziploc bags. On Thursday we get to deliver them to the doctors at Fairfax Hospital. Don’t ask.

And of course I’ve been Christmas shopping. I have no money, but I’ve been shopping anyway. I walk around the malls in my pink shoes sipping my Starbucks lattes and pretend like I have money to buy things. You think it would be bad to buy my mom’s Christmas presents with her credit card?

Despite the lack of funds and income at the moment, I have gotten some shopping done. The thing is that I try to force my need for designer apparel onto other people. Instead of just getting people what they want and ask for, I get them what I want them to have. I’m sure the last thing my fifteen year-old brother wants is a sweater from the Gap, but he’ll probably get one only because I don’t feel like buying a stupid video game or computer gadget. And my poor dad, I don’t know why, but he asked for an Enya CD and I told him that I’d be damned if I was going to stand in line at Best Buy holding an Enya CD. I mean, if my dad wants it, shouldn’t I just buy it for him?

I’m a lousy gift-giver.

And I’ve realized that Northern Virginia is boring when you don’t have any friends.

But they’ll be back eventually. I can’t wait to go to New York after Christmas and then rock out D.C. for New Year’s! Hotel partaaaay! My first open bar shindig where I can actually drink. And Aimee, if I don’t have a cute boy to kiss at midnight, remember that I’m holding you personally responsible.

Well.. I don't want to manhandle it...

With four finals to study for and four papers to write by Friday, I figure, hey, why not write in my blog?!

I am the queen of procrastination. And every semester it’s the same damn thing. I never learn. Not ever.

I don’t really have anything to write about other than the events of this weekend. I learned a lot.

I learned that jumbo margaritas from El Charro should not be consumed if you drove to El Charro, but it is nice to have a roommate with a slightly higher alcohol tolerance. I’m never letting Kurbel talk me into that one again. I learned that sitting on a turkey statue and putting your underwear around its neck is not the best way to make friends with local law enforcement officers. I now know what the inside of a cop car looks like. (No, I wasn’t arrested and no I’m not going into any details.) And I learned that some people will always sweat the small stuff.

Now for some words of wisdom: Don’t be hateful. The only thing you will gain by hating someone is a shit load of enemies. And I don’t know, but I’d be a little freaked out if I had a shit load of enemies. I guess if you’re involved in an organized crime ring and you’re making money off of making enemies, then it’s okay.

Anyway, that’s just my public service announcement for the week or something.


Don’t breed ignorance.