I'm better today though I still have lingering effects. I was going to go to the festival downtown but after doing shopping I was so tired I just went to bed and had a nap, or at least went to bed for an hour in an effort to get rid of a headache. This is pathetic. I am such a whiny little bitch when I'm sick or in any kind of pain. I have a strong self-pity streak and without anyone around to whine to I just whine to myself.

I finished P J O'Rourke's "Parliament of Whores" and found myself laughing out loud several times while reading it. He is so good at cutting through the bull and making us take our medicine, laced with humor. He wrote POW eight years ago and it's still one of the few understandable books on how government works, or rather, doesn't work. After reading the book I'm rather glad government doesn't work very well or we would be in worse trouble than we are. I just wish it didn't take so much money for the powers that be to govern so badly.

I picked up some novels at the library a couple days ago but am having trouble finishing them. I have a problem with novels. It's not just that most people in novels behave like idiots, we all behave like idiots, and it's not just that they talk funny, we all talk funny (listen to a typical lunchroom discussion at work like you're watching it on tv), but that novels are really boring. Within a few pages to half the book I usually give trying to be interested in someone doing something stupid and talking about it ad nauseum.

I also have a low threshold for navel gazing which is a problem I also have with support groups. I have been to depression support groups and smoking support groups and whatever support groups and rarely lasted more than a couple meetings. The smoking support groups made me want to light up in their faces after an hour of listening to everybody whine about how it wasn't their fault. Of course it is. I knew it was my fault that I smoked.

Sure I have an addictive personality but I smoked because I chose to smoke. I eat too much now because I chose to eat too much. I stay depressed too long because I chose to wallow in it even though I know it's a lot of crap. I enjoy wallowing in depression sometimes (too often sometimes). I know life is a bitch and sometimes overwhelms us, like everyday, and I can whine with the best of them, but I know I don't have to stay there even if I too often choose to stay there, but I have little patience with other people's whining, which is a lot of what novels are about.

Mysteries are ok as they have a point. Science fiction is ok as they have a reason for being beyond the characters themselves. I find a straight novel to usually be less interesting than listening to the latest soap opera from a co-worker. There are some novels I like, but it's the digging through the deluge of boring that irritates me. I can't go by review either so I'm at a bit of a loss. I'm going to try to participate in a couple of online book discussion groups to see if it helps me appreciate novels more because I could very well be missing out on all this stuff that everyone tells me is so wonderful. Maybe I am seriously lacking in empathy? You think?