Typing like a madwoman...

That is what I do.
All the time.
So today I will do a review of a chicklit book (yay!)
And possibly rant about life.
Thou art warned.
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Stephanie Bond's "Body Movers"
Synopsis:
So Carlotta Wren''s life hasn''t turned out as she''d planned. She didn''t plan for her parents to skip bail for a white-collar crime, leaving her to raise her brother. She didn''t plan on having the silver spoon ripped from her mouth and forgoing college to work retail. She didn''t plan on her blue-blood fiancé dumping her. And she didn''t plan on still being single ten years later, working at Neiman Marcus, with no idea where her fugitive parents are. But she''s coping. Until-

-her lovable brother is arrested, and the hunky cop decides to reopen her parents'' case.

-her brother becomes a body mover for the morgue, and his sexy boss gets Carlotta involved.

-her former fiancé''s wife (a good customer) is murdered, fingering Carlotta.

With three men in her life, Carlotta has added motivation to help bag a murderer to keep her own well-dressed body from being next on the list!

So I began this book in 2010, forgetting completely that I had read several Stephanie Bond novels before and enjoyed their quirkiness. She tends to write heroines that are imperfect completely which makes the delicious reads (yes, I just wrote "delicious", go figure). Anyways - this one is no different. It is a quick read about the crazy life of one of the girls from her earlier "Party Crashers". Poor Carlotta has to raise her idiot 19-year-old brother, juggle men who are all desirable but not all trustworthy, and zany friends and fed up neighbours and mortgage payments.

The story starts in this haphazard state where you completely sympathize with the fact that the woman is at her rope's end. And then it moved beyond that so that you cringe when she cringes, and cry when she cries. But it's not all doom and gloom. In fact, it's really funny. REALLY funny.

Bond's characters are fresh and original - they strike a good balance between "out there" wacky and bending stereotypes. I highly recommend it - and the rest of the series ( I should try a series review, ne c'est pas?) is excellent!

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So, as I sit here looking idly at the monitors of my classmates for lack of anything better to do except laugh with Prof O (he really is the best professor ever - not everyone can make civil procedure even mildly interesting. Love his piranha stories!) and I am wondering - what is with this idea that boredom is bad?
In undergrad, I took a first year Introduction to Western Philosophy class (*drool* professor Kingwell, *drool* I love that man with all my gonads!) and we got to German philosophers. They rank up there beyond the English (and by English, I mean Scottish, and by Scottish I mean David Hume whose red hair makes me think of cinnamon hearts because I love his now deceased brain), but before those nut jobs that were the French. Anyways, there was one (whose name, of course, escapes me now) who spun an entire theory on the idea that boredom is required and should be encouraged by Philosophers. The beautiful manbrain that is Kingwell, described it as such:
"Imagine you are on the subway, it's one in the morning, the older gentleman who thinks he's Santa Clause is sleeping next to the doors, a working woman is lounging across from him, newspapers are strewn throughout the floor, and you are in the middle, half dead from studying so hard, and just staring ahead, avoiding all eyes and with nothing to occupy your mind - what happens?"
Nevermind what my classmates said ... (nothing good?) ... but what he was getting at was that this situation of boredom forces your brain to begin thinking about things. Not necessarily philosophical things, he admitted, but you got to start somewhere, right?
Anyways, the theory is that through enforced listlessness, you create thought processes that question everything which acquires you wisdom, and therefore, it is a philosophy. Or something. I got a B+ in the class. My second Under A in my illustrious career - bloody hell, the start of my decline ...
Anyways, this idea has always stuck with me. That boredom creates philosophy. And here's where the monitors come in. With all this over stimulation of technological networking and such, that beg us to keep our brains engaged in real time - what happens to philosophy?
Unfortunately, The Jersey Shore comes to mind, and I just cringe at the possibility that the youth of the nation will end up being so totally stupid that life itself will be endangered (see "Idiocracy").
Rants. I love rants.

Cheerio! :)