So you've convinced me.

Akanthos is right (and he should know being he's from Utah and prolly has a good idea of the conservative nature and character of the book club, and then he knows me, and sees the train wreck coming) -- this book club may be too horrible not to watch. It may be so horrible as to inspire a story.

That's right -- I love to inflict pain on myself, evidently. And I do it often.

Have another kid? Sure! Why not? Go ahead and slice me open! It'll be fun.

OK, maybe not fun, but definitely worth it.

So we'll see how long this club lasts.

And Eric's right -- it's funny how some things that are perfectly normal in one age suddenly become "distasteful" in another. He's also right about people simply discounting popular authors, meaning people like Stephen King, Nora Roberts and, of course, Dan Brown. They obviously have something a huge number of people wish they could tap into. They all have something to teach us, like most writers -- things to do, and things to avoid.

In any event, for your pleasure, I'll prolly try the book club for a while and blog about it.

It's a lovely Monday, after a lovely weekend. We socialized with Randy and Lacy quite a bit, which is always fine entertainment. Rice and I watched Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, which Rice had never seen. Avadore was under the weather, so all in all, it was a quiet weekend, but those are so nice to have, especially after a month of crazy-busy weekends.

The kids spent most of the day playing outside together. I called them in at naptime, at which point Avadore took a look at LD's mildly dirty face, spit on his hands and tried to clean him up. Does big brother spit work as well as mother spit? FYI -- I have done this to Avadore once, and it was so long ago I doubt he remembers. I think it's some sort of weird inherent reaction to baby dirt and the need to take care of the little guy. Or maybe Rice is a closet hand-spitter-Avadore-face-cleaner and I haven't found out about it

yet...

I'm going to be working some more on a new short story for a bit, which is always a happy thing to do on a Monday, we'll have some family time, and I will praise Rice for doing several householdy sorts of things that have needed to be done for a bit. Ah, he's so good to me.

I may spend some time this evening on the front porch reading more of Hal Duncan's Vellum, which just absolutely rocks in so many ways. It's definitely not an airport book -- ya gotta pay attention while the man rips up the page.