I finished two books this weekend (the 37^th and 38^th for 2010 if you’re keeping track).  The first was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.  It was a bit folks-taley for my taste…but I did like the story and I’d recommend it.  The only criticism I have (and this could be part of the reason some people LIKE it) is that I felt like each paragraph contained a lesson or words of wisdom, and that got old after a bit.

The 38^th book I picked up at The Goodwill for fifty cents (less than a dollar!!!!!).  It is The Indian In the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks.  I KNOW!  When I saw it at the thrift store and I saw the price I had to pick it up.  I was finishing up The Alchemist, so I knew I was going to need something to read.  Unfortunately it didn’t last very long…I started Saturday over my morning coffee and finished in a couple of hours.

I also finished the 5th Babysitters Club book, Dawn and the Impossible Three.

This was the 36th book that I read in 2010.

Can you imagine the looks of confusion and double-takes I get when I’m sitting at a coffee shop reading these books?

When I originally decided to read the Babysitters Club books I committed to the first ten.  I want to get a good grasp on why these books were so popular.  And even though I think I pretty much get it, I’m going to stick to reading the first ten.

And I know you’re wondering…Stacey is still my favorite.

I may have a new guilty pleasure author.  Her name is Kristin Gore (the daughter of Vice President Al Gore).  She writes these Sammy novels that are melt-in-your-lap delicious.
BTW if you’re counting, this is the 35th book I’ve read in 2010.

Sammy’s House and Sammy’s Hill are best described as Bridget Jones meets The West Wing.  They’re cute and predictable and take place in Washington D.C.

In Sammy’s House, Sammy works for the VPOTUS and her boyfriend Charlie is a reporter for the Washington Post…drama!  And they don’t talk about work.  But then…omg…Charlie asks her to confirm a story that could take down the administration.  And guess what she does?

This book is definitely chick-lit.  But the political angle adds a bit of story that makes it more enjoyable.  I’m not joking.  If you like The West Wing and you like romantic comedies, you’d like Kristin Gore.

Sammy’s House is the second book in the Sammy series.  If you want to pick up a Kristin Gore novel, I’d suggest you start with Sammy’s Hill.

This post is kind of a hodgepodge of topics that I’m throwing together.

Firstly, I want to say that Summer Camp is almost over.  If your’e counting, I’ve got two days left.  That means in two days I will have a bit more free time, and I won’t be at work from sun rise to sunset.  I really couldn’t be more happy about this.  Whenever our After School Program is ending and we’re gearing up for summer, I find myself thinking, “I’m so ready to be done with the After School Program.  Thank god summer is starting.”  And now that summer is winding down, I’m thinking the opposite.

Secondly I’m taking a group of teenagers to California’s Six Flags amusement park tonight.  We’re leaving around midnight and returning at 6 a.m. on Friday.  I’m quite certain I’ll be bored, so follow me on Twitter to converse with me on the trip.

I also finished two books in the past week (give or take).  The 33rd book I read this year was Lux The Poet by Martin Millar.  In ten words: Incredibly jarbled and choppy but it is a decent story.  The 34th book I read in 2010 was Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel.  I picked up the book because I heard Kunkel on a radio interview or podcast (I don’t remember where) and came across his new relase at the library.  In ten words: Convoluted and not worth the time it took to read.

For those of you that still read this blog, thanks.  I’ll be giving it more attention in the near future.

I finished reading my 30th, 31st and 32nd book this year. 

Number 30 was a piece of non-fiction (I know!) called Say Everything: How blogging began, what it’s becoming, and why it matters.  Don’t waste your time on this book.  It’s written by Scott Rosenberg (the same guy that wrote Dreaming in Code) and it’s incredibly bogged down with history and quotes.  Total snoozefest.

The 31st book I read was The Model Millionaire a collection of short Oscar Wilde stories.  Loved it. 

And the 32nd book I read in 2010 was Mary Anne Saves The Day  the fourth in the Babysitters Club series.  Don’t judge me…but out of these three titles, I liked the Babysitters Club book the best.  In this book, Mary Anne saves the day in a few ways: she repairs the friendship of the all the Club members after a big fight, she takes this little brat she’s sitting to the hospital because she had a fever of 104, and she sets her father up on a Parent-Trap-like date with Dawn’s mother.  Drama!  Loved it.

In other book news, I’ve talked to my friend Jennifer about setting up a book club here in the Phoenix area.  Who’s in?

I’ve read two books in the last few weeks.
The 27th book I read in 2010 was The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni.  It was a decent read about two kids that needed one another so badly…so they started a punk band.

The 28th book that I read in 2010 was Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs.  It’s a bunch of short (and true) stories from the crazy life of Burroughs that we first read about in Running With Scissors.

