Bookslide III

When I was in high school, I’d wake up and reach for my book–whatever book I was reading.  I’d read it while I eat, dried off after the shower, blow-dried my hair (in the winter, anyway), brushed my teeth.  The book slowly but surely woke my brain up.  That was pre-internet, though. 

Now I turn on the new and so far trusty laptop, and open up Safari.  This brings up my email.  A lot of it I just sort of ignore at first–Yahoo Calendar sends me my notifications for the day (”Hey, it’s your friend’s grandkid’s birthday!  Send them an e-card!” except that it really says “Anja’s Birthday” but at least it has a little cake next to it).  Those I click on first to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything important, like a doctor’s appointment.  I delete what’s in the spam folder.  I go through the Livejournal comment notifications and see if there are any I’m awake enough to deal with–that is, can be answered in ten words or less, and even then I typo to hell.

Then I check Dear Margo and Dear Abby.  Yes, it’s true.  I am addicted to reading what old women have to say about manners and social relationships, especially as they pertain to people several decades younger than them.  I facepalm to truly bad advice, like this.  Seriously?  You’re comparing birth control to, say, blood pressure medication?  Therefore putting all the responsibility of birth control on the woman?  I would like to say, in a very calm, controlled voice, that birth control should NOT be lumped in with “general medications” because it is BIRTH CONTROL, and BIRTH CONTROL is the responsibility of BOTH PARTNERS.  How many times has an unwanted child resulted from a birth control lie?  ”I’m sterile.”  ”I’m on the Pill.”  Oh SHUT UP, Ms. Phillips.  We are all responsible for birth control, man and woman alike.  Putting the entirety of the financial responsibility on one half of the couple is ridiculous.  And yes, I’d help pay for the Viagra.  That’s MY SEX LIFE TOO, you know.

(It’s not always like that.  Ms. Phillips offers wonderful advice most of the time.  That one just annoyed the hell out of me.)

That done, I move on to my Bloglines.  I have to admit, I look to see if Jennifer Crusie or Karen Healey have updated first.  It’s that thing they tell you about in Psych 101, where the mice who receive random treats are always eager to try again and see if it happens this time (slot machine syndrome?); they don’t update on a regular basis so I’m more eager.  Also, cuz they’re awesome.  Then I click through the rest in this order: Tomato Nation (unless it’s The Vine, Sarah Bunting’s advice column; then that gets read last), Ragnell, Kalinara.  I would also have The Dairi Burger up there but I’ve never been able to get the feed to work on my Bloglines, for some reason.  Very irritating.

This week, Jenny Crusie brought up Valerie Frankel’s new book, Thin is the New Happy, which I immediately put on order at the library.  I’ve read three of Frankel’s books, and they are fun, smart chick lit.  (I’ve reviewed them on here or Bookslide II, can’t remember which.)  It will be interesting to read some non-fiction for a change, as I rarely do it, and as someone who’s thought she was fat since she realized she was only one of two kids at the Ground Round who were paying over a dollar for their “Pay What You Weigh!” kids’ meals (a SCALE in the LOBBY, what were they thinking???)…well, I’m pretty sure it will depress the heck out of me.  But I want to read it.  And, three people from now, I will.

Ragnell announced another carnival, with space westerns as the topic.  Woohoo, Firefly!  I wonder if that crazy “Joss Whedon hates women” chick will come out the woodwork again.  She also threw down the gauntlet, but I really have no opinion on that because I don’t know that I’ve ever read the woman she’s talking about.  Maybe a link from When Fangirls Attack but, as I’ve said before on here, I don’t often read WFA because I’m generally a year or two behind in my comic book readings and reading singular rather than round-up blogs gives me a lot more spoiler space.

Kalinara, on the other hand, gave me major food for thought with her Oh Happy Day! post, which links to some news about a Smallville-type show centered on Dick Grayson in his pre-Robin days. (I get most of my comics news from Kalinara, Ragnell, and a guy on this Justice League/DCAU forum I’m on, especially since I turned into a massive spoilerphobe.)  I was just going to comment to her post, but then I kept tossing the idea around in my head.  People are saying, and I agree, that there’s no real meat to the story.  Even less than Smallville, and I was over most of that show in the first season when I started to feel like the meteor-induced powers of the week made Clark’s powers seem…like just another thing, you know?  What made him different?  Okay, he’s from outer space, but that’s it.  *sigh*  Bad call, I thought, and still think.

However, Dick Grayson’s pre-Robin days are basically: Hey, I hung out at a carnival with my folks, until they were murdered.  Not exactly 42 minutes of drama in that.  Swing high in the air, swing high in the air, pine for some girl?  What, like the poorly-chosen meteor powers, could he be up against?  It’s not like they’re going to go all that-one-episode-of-X-Files/Carnivale on their asses, right?  So what could Dick do?

So here’s my idea.  I hope they use it, because I can’t figure another way to go with this:

Merge Dick with Tim.

Er, that sounded dirty.  But you know what I mean!  Take Dick’s carnival background and athletic/gymnastic abilities and merge them with Tim’s burgeoning pre-Batman detective skills.  Tim Drake, for those who don’t know, is “the third Robin,” the tween who used his analytic brain to deduce the identity of Batman and asked for the job, since Dick Grayson had moved on to the Nightwing identity after basically saying “You’re not my DAD” to Batman, and the second Robin, Jason Todd, was brutally murdered by the Joker.  Tim’s pre-Batman days make him too young to write a show about.  Dick’s pre-Batman days are kinda boring even with the carnival schtick.  But a Dick/Tim combo?  It could work.  Make his seasons-long arc proving the identity of the “Bat-Man” and you’ve got yourself a series.

Also, The Graysons is kind of a dumb name, but I can’t come up with a better one.

Hm.  Then I wander into El Jay land, and then I check in to see if Go Fug Yourself has been updated, and then I realize I’m starving and go downstairs, taking the book I’ve been reading downstairs with me.  (You just have to fit in the random mom stuff I’m doing all morning, like making sure my daughter’s wearing something that follows the school dress code or that she’s not forgetting to take socks with her for gym, that sort of thing.)  Then I become bookgirl, my old familiar identity.  Oh, and I’m pretty much awake by then too.  Awake enough to start replying to emails after breakfast, if I have time before whatever I’m doing during the morning.

Just a few more months before grad school starts and all this leisure time goes away…