On being Crude

Lately I've noticed a trend towards being brash, crude, intentionally shocking, and/ or juvenile in places where it just doesn't belong.  In the book blogging community itself there are a handful of bloggers who seem to delight in the panty-jokes and bathroom humor that I spend much of my time trying to train my 5 year NOT to use. I occasionally feel like I'm part of the wrong generation, as I don't see the humor or the appeal of referring to one thing, say wet panties, to describe your feelings about something else, for example, a book. Perhaps the blogger means this literally, in that he or she really is turned on by the book in question, but from reading the posts, I believe it's just being used as a shocking turn of phrase to garner attention.

By this same token, how is bathroom humor funny in the contest of the book blogging world? I admit to laughing at the occasional fart joke. If  someone were to fart and my two year old popped up with, "he FARTED!", I would laugh. If someone blogged about a memorable incident with potty training or the weird thing they overheard in the public bathroom at Target, I'd probably see the humor. But how is it funny, or even cute, to use this type of humor to refer to something like reading? Unless your book got peed on in a memorable manner? Maybe? Or was about poop? Everyone Poops (My Body Science Series) and Walter the Farting Dog come to mind as acceptable.

I spend much of my time trying to teach two young children when it is appropriate to laugh at poop and when it is not. I'm not really a prude, I see the humor in a lot of the posts on the Fail Blog. I read romance novels and sex in a fiction book doesn't turn me off the book. I just don't see the humor in using this type of talk to describe something unrelated. It feels like a cheap way to make a joke or an intentional attempt at shocking me. (You might remember I felt the same way about Screwed Up Life of Charlie The Second by Drew Ferguson, which many people loved.)  To be clear, this bothers me a lot more regarding book blogging than mommy blogging.  I just don't get it and honestly don't even want to get it. Am I the only one that feels this way? Am I an overreacting old biddy (at 35!) who will be chasing the kids off the lawn next? Is any humor appropriate at any time? Am I grossly out of touch with reality? Is my sense of humor stunted?  What do you think? 

(I'm sure someone will come along soon and tell me that I'm over-reacting. I'm not truly distressed about this trend, I just don't understand why it's funny.)


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The problem with series

Like many (most?) other readers I have quite a few series that I enjoy. Lately I've been finding that the farther I am into the series, the MORE likely I am to quit it.  There seems to be two main reasons for this, first, the author takes the characters in a direction that I don't enjoy. An example of this is Laurell K. Hamilton. I don't believe that the Anita from book one (Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter),) which I loved, would have gone where the Anita of book 9 or so and later has gone.  This is also true of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series. I loved the first 6 or 7, but really hated Kay by about book 9 (Trace, I think).  While Kay did grow and change, she changed into someone unlikable and I didn't want to read any more of her.

The second reason I lose interest in a series is because it doesn't seem like each book is new. The best example of this is Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series (Starts with One for the Money (Stephanie Plum, No. 1) and runs up to Sizzling Sixteen (Stephanie Plum) at this point). Every book is pretty much the same as the previous book, with no changes to the characters themselves. They are living in exactly one moment in time and don't vary from that.  I think this is why I enjoyed the one in which she hooked up with Ranger so much (no idea which one that was, sorry, somewhere in the middle.)  This isn't a problem that is immediately obvious either. It seems that most series can handle 3 or 4 books before it crops up. I'm a bit worried that Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden is going to turn out a bit like this, but he still has time to show some growth (Starts with Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) if you're interested), as I'm only on book 4 or 5.

The reason I bring this up is that I recently realized that the reason I haven't reviewed Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 10) by Charlaine Harris yet is that I couldn't really think of anything interesting to say about it. It was better than the one before (Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 9)) but that's about all I could say. The characters have some minor changes- Jason for the better, Pam for the better, not so sure about Eric or Sam- but overall it wasn't thrilling or exciting. Oh sure, I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but once I was done it was just over.  I'll probably keep reading them so long as she's writing them, but I no longer feel the need to rush out to find a copy. (This is not true for Evanovich, I think I'm done there.) It almost seems like she's just writing on the surface of the world she built, but not bothering to expand or explore it any longer.  This is in direct contrast with Patricia Briggs's Mercedes Thompson series (starting with Moon Called (Mercy Thompson)) which I love love love.

There are still several series that haven't landed in either of these categories yet for me, series that I enjoy tremendously but just haven't had time to get current on, but I live in dread (as much as you can over a book series anyway) that they will one day fall into one of these groups. I'm curious, what makes you stop reading a series? Do you agree or disagree with any of my examples? I had a very hard time thinking of non-paranormal series for this post, aside from Evanovich. What non-paranormal, non-mystery series do you read and enjoy? Do you see either of these patterns there?


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Mmmm Breakfast...

I'm curious, what do you eat for breakfast?

I've gotten really good at going home and throwing something together for lunch, but breakfast eludes me. We don't keep a lot of breakfast food on hand and I often don't have time to sit and eat it anyway. I am way more likely to stop at the mini-mart or grab fast food on the way to work than I am to stop at lunch time.

So I'd like to know, what do you eat? Do you have some brilliant, easy, quick thing that you eat on a regular basis? I'm willing to spend a little bit for breakfast convienence, but I'm looking for something cheaper than stopping at Taco Johns. Suggestions?




I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks.

Progress

Remember Leon? He's inside the pantry in this picture. Don't ask.

He has to cut his way out. They meant to do it that way.
Sure they did.

Hey! That might be a pantry one day!

I spent the day wrangling children, so no reading has been done. Hope everyone else is having a nice weekend!

I hate those things.

This morning I had to call a coworker on my way to work. Said coworker is in his 20s, has a band, and is heavily into the music scene- and it's not my type of music. So when his phone says," Please enjoy the music while your party is reached..." I braced myself for the worst.

This is what I heard.

Best. Ringback. Ever.



.

It's a real zoo around here.

Ok, I wasn't gonna blog about this, what with the recent SNAKE and all, but...

We had a mouse. I noticed the cats staring under the tv when I went to work but couldn't see anything. I came home for lunch and found them staring at the wall. See, we have this large rock wall in our living room, and as it turns out, it's the same color as a mouse. I wasn't ABOUT to touch the thing. If he'd been on the floor I'd have helped the cats to catch him, or maybe tried to trap him in a box or something, but he wasn't on the floor. He was way up on the wall. I was sure that if I disturbed him, he'd be on my HEAD. And that I just couldn't do. So I left him on the wall and went back to work, sure that he'd come down and the cats would take care of him.

I got home from work and the cats were still staring at the wall.

An hour later, my husband came home and chased it down onto the floor. (It didn't jump onto his head!) The cats were slow to move, perhaps all that sitting and staring had them in a daze. The mouse ran under the baby's jumperoo.... and Scout swooped and and snatched it up in one smooth motion. She calmly walked to the door and asked to be let outside, where she put the mouse down to play and he escaped into the snow. Goooooood doggie.

I'm surprised the cats aren't STILL staring at the wall.

(Mouse circled at the top.)