Tired but wired and I read Meg Cabot all the way home
I did one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself and cashed in some miles to ride first class all the way home from New York today, and is it wrong to almost cry when the flight attendant hands you that hot towel? In that moment it seemed like all my years flying coach (including on the trip up to New York a few days ago) were like riding in some rickety bus with chickens running between my legs and snot-nosed kids hanging all over me saying, “Whatcha reading?” and generally denying me my bliss.
Not that any of that has ever happened, but I’m just speaking of the contrast here. Because in first class you get the hot towel, hot nuts (why were they hot? The glass bowl they came in–yes, GLASS–was cool to the touch, but the nuts inside were bizarrely hot, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing, but it was noteworthy). You get a hot meal–two of them, in fact, since I changed planes, and both were of the enchilada variety, one chicken, one beef. And you get a glass wineglass and wine itself, if you’re so inclined (I just kept pounding back water, because obviously all that talking yesterday left me with raisin throat, and since I like the window seat I had to keep climbing over sleeping seat companions to get to the first-class bathroom, but who cares, they were first class seat companions, and everyone was so pleasant and wined-up and mostly sleeping, and I only had to climb over one person instead of the usual two in coach, so all was well).
And then after a hot meal with side dishes like salad and brie with crackers, you get a WARM COOKIE–warm like your mom/flight attendant has just met you at the door with them after school–and then–as if that’s not enough!–you also get a little mint to chase it all down.
Unbelievable. And it’s really too bad that I used up all my airline miles with this one trip, because what am I going to do from now on? I can’t go back to the back–please!
What was really funny, at least to me, was that several of the people around me were reading business journals and Vogue and other upscale publications, while I sat there happy as could be with my pink paperback version of The Princess Diaries, Volume VII: Party Princess. I love this series. I laugh out loud every time I read a new installment. So there I was, in my sophisticated surroundings, snorting at some of my favorite YA.
There have been lots of discussions lately on other blogs–Diana Peterfreund’s and Bookseller Chick’s, for example–about book snobbery and the idea that some books are more worthy of our time than others. And I think mostly the consensus about that is SHUT THE BLEEP UP. I read because I love to read, and the books I pick up on any given day depend on my mood and my needs. Today I needed sleep. And since I couldn’t get that, I needed something light and happy and cheery that wouldn’t require me to do math or any other heavy lifting. The well-dressed, elegant woman next to me apparently needed National Enquirer and People with the cover story about Britney shaving her head. That woman (next to me, not Britney) probably just spent the last week at the United Nations negotiating a peace treaty between Russia and Brooklyn, and really needed some down time. Go for it, I say.
So now I’m home, I’ve barely slept for days, I know I should have collapsed hours ago, but I’m still pretty hyped after yesterday’s activities. I’m still processing all the things that happened in New York, the conversations I had, the feelings that I felt. Tonight instead of real food I had nothing but desserts (plural–multi-plural), and somehow that felt exactly right. I’m still not in my regular life yet. Tomorrow I’ll go back to eating oatmeal (without the creme brulee coating on top) and those other normal, grounding foods, and I think then my mind will come back to me. But until then, why rush it?
We can wait until next Tuesday to have our real book discussion, but in the meantime, what say you about this whole book snobbery thing and the fact that sometimes you need some Meg Cabot and National Enquirer instead of U.S. News & World Report?
Technorati Tags: Meg Cabot, Princess Diaries, Reading, Books, Book Lists, Book Recommendations, First Class Travel
February 24th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I agree,sometimes you need a mental vacation. Snobbery in the arts is so subjective;for every person who sneers at folks that haven’t seen a foreign/indie film in years,there are two or three people who can’t understand why you haven’t seen the latest Star Wars/LOR trilogy or have only seen them ONCE. It’s funny when you think about it.
