I love reading library books and finding pages where people folded a corner over to mark their place. Whenever I find books with lots of these, I like to stop at the same places someone else stopped, then pick it up again, and stop where they stopped again. It's kind of romantic.

I know, I know; you should use actual bookmarks in a library book, but that's so sterile. You can tell a book that's been loved by its creased pages, a broken spine, the way the front and/or back cover is falling off. I prefer a book that's been around the block.

Right now I am just a little over halfway through Martha O'Connor's "The Bitch Posse." God, whan an intense book! Definitely not just "chick lit." Though I might have an issue or two, I'm mostly "together" and really enjoy reading about girls/women who have seriously screwed up lives. Maybe I'm weird.

This is the third new book I've read so far this year. The first one I tackled, Arthur Neresian's Suicide Casanova, I was definitely disappointed with. An "edgy" plot (lawyer whose paralegal-turned-dominatrix wife dies in an S&M threesome, so he starts stalking a porn star-turned-social worker he once had a relationship with) and a rare, clever Chuck Palahniuk-esque turn of phrase does not save this book from being boring. It was a chore for me to finish reading it, and for me reading is all (or at least mostly) about pleasure. (Random: I bought this at a library sale because I liked the cover.)

My second book was June Flaum Singer's "The President's Women." I read and loved two of Singer's other novels ("The Debutantes," "The Movie Set") that my grandmother gave me a couple years ago, and am to read the rest of her novels. Her books are about the lives of the rich, famous and decadent, but show a far more twisted bent than Jackie Collins or even Jacqueline Susann. Imagine Susann collaborating with VC Andrews and you're pretty close. I'm not as crazy about "The President's Women" as I am the others, maybe because this one is told from the third person POV. Still, it was a nice, fluffy (if long) read.

So, my new-old job starts next week (though I am going in tomorrow for some stuff). Mostly we're waiting on a computer monitor from Dell, because the computer at my desk for some reason doesn't have one. Though I'll admit to missing the crazy-busyness of the restaraunt a little bit, I'm looking forward to having my own desk and comfy chair again. That, and being able to listen to streaming KWOD or Live 105 all day.

One thing I noticed about KWOD after not having listened for months: Their darling, "let's play at least one song by them every hour" Fall Out Boy, has apparently been replaced by Paramore. Truthfully, except for the girl singer, I'm not entirely sure they're two different bands.

In the "I rule!" category: Yesterday I bought this CD/DVD shelving unit from Target, and put it together myself! And this isn't like the super-simple one I got this year; this thing had all kinds of different screws and pegs and doohickeys, and it rotates. My last little shelf was so full of CD's that I literally couldn't remove any, and I had to keep most of my DVD's on my bookshelf. This one holds everything nicely with a little extra room. Which means I need to get to work on updating my music and movie collection(s), right?

I was thinking recently: I used to be the kind of fan who would go out and buy new releases from my fave bands the very day they were released. Now... it's just "Oh, I'll get around to it," kinda thing. I haven't bought the Smashing Pumpkins' latest yet; actually, I don't even have Billy Corgan's solo album. The high school me would be appalled.