Book Group

In line with the "Auntie Scotch Great Effort of 2007 to Try New Things", last night was my first meeting of the monthly book group that I recently joined. It was held at Borders bookstore on School Street downtown.

The assigned book was "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon.

When asked, I described the book as "being narrated by a 15 year old autistic boy who tries to solve the mystery of his neighbor's murdered dog but ends up uncovering mysteries of his own life and those closest to him." Then I look around all suspicious like and sing "DUM DUM DUM" in a baritone voice leaving the person who asked me wondering why they even attempted a serious conversation with me in the first place.

In any case, I had never been to a book group before and frankly had no idea what to expect. I figured it could go two ways:

1. I would make witty and intellectual commentary on the novel, everyone would love me, and I would be invited to speak at one of the other book group members child’s school the following day.

2. I would blank out due to the effects of book group pressure and make such remarks as:

"I found the scene where he freaked out at the airport quite ironic."

Um, no.... you may be thinking of the movie Rain Man.

"Oooohhh...right right right - well, a turning point was when he climbed the water tower and his brother had to talk him down...."

That’s Arnie from "What’s Eating Gilbert Grape".

"Gotcha....hmm...let’s see....At the end when he got drunk on vacation and ran to the pool naked thinking no one would see him but in fact there were at least a dozen people who witnessed it...."

That was you, summer 2005.

But the truth is everything went really well. The other women were very nice, I contributed easily and even threw in some humor (appropriate humor even!), and I’m looking forward to next month’s group meeting. I’m really turning into quite the young lady after all. Yeah, right.

Happy Friday! Happy Ice Rainy Shitty Friday (it’s 6AM and sleeting here in Boston)!