I’ve never been a drinker. It’s not really a religious thing–although I did grow up in an abstemious household–I just don’t like the taste. So I’ve never quite understood why people will endure the awful taste and general malaise of post-drinking.
And then last night as a clicked through the latest book by crazy Patsy Cornwell I began to understand.
Because these wretched Scarpetta novels are my cheap vodka. My Boone’s Farm. My Pabst Blue Ribbon.
They are not that good. They were once, but now they’re just an exercise in her personal exorcism, watching a famous and wealthy author with her own passel of issues work them out on the page in the guise of not one, not two but at least four Mary Sues and one adoring plebe. Yet I still can’t stay away. I skipped the last one or two and thought myself cured, but on early Christmas morning after drudging through a couple saccharinely unsatisfying Christmas romance novels (angels? Really?!?) I needed hard killing. So I spent the 25 seconds and ten dollars it took to secure the latest and I’ve been briskly clacketing through the screens at every chance.
And I know it’s terrible. But I keep reading because I still want to know what happens next. I now am having the sad reckoning of these books representing my lost weekend, a foray into a reader’s Bukowski realm. As vices go this one isn’t too terribly awful. Yet I still feel a certain amount of shame.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Darling Kat, you do know that most folks who drink alcohol do like the taste, don’t drink to excess, and thus don’t experience a post-drinking malaise, don’t you? No shame involved.
Very grateful to my parents for teaching me to enjoy the good stuff so that I never could stomach Boone’s Farm.
BTW, I mean that in the sense of “don’t feel guilty about your reading pleasures; as long as Scarpetta isn’t all you enjoy you shouldn’t be getting book hangovers.” Upon rereading, I see that wasn’t very clear.
Ugh, Evanovich is my vice. Intellect mocks me, but sometimes I just want to live in that world where everyone is beautiful and cool.
[…] not that, because as clever as I try to be behind the keyboard there are only so many times and different ways I can say “Gosh, this was an awful […]