5, or 6, days until Espana!!!

Depending upon how you count. See, I wouldn't count today since it's mostly over and I don't count the actual day that we leave. Which makes it 5 days. Hurrah!!! I can't wait to put on the bikini and slather my Seattle white skin with spf 30 sunscreen and lay out on da beach! Or by the pool. I'm not really a lay out on the beach or by the pool kind of a gal, so we'll see how that works out. I've never done so in Europe--maybe it's more fun if it's a Spanish beach? Thank goodness for books, huh? And our group will have two cars, which means that if some of us, or just me, doesn't want to toast in the surf and sand, then some of us can do something else... Wanna see where we're living for two weeks? It's purty durn nice, I tell you what....

Speaking of books...what will I bring to read on this trip? I'm such a geek because I actually agonize over what that perfect reading material will be. I'm going to be in Spain. We have plans to go to a bullfight. What about Hemingway, you might ask. Well, yes. That is the obvious choice and I truly love Papa, but (isn't there always a "but"?) I want to read some stories I haven't already read on our excursion. My friend, Adam, recommended this one, and I have been thinking about this one, too, except that I own it in hard cover and that's kind of bulky when you're trying to pack light. Shawn and I talked about bringing one of my all time favorite books to read together, since he's never read it and I love it so much that I'm just looking for any excuse to read it again and again and again. (And we're goofy enough to like to read aloud to one another.) Doesn't solve the issue of what I will bring for myself. For the plane rides, I definitely like to have the easy, leave-it-at-the-hotel-apartment-airport-when-I'm-done, novel. She's good for this, as is she. Easy to digest and a little thrilling, too. Yum. However, for the duration, the relaxing by the pool/on the beach option...well, I'm still stuck.

I'll take suggestions. I'm a sucker for the classics, too. Perhaps I can bring one classic and one contemporary? Ah-ha. I think I'm onto something.

My knowledge of current fiction is woefully slight, because I have what I would call a natural suspicion of any books recommended by Oprah (though I absolutely applaud her efforts to make reading books fun and cool and an every day part of the culture. Keep it up, Oprah!) or the New York Times best seller lists. Or by people that used to work in the same cubicle row that I worked in way back when I worked for a corporation of cubicles. Not to be trusted. They liked this book. Need I say more? (Okay, I didn't read the whole thing. I skimmed it. I wanted to make sure that if I was going to mock this book, that I'd actually, at the very least, perused it. My mom read the whole thing and gave me the gist of what I might have missed because I didn't read every single word. I trust my mom. She has good book sense.) I look to good friends to tell me great reads of "new" books. And then I think, "but I haven't read such and such or so and so and they're in the CANON!!!!!!" Yes. The canon. Can't you hear the Orffian choir in the background when you think about it? The reverence that I carry for this man made entity leaves me frozen with indecision, often as not, when it comes to choosing a book. Sad or no, I am someone who is impressed by that kind of institution. I have a reading list from high school, books that most colleges assume you have or will read by the time you graduate. I look at lists like that and get all giddy and my heart rate goes up and my palms get sweaty. Which of those books have I already read? Omigosh! Which ones have I neglected? How could I have missed that one!!!! I like to check them off. This is one of those embarrassing secrets we try not to tell to anyone, as it will most likely be used against me later. Once, I downloaded a recommended reading list from some website that talks about literary theory. Can't even remember what it was or why I was looking at it, or even where that list went. I just recall feeling a slightly crazed excitement when I saw the list--there were titles on there that I hadn't seen before! What can I say? I like to get all of those literary references that really smart people talk about. It's more fun to actually know--for me, it is--than to nod and smile and pretend that I know. (Come on. You've done it, you know you have.)