One of my favorite books that I brought back with me from my trip to the UK is Isobel’s Wedding by Sheila Flanagan. It’s all about a gal who has second thought about getting married who goes off to live a new life in Spain. Pretty relaxing read(especially the parts set in Spain,life there sounds great but too hot for me,weatherwise). I picked up a copy of Atonement while I was there too and it was the first Ian McEwan novel I’ve read,which was great.
However,I’ve read Isobel’s Wedding twice and might even do so again. Nothing against McEwan but a girl just has to have dessert after a meal,you know?
February 24th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Right ON.
February 24th, 2007 at 10:42 am
You should treat yourself to creme brule tops at home, too. They only take about a minute, but I’m sure it will be worth it as you bask in the decadence of breakfast, only to chuckle at the dichotomy of eating it in your beat-up jeans and sneakers with the dog begging you to walk him.
February 24th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Lizzie, love it.
February 24th, 2007 at 11:20 am
You’re a published author, certainly you have the millions to not sit among the unwashed masses. They are so dirty that not even a hot towel would help.
Me? I’m beginning to think they’ll let just about anyone into first class… I’m going to have to step up my game to the Lockheed Martin QSST.
Yep. Coast to coast in two hours and only 11 other potential passengers. That’s how we really important people should fly.
February 24th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Incidentally, Robin, I wasn’t meaning you when I said they’ll let just about anyone into First Class. Those people reading business stuff have to go.
I saw some guy staring at his powerpoint presentations for ‘AutoSuture’ medical devices.
Please man, buy a book… Burn it later, if you have to.
February 24th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
AMEN.
February 24th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
AWOMEN, too!
February 24th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I enjoyed Shannon Hale’s recent blog post, in which she encouraged people to read, and to dismiss any thought of certain types of books being unworthy or having guilty pleasure reads be shameful. I agree. Read, read, read!
February 24th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Thanks, Little Willow. All you readers out there, please follow the link on my sidebar here and go check out Little Willow’s page daily for reading lists and more. She’s on it.
February 25th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
A book should give someone the gift of pleasure, or joy, or comfort, or intellectual stimulation, or escape from one’s children for a few hours. That’s it, in my mind.
Personally, if I ever heard that a book of mine made a woman LAUGH while sitting in a chair next to her dying husband in a hospital bed, it would give me great joy. Far greater joy, in fact, that if I learned a book of mine had been chosen to be studied at a university.
February 25th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Oh, Laura, I LOVE that. I completely agree with you. What a wonderful writer’s wish.
February 26th, 2007 at 8:32 am
That is a great wish!
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:22 pm
I spend an inordinate number of hours reading “trash romance” (JAK/Amanda Quick/Jayne Castle being my fav, followed closely by Judith Krantz) and “women’s fiction” (Elizabeth Adler, Elizabeth Lowell), and fantasy/sci-fi (Anne and Todd McCaffrey, Misty Lackey, Elizabeth Moon….)
And YA books: The Princess and Curdie/The Princess and the Goblin (George McDonald); Walter Farley’s Black Stallion books and other horse books; the Nancy Drew series; the Sue Barton books; The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper; Alan Garner’s The Owl Service, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and others….
And Tolkien. Over and over…. and every time I read Tolkien I find something I’d forgotten long ago, or never noticed before - and I’ve been re-reading the whole load of them once a year at least since the mid-80s.
Yup, first class is great. But a great book will make you forget coach…. been there both, done that…. the book’s the important thing….
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Vc, what a great list! Love seeing such eclectic taste. Thanks for sharing your list.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:55 am
Well, I could bore you to tears with the rest of it, going on to Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie, Tony Hillerman, John D. MacDonald…. Louis L’amour, and the varied but maybe the same person writer(s) of many “trash western” series: Longarm, Jake Logan, the Gunsmith….
My eclecticism does NOT include biography/autobiography - if it’s “real world” I’m not interested…. I have to live here as it is.
I did enjoy Blink (Malcolm Gladwell) though, because it’s something I have happen all too often myself, just never knew what to call it or that others had the experience.
Actually, though, one of my favorite things to do with extra bits of time is just read the encyclopedia. Literally.