feelin' hot hot hot

Mm. Glad to get that song stuck in your head, dear reader (Mom, Dad, Granny).

It's been deliciously hot in Edmonton the last couple days. The kind of hot that makes you want to have picnics on the legislature grounds, or really just sit in your air-conditioned apartment sucking on a popsicle and trying to write fiction.

I blame my sudden need to write really bad fiction on Jennifer Crusie, whose light touch makes you want to write stories of your own. Reading a book of hers is kind of like eating a cherry popsicle on a sunny day. Okay, maybe one of those blue, white and red popsicles.

I continue to take a break from Anna Karenina (perhaps until the fall, when it will be cold again and I won't want to leave my apartment and so I'll be stuck with Tolstoy's prose) and even from 28 (a gorgeous book that breaks your heart on every page -- it's actually been a rather rough week, so I needed a breather). And so I am reading a frothy,* fun Crusie novel, Don't Look Down, co-authored by Bob Mayer.

I've never read Mayer before, however I assume he is to blame for the testosterone-charged graphs about military weaponry that I've been skipping. Crusie, of course, is responsible for the witty dialogue and a female heroine who isn't a size six with perfect hair and a penchant for listening to Bruce Springsteen. (Seriously, why must all romance heroines listen to Springsteen? Does anyone in real life listen to Springsteen anymore?)

I'm sure I had a point in this blog entry that had nothing to do with making my family sing the "Hot, hot, hot" song to themselves for the rest of the day.... But it's summertime and I can't focus. So, a few sidenotes:

• HURRAH! How many summer nights did I spend while in university drinking strawberry daqs and watching Sex and the City? Too many to count, really. Perfect summer news.


• Thanks to a friend, I have a new book to add to my Must Read list.... unfortunately, I can't find the relevant CP article online anywhere, and I don't want to pilfer it. So please, dear reader (Granny, Mom, Dad), bear with this article from salon.com
  

*Have you ever noticed "frothy" is a term almost wholly reserved for the work of female writers, most often chick-lit authors? Erm, when not speaking of coffee of course. No matter how ludicrously commercial the work of King or Grisham, one rarely calls it "frothy." Hmph.