Late night...

So...I have just run into one of the pitfalls of having a nap in the afternoon-- it's almost eleven thirty at night, and I'm not tired. In fact, I'm so not tired that my need for random food has taken the reins in the past few minutes. I want Chinese food really, really badly. I want dumplings, lo mein, and chicken wings.

I don't know what sort of crack they baste those babies with, but it's good. I have irrational cravings at all hours of the day for chicken wings. But the chinese places are all closed at this time of night. Even if they weren't closed, I have a negligible amount of cash in my pocket, so I couldn't pay for delivery. And I'm not exactly itching to go walking this late, either. I wonder how many checks got bounced at chinese restaurants before they implemented the "sorry no checks" rule. I don't think I've ever seen a Chinese place that takes checks... maybe they have some sort of telepathic network, and they all stopped taking checks simultaneously some dark night long ago?

I was going to spend my evening watching mindless hollywood drivel, but, for some unknown reason, Netflix's instant watching thingymajig is down, and it won't be available for about another half an hour. There's no way I'm staying up to watch a two-and-a-half hour crappy movie. Jerry Maguire isn't worth it; my love of Tom Cruise is not that strong. (Yes, I'm probably the only person who hasn't seen that movie. It's so pitiful that I'm still catching up to movies I always wanted to see but haven't yet, and they're all at least ten years old...I finally saw American Beauty, and that was this past May.)

Instead of movies, I was reading a book. I discovered something while reading, something important. Reading books makes me feel smart. I mean, I know I can feel my IQ dropping when I read fanfiction---or anything, really--online, but I didn't expect to experience the opposite effect when reading a real, physical book. It probably has to do with the book in question being a nonfiction literary book. And, by literary, I mean funny. I'm reading "The Commitment" by Dan Savage. (Professional writer, frequent NPR contributor.) It's so weird to think about it, but I feel...elevated by reading this book. Not only am I reading, but it's a "smart people" book. I'm indulging in some kind of half-formed elitist snobbery by reading this book....and it feels great.

I'm not reading sentimental bodice-rippers or raunchy murder mysteries (right now. ^_^ ) I'm not trolling the internet for hawt man-on-man fanfics. I'm reading a book by a writer I think highly of...and other people think highly of him too. Never mind that, out of the baker's dozen of books I have from the library, there's only one other book for my 'casual' reading that is neither science fiction nor young adult (or indeed, both at the same time.) Not that there's anything wrong with either of those things, but if someone were to come knocking on my door and ask me what I'm reading, I could give an answer that won't get me this sort of horrified eye-rolling look. ("You're how old, again? 23? Still reading juvenile.....") 

Make no mistake. I love young adult books and science fiction and fantasy. There's a special spot in my heart for the trashy romance-softcore genre. But...I don't like the potential ridicule that comes from being an adult woman in the kid's section. The adults look at me weird. The kids look at me with pity in their age-appropriate eyes. And the clerks don't look at me at all. No one's actually said anything to me about it, but I bet they're gossiping when I leave.

I guess I just want to be taken as an adult with post-collegiate reading and comprehension levels. No one took me seriously in 4th grade, either, but that was when I was a kid with adult reading tastes. 4th grade is one of those evil comprehensive academic testing years, and my scores came back as already being post-high school for reading and comp. My 6th grade not-quite-so-rigorous scores came back post-collegiate. By the time I moved on to high school, I'd mostly abandoned the school's library in favor of the public library, because A. I'd read all the books at school I cared to read and B. all the school's books were too easy.

Now, I'm an adult who has yet to abandon the kid's section...or the childish fear that everyone's going to make fun of me for what I read. It's not like my reading ability is so low I'm stuck reading these books. I read them because I like the stories. Young adult authors don't bother with this grand-concept-literature snobbery that happens so often in adult fiction. There aren't a lot of hidden meanings or dozens of thinly veiled themes lurking behind every word, and the story takes precedence over whatever message the author may intend to impart to the reader.

I don't know. Even though I am perfectly capable of dissecting literature with critical thinking, it's not something I like to do. It really feels wrong to pick at a story or book to see the organs that make it live and breathe. It's enough, for me, that it's all there and works together to engage me in the author's words. Who cares about plot devices and metaphor? What's wrong with sitting back and enjoying the book? I may dissemble a part of a story to see how it works, true, but that's not really reading it. How can a person experience the full breadth and impact of a story if they're so busy thinking about how it's put together. It's micromanagement, and I don't like it.

Crap. I went on a tangent. Anyways, I like the "grown-up" book I'm reading, because it makes me feel a bit more mature than what I might normally read. No one's going to pick on me because its targeted age group is a decade younger than me....they'll just pick on the subject matter...and the author...and my political views because only a liberal would read that kind of book.

Some days, you can't win for losing. I think I'll just start telling people I'm illiterate and have no interest in reading. ^_^

~ciao