"For now they kill me with a living death."

A few weekends ago I set up a lunch date with a friend of mine with whom I am in very rare contact. (If you're questioning the "friend" descriptor coupled with "very rare contact", you're in good company. I questioned it as soon as I wrote it. But there's this whole long, garbledy explanation that I was going to spare you, but, well, if you're going to bring it up...First, there's the whole "she's not so much my friend as she is my mom's friend, but she's really not my mom's friend, per se, so much as she is someone who would like my mom to be her mom/mentor/term for an older woman who is friendly with a younger one but not in a "hey let's go to the mall and hang out" way but more in a "can I come to you and discuss the deeper intracacies of my life and you can help advise me" way. Though I guess that last one is more like a mentor. Anyway, my mom introduced us and, after the initial irritation that here was yet another person trying to horn in on the whole mother-daughter bond thing with my mom (what can I say? My mom's great - everyone wants my mom to be their mom.) I realized that we had some things in common. Though really not enough that we would ever have become friends on our own I don't think because, well, she intimidates the poo out of me. But she's really nice and we go beyond "acquaintances" so that leaves me with...friend? But the intimidation thing? That really means that I find reasons why we can't get together much more often than we do.)

So...she had emailed me a few months back because one of her munchkins was selling popcorn for the Boy Scouts and was I at all interested? I had e-mailed back that yes, I was interested, but that I wanted to wait and see if any of our local munchkins came a-calling because usually there are two or three who swing by all dressed up in their little Boy Scout uniforms and they're too irresistable and I have to get some from them. I never could resist a man in uniform.

But the allotted time passed and she wrote back to see if I was yet in need (though does one really ever need popcorn? It's not like it's the same thing as oxygen. Or chocolate.) And as no little local munchkins had made it our way, I placed an order. And when it came in, she emailed me to see when she could drop it by and, long story short (well, shorter at least) we agreed to meet in the middle to transfer goods from her car as well and hey, why didn't we have lunch and catch up at the same time?

So that Saturday, I got up early (with an alarm and everything) and grumbled my way in and out of the shower and down to our agreed upon halfway point, marginally pleased that I was only running about five minutes late. Just as I was pulling into the parking lot of the restaurant we'd chosen, my cell rang and, lo and behold, it was her. And she had gotten locked in a daydream while driving and just realized that she had not only passed our meeting point, but was an exit past my house but she was turning around and would be there in twentyish minutes. With nothing to do but laugh it off, I did so and looked around, my eyes happily lighting on a Borders.

Bookstores make everything better.

Without further ado, I ambled into the Borders and breathed in the smell of coffee and pastry and books and I could just feel the Christmas spirit oozing into me. My eyes roamed the big tables of new releases and old releases now on sale and what should I see but a book that I'd been looking for for what seems like ages, now out in paperback (at last!) I scooped it up and glanced at the other offerings and there my eyes caught on the title "Shakespeare: The Biography" and then in littler print "By the bestselling author of London: The Biography."

At this point it is probably necessary to interject that since high school I have been what can really only be termed a Shakespeare geek. I have been known to actually sit down with a complete works to read a few plays just for the fun of it. Not because it's required for a class. Not because I'm going to see a production. But because Shakespeare is beautiful. The language! The wit! It is without question one of the most pleasing things to read ever written.

My brain did some rapid gymnastics that looked something like this: "Oooh! Shakespeare. Oh. Biography. But...hmmm...London: The Biography? You can't write a biography of a city, so it's probably fictionalized, maybe like Ireland. And gosh that was fantastic. Imagine that same kind of technique applied to Shakespeare! Must. Have. It."

And thus it came to be that Shakespeare: The Biography ended up in my hands. At which point I promptly forgot it as the rest of the bag was full of Christmas presents, so it got tucked away with all the other presents. Until I pulled them all out and wrapped them Sunday afternoon. Then, with renewed glee, I perused my amazing Shakespearean find. Only to discover, it's not fiction. It's really a biography.

I loathe biography.

My last foray into biography took me three years to finally give up. And that was on the well-known, much heralded biography of John Adams by David McCollough. I cried so much trying to slog through that tome - not because Adams' life was sad, but because I wanted to read about him. I felt like I should read about him. I earnestly desired to be able to enjoy that book. But I just could not get through more than 100 pages. 2 pages at a painstaking time. With weeks in between where the book would sit, untouched, on my nightstand. Mocking me.

Yet I have finished the two other new books that I alotted myself until the new year. I've re-read everything I'm in the mood to re-read. And so I find myself stuck. It's biography or nothing until January, and I'm off on a plane tomorrow. So I will tote my albatross along and hope for the best, but if you don't see me again, look for my dessicated carcass laid out on the dunes of the Sahara known as "Biography".