First Book Club Meeting

Hey.

I'm just back from my first book club meeting. It's a "Classics" book club. I'm a bit of a hermit, so it took me an effort to will myself to get out of the house and go to the book store. I bought myself a decaf mocha as a reward for making it to the shopping center. Then I loitered around for fifteen minutes and then finally made myself go into the little room. Funny how I can argue in front of a panel of judges and never quake in my boots, yet I didn't want to turn the door handle to go into that conference room to talk about a book.

I had a blast! Let's see, so I will remember, there was Cathy, Jen, Julie, Gail, Carol, and Mary. And me, of course.

We read "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier. I had never read it before. The book totally sucked me in. It was really well done. A gothic-styled novel set in the late 1920s or 1930s.

Anyway, I am kind of shy by nature. So I thought I would just kind of listen in and hunker over my decaf mocha and try to be as invisible as possible. But I found myself jumping in and talking about themes and issues and other books that it reminded me of. I wonder now if they thought I was obnoxious. I hope not. They all told me to come back next time. And they didn't say it in that fake Southern way that really means, "We're saying this to your face, but the second you leave we're going to make scathingly catty comments about you." That's quite common down South, you know.

Funny, but when I was in college taking Freshman lit classes, I never spoke. And I always got grumpy about identifying themes. I kept thinking, "Can't we just enjoy the plot without picking it to pieces?" But tonight, here I was picking and hashing away. Quite happily, I might add.

Next month's book is "Arrowsmith" by Sinclair Lewis. Never read that one either. This should be fun. Then October's book is "The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins. One of my favorite books from when I was younger. I told everyone tonight that it was one of my favorites. Hope I still like it. Hope they like it. But you know, I'm past that point of wanting people to think I'm smart because of my book choices. I want to read the books that interest me, and if that's some "low brow" piece of drivel, so be it.

I attended one other book club about 11 months ago. At the same book store, incidentally. Different people. And boy, were they snooty old cows. The first woman to come into the room saw me sitting there all alone. And she calmly sat down and began looking through her book. Don't you think that common courtesy dictates that you should at least make an effort at introducing yourself? I mean, really. Anyway, three other people showed up. The guy was nice. But that first woman and her girlfriend were completely obnoxious. Said they only read "serious literature." I never really understood what that meant. And who gets to stand around with a literary magic sorting wand saying, "This is serious literature. This one is drivel." Silly.

So I'm glad I went back and gave book clubs another chance. I look forward to reading the next book. It sounds like they've been together for some time, so they've read a lot of books from the "Classics Canon." So I'll be introduced to branches off of the classics tree. Should be interesting.

As for my MINI adventure today -- I almost got (another) speeding ticket. I haven't had a speeding ticket since I was 16 years old. Yet a few months ago, I got behind the wheel of my mom's yellow convertible MINI for the first time and Wham! I hadn't even gone three miles before a cop pulled me over and gave me an outrageously expensive ticket. The nerve. So I went to traffic school in order for it to stay off my record. After spending four hours on a beautiful Saturday morning cooped up in traffic school, I got a wee certificate that said I knew the basics of defensive driving.

So I've been trying to obey the rules of the road so my four hours in traffic school would not be for naught. But today, I came upon this little roundabout by my employee parking lot. It's by a huge public park. And no one was around. So Simon and I zipped halfway around the roundabout. MINIs are made for cornering, you know. And wouldn't you know it, there was a State Trooper standing not ten feet from me after I shot out of the roundabout. He made me stop in the middle of the road and told me the speed limit was 15 m.p.h. and that I needed to drive slower. I played the role of the chastised schoolgirl and said I was sorry and that I wouldn't do it again. But deep down I was thinking that he had ruined my whirly twirly happiness. Sigh. Guess next time I'll have to do a super slo-mo whirly twirly round the roundabout. Won't be as much fun though.

I must say that MINIs make you a wee bit of an aggressive driver. They're just too much fun to drive. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. My mom has never had a speeding ticket in her entire life. Always always always drives the speed limit. But she was talking to me the other day and agreed that there's something about a MINI that makes you want to pretend like you're in "The Italian Job." She told me she was getting on the interstate the other day and some guy was following her very closely. Again, she drives the speed limit, but he wanted to go much faster. However, when she hit this big, almost 360 degree on-ramp, she told me she "smoked him" on the corner. To hear my mom talking about smoking someone in her MINI was too hilarious for words. Dear old Mom.

Guess that's it for now.