I’m pretty sure I’ve read more books than this…I’ve just kind of gotten behind on writing about them here.  But whatever.  I’m only updating this list to keep count.

#22 – The Truth About Stacey – Babysitters Club Book No. 3

#23 – Lullabies for Little Criminals – By Heather O’Neil

#24 – Cross Country – By James Patterson

#25 – Slouching Toward Bethlehem – Joan Didion (okay…I’ve read this book about a million times, but I recently re-read it front to back on a Sunday evening)

So I’m only a quarter of the way to 100.  And the year is about half over.  So there is really no way I’d ever be able to read 100 books in a year.

First off, I bought a Speedo.  Don’t judge.  I just put it on in the locker room, and prance out to the pool.  Nobody has time to see how I’ve inelegantly squished my junk into it.  This does, however, call for some serious manscaping.  And since I’ve started seeing results at the gym I’m not all embarrassed to be seen in the speedo.  The one area that really needs some of my attention tanning.  Why are gay men so superficial, btw? (There was a lot of TMI in that paragraph…sorry.)

Since my guest post on SixUntilMe.com, I’ve received a lot of really supportive emails, tweets, comments.  Thanks to everyone that read it and sent me support in any form.  Additionally, I should mention that I wrote the post soon after we hit splitsville and just posted recently – so I’ve done some serious healing since then.  And if you liked the post, you might also like the comments that people posted (at the time of this writing there are 31 comments).  The majority of them are supportive, but there’s also a few criticisms of my diabetes v.s. cancer comparison.

I’ve been pretty religious about the my gym routine.  Sure there is the obvious benefits…I use less insulin in a day after I’ve run a couple of miles, my energy level is higher, etc.  Those are all really great reasons, but the main reason I’ve gone six or seven times a week is to keep up the foursquare mayorship.  Since the last time I obsessively blogged about foursquare, I have earned a Photogenic badge for checking in at three locations that have photo booths (?!) and a Bravo Newbie badge when I ate dinner the other night at Fez…which, like Bravo, is clearly gay but straight people don’t always realize it.

My reading has slowed down a bit.  I blogged about the bizzaro couple of days where I was starting books and then deciding not to reading them.  If I’ve ever made fun of you for starting books and never finishing them, I take it all back.  It’s really not something that I do…and it has kind of ruined some of my momentum.  But then I found a James Patterson book (so?!) that gave me my mojo back, and I’ll be posting about the 22nd and 23rd book I’ve read this year pretty soon, I’m sure.

I’m listening to a lot of podcasts now.  A lot.  Like close to a dozen.  Since I’ve last updated y’all on my podcast listening, I’ve added The Big Gay News Podcast (daily gay-related news), Democracy Now! (daily political talk show that I used to listen to on Pacifica when I lived in LA), Johnjay and Rich (it’s a cut up version of their local radio show), Jordan, Jesse GO! (nerdy weekly podcast by two straight guys), NPR: Fresh Air (daily interview show), Pod Is My Copilot (weekly shoot-the-shit podcast), Stuff You Should Know (they pick one topic and break it down so even us stupids could understand it), The NerdistThe Q Cast Connection (which is Chris Hardwick’s podcast), (a bunch of homos from Florida sit around and talk).  My iPod has basically been turned into a podcast-listening device.  Music is for emotional people.

I have a problem.

It’s a self-control problem.  Every time I walk into the library my mouth salivates and my pulse increases.  I just want to start grabbing books off the shelves and start consuming them.  It’s a serious problem.  I don’t solely check out books that look to be interesting.  I sometimes have to stop myself from taking home mediocre crap that I could probably write a better version of.

Last week I visited the library and checked out three books that all really looked good.  The problem with having three potential good reads, was that as soon as I got through the first 50 pages of one of the novels, I decided it was too boring and skipped to the second.  I didn’t even get 50 pages into the second before ripping open the third.

I ended up bringing all three of the books back without completing any of them.

This last library visit I checked out two books, and promised myself that I wouldn’t open the second until I’ve finished the first.

Quickly, I wanted to post that I finished the 21st book for 2010.  This weekend I read Perforated Heart by Eric Bogosian.

I love me some Bogosian.  When I was 14 I stole (forgive me, please) a copy of his one-person show Pounding Nails Into The Floor With My Forehead and just devoured that thing.  I’ve read Pounding… at least 50 times.  And I subsequently bought (yes, with money) Talk Radio and Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll.

And this new-release was wonderful.  I stayed up late each night this weekend because I had trouble putting it down.

Small sidenote: I don’t blog about books read because I want to brag.  It’s really more because I’m curious how many I’ll read in 2010.  It’s hard not to write a paragraph or two about a book when I’m posting the count.  So there.  Haters.