On the Fence

At first I thought I really liked the sister-in-law. I'd only met her twice before, both under weird circumstances with a lot of family around and no one-on-one time for us to get to know each other. This past weekend we spent three days together and at the end of that time I was thinking, Yes! Even though she's 5'10", perfectly tanned, recently breast-augmented and has waist-length perfectly straight naturally blond hair, I still like her!

I was pretty proud of myself, considering all those things normally don't make a woman my favorite. Being short, dark haired and tan-challenged, I don't enjoy being around someone who looks like that. But I was thinking, wow; I've really come a long way. She was cool, I enjoyed her company and I'm glad we're in the same family through marriage.

Now I'm thinking the only things we have in common is the fact our husbands share the same father and the brand of cigarettes we smoke. Which is fine; it's possible to get along with someone a lot different than you are; I've done it before. But little things are trickling back into my mind, little unsettling memories that make me think maybe I was wanting to like her so much, I looked past things at the time.

Such as.

Okay, I've already talked about the fact they have two kids and we have none; fine. I'm friends with many parents and their kids, so this isn't an issue for me (besides wanting to be in that situation, but that's not the point here). We were all sitting around talking and the subject of reading came up. Well, okay! Here's something I can discuss with great enthusiasm and knowledge! I brought up the fact that after all these years, I finally started keeping track of how many and what books I'm reading for 2008. I said I figured I'd end up with fifty or so by the end of the year, making it a book a week. But, and I wasn't saying this in a bragging manner in any way, I said here we are at the end of August and I've just started on book number 53! Shit, I'm as shocked as anyone (except Brian, who's also read that many, if not more). The woman kind of looked at me with that puzzled head tilt like she couldn't comprehend. She didn't say anything for a minute (uncomfortable), then finally said, "Well, I don't have time to read, with work and the kids and everything."

Okay. First of all, I HATE when people say they don't have time to read. Do you have a lunch hour? Do you ever go to the doctor and wait in the waiting room? Do you take shits? You have time to read, bitch. You choose not to. Which is FINE. I understand not everyone shares my love of all things book. But don't act like your important job and two kids keep you from reading. I know plenty of people who manage all of the above. In fact, one of my favorite bloggers, Swistle, has FIVE kids and she reads enough so that I've taken two of her author recommendations recently and found two new favorite writers. So DO NOT tell me you don't have time to read and make me feel like an asshole for being a book nerd!

Just little moments like that throughout the weekend are making me think, no. Maybe I was right in hating all creatures tall, tan and blond.