No, Amos! NO!
2006-06-09, 3:37 p.m.

I went to Half Price Books last night because this lady said that she likes to go there and buy used magazines. Used magazines! I thought to myself. Whatever for?

But wait! I thought. Lil Guy LOVES �Popular Science� and �Popular Mechanics�, and wouldn�t it be fun to score a bunch of back issues for him to read? Because getting him to read is a task not for the weak or pale and sickly, and if he loves to read PS and PM, along with the Best Buy circular and the Hammecher Schlemmer catalogue, that�s what we�ll give him.

(DIGRESSION: I don�t know why we get the Hammecher Schlemmer catalogue in the mail. It seems like the kind of place where Oprah would shop, and Oprah and I are not from the the same shopping planet.)

So there I moseyed, rifling through the stacks of used magazines at Half Price Books, taking in the smell of antiseptic on the air, admiring (not) the flip-flops and Birks on the other shoppers� feet, and that�s when it hit me: our Half Price Books has SHIT for selection in used magazines.

Alas, the Half Price Books close to me is a depressing place. It has all the poverty, but none of the funk of the HPB down on Broadway. But since I was there, I felt obligated to peruse the Literary Fiction section. I LOVE the Literary Fiction section at the HPB on Broadway. It has its own room, with racks and bins and bushels and pecks full of worn-out books. And the smell�all booky. Mmmmmm.

Hey! Haven Kimmel. I love Haven Kimmel! She wrote that book about that girl (named Zippy). Here�s another Haven Kimmel-authored book: The Solace of Leaving Early. How could this NOT be a score!

I�ll tell you how not. It�s not a good book, at least not so far. I got about 4 pages in before I was hoping for a quick resolution to the story, perhaps via giant helicopter landing on the main characters and crushing them to death, or maybe if they were all kidnapped, tied-up, taken away and held for ransom.

But no, I was instead treated to the part where Amos is lying awake in bed, praying for sleep, and arguing with himself over whether or not to write a book. He does NOT want to write a book � he�s done it before whilst writing his master�s thesis, and he just doesn�t want to go through that woodchipper again.

I found myself screaming, �No, Amos! NO! Please don�t write a book! It�ll be even worse than reading your inner-most thoughts about writing a book. It will kill us all with the boredom and tedium.�

DW looked up, asked who�s Amos, and went back to watching Episode 9 of the first season of 24. And I realized that�s where I belonged, too. Next to my man, sharing in the bonding experience of asking and then see for ourselves �What would Jack Bauer do?�

(DIGRESSION: Jack Bauer would steal a car, flee from the police, and have his people put a trace on it. Whatever �it� is. Trace it.)

So if any of y�all have read The Solace of Leaving Early, and if you know whether it gets any better once an actual plot shambles onto the scene, please let me know. I�m about ready to jettison this one and read some of the back issues of �Badger Fancy� I bought at HPB.

For your Fashion Nonsense Friday enjoyment, I present to you a photo that I took in the car today of my scarf belt that was giving me so much trouble last week. We�ve resolved our differences and now it�s my Best Fashion Friend. This picture was taken in the drive-thru line at Arby�s:

See how it contains ALL THE COLORS, ties up nicely in a bow, and lays its fringe out fetchingly upon my supple denim-clad thigh. Yikes. That�s practically a crotch-shot. Can you see my cliggas?

In case you were missing my smug little smirk, one of my repertoire of many specific smiles:

Nice smirkage.

Does your office get the Friday Afternoon Tornado Effect? Mine, too.

Nice wreckage.