Consumables #41

Two Consumables in one week! I should be paid extra for that!


1. Witches of the East End, by Melissa de la Cruz

At Book Expo there were all sorts of publishers there with galley copies of upcoming books, handing them out to people who might be able to add to the buzz.* Oh yes, I am so important, I can create buzz. Not really, but you think I am going to tell those suckers that? How would I get a gigantic boxful of galleys to bring home with me then? Anyway, I picked this one up from my pile at random, and also a little bit because I am familiar with de la Cruz's teen stuff (this is her first novel for adults). This one is set in the Hamptons, and stars a family of three witches. With all the zombies and vampires running around literary land (and now fairies too), seeing a good old fashioned witch was sort of refreshing. It was still super frothy and would appeal to teens even more than her teen books, I think, because the story was like her teen stuff, only with plenty of the sexy bidness. Which makes it a novel for adults, but let's face it, teens want books with the sexy bidness in it too.

2. Home improvement shows

Nordic Boy watches home improvement shows sometimes, and they make him, out of anger, pop an o-ring. (This is a favorite phrase of Nordic Boy's. To pop one's o-ring. That means to get rageful. It has to do with plumbing. Trust me, he tells me it's hill-air). It drives him to a poopy pants state when someone Norm Abrams like, who has the fanciest tools around that will laser draw all your cuts for you and then execute those cuts with a press of a button, does this and then says something like "and there you go! Once you learn that trick, you can make mitered joints in seconds!" I found Nordic Boy yelling at the screen last night: "THAT IS NOT A TRICK! THAT IS NOT A TRICK! AUTOMATION DID IT FOR YOU! YOUR VIEWERS CAN'T AFFORD THAT SAW! THAT IS NOT CRAFTSMANSHIP! GAHHHHH!" I don't know why he puts himself through that. Maybe it's the same part of the brain that causes me to watch the Bachelorette, which makes me pop an o-ring.

3. The Bachelorette

OMG, you guys. I really was so ready to not watch the shitstorm anymore. And then I got sick, and watched all the teevees, and saw an episode. And now I am back in. GODDAMN ME. But come on, the guy who wore a Zorro mask for the first few episodes, so that she would fall in love with the Real Him? And how she had spent probably a collective 4 or 5 hours in some guy named Bentley's presence (cue Jon Cryer as Duckie: "his name is Bentley? That's a car, not a name!") and when he left the show, she TOOK TO HER BED because she was devastated by the loss! I don't do the Real Housewives, or the Jersey Shore, or anything like that, but this one: I just can't not look at it. I can't. O-ring be damned.
4. I don't really find celebrities hot. I don't know why, I just don't. I never watch a movie and think "ooh, Ryan Reynolds, homina homina." Instead, I think, really? Ryan Reynolds? Why? I just don't think that I can have a crush on anyone based solely on their looks. So, no fantasizing about McDreamy or McSteamy or McFeely (wait, that's the Mister Rogers guy) or whatever. I do, however, have friend crushes. Like, I have looked at people and thought "we would so totally be friends." For instance, I am convinced in a completely (well 98%) non-stalker-ish way that Amy Poehler and I would be total besties. I also feel that Kate Winslet and/or Emma Thompson (I don't know, the two of them have to come in a set, right?) and I could have a pint together, no probs. I have always found Ewan McGregor completely charming in interviews and like him in a non-hubba-hubba way.*** I couldn't make you a long list like that, but I could make you a list. The latest friend-crush I have? Luke Burbank and Jen Andrews on TBTL. I listen to their podcast on my way to work in the morning and am pretty sure I am conducting an imaginary friendship with both of them.

5. I know this has made its way around the intertubes a bunch, but my fake friends Luke and Jen play the audio from this often, and it makes me laugh every. fucking. time.



*I am sure I must have mentioned the dude that my friends and I eavesdropped on at Coastal Kitchen this one time, where he was obviously on a date, and trying to impress his lady friend with high falutin' intellectual talk** and our favorite quote from this 21st century Keats was on the subject of his artwork and the effect that he wanted it to have on the world. "I just want to make a dent in the buzz, man," he said. A dent. In the buzz. Oh, lady, if you ended up bedding that dude later, I just don't even know what to say to you.

**otherwise known as jibber jabber

***homina homina and hubba hubba in one post! Just wanted to point that out in case you missed it.

Later gators. Tell me, who is your imaginary celebrity friend?