Two cherry limeades and I picked up the copy of "Dead and Dateless" I bought at the grocery store the other day.
I don't know why I did, though.
Nothing against the book, really -- I mean, it's fun enough where I'm going to finish reading it even taking into consideration what I don't like about it -- but I think I need to start avoiding books with female characters whose main character trait seems to be an addiction to shoes, clothes and/or makeup. Like, to the point where brand names are being dropped so often I expect someone to literally stop in the middle of the action and pick one up in the course of the plot.
I know I sound like I should be one to speak, considering how much time I spend obsessing over
Project Runway, but that's always been more of a watching-the-creative-process-at-work kind of a thing, not to mention the fact that I do know how to sew (you know, given a pattern and a machine, hence why
Real Men Don't Make Cheesecake required no real research other than a quick look at the back of a pattern envelope for measurements) so I understand most of what they're talking about. I mean, I pick up Wet and Wild makeup because it's the cheapest and the hypoallergenic stuff if I can afford it, which I usually can't. I consider shopping at Target for clothes splurging on the good stuff. The only shoes I can really say that I currently obsess over are my black hooker boots with the three-inch heels I got at Walmart and the sequined kids'-size clogs and black ballerina slippers I got at Target that'll have to wait for warmer weather before I can wear them, and all of those cost about fifty bucks COMBINED.
I just have a really, really hard time liking a female character who spends an entire book worried about the condition of her shoes and clothes, usually when people are trying to
kill her. It's not even some big feminism issue, although God knows I have moments where I want to throttle said characters, because I can accept a little airheadedness in something that's sort of meant to be literary candy. But I don't know ... I can't really sympathize with someone complaining about their shoes when they're being chased by the police or some supernatural creature trying to eat them or something. Comes with having a lot of clothes picked up at the Salvation Army because I ruin so many of them at work, maybe.
Maybe that's why the main character in the Books of Boggs is male. Hmm.
(I really do have to do a series centered around a female character. I did have the first novel of one written a while ago, although the rewrites involved in making it presentable to ... you know,
people, would be MASSIVE.)
EDIT: You know when I know I like a female character? When she either bolts in a pair of three-inch heels and can run in them without breaking an ankle or says, "Fuck this," and either snaps the damn heels off or hides and takes the shoes off. Or if they're stiletto heels and she uses them as weapons. Or pretty much anything that doesn't result in, "Oh, my poor Manolo Blahniks! *cries*"
SON OF EDIT: On the plus side, I've always got
Jim Carrey doing David Caruso's scene-enders on CSI Miami to make me happy.
BRIDE OF EDIT: I'm three cherry limeades down and I plan on staying up until at least seven o'clock in the morning so that I can call work and ask if I have overtime tonight. Which I probably don't. And I don't plan to stop drinking after this one. Woo for drunk-dialing work! (Or not. I'm sure I'll somewhat sober by then. Heh.)
PIZZA DELIVERY GUY OF EDIT: I continue to be amused that I'm still able to type correctly while drunk. Okay, mostly correct. I know enough to fix it, don't I?