This is the home of the VELVET FEVER goddamn it!

Thank god it's Monday. I hate weekends. (How fucked up is that??)

Maybe if the weather would clear up it would be a little better. At least that way I'd be able to go outside drive somewhere without fear of being washed away. I tried to go shopping on Satuday, but right as I got to the Forum, it started DUMPING rain. It was amazing. The parking lot was flooding quickly, and the water was up to the bottom of my door in no time flat. (I know that's not very high at all, but whatever. . .) I parked on a high spot and just waited, hoping it would stop. It didn't. I ended up going back home. Never even stepped foot out of the car - oh well.

Yesterday while I was at the office, I was snooping around and I found two very-well worn "novels" at Soduc's desk. From the back cover of one:

"He's been burned by one too many gold-digging women. She'd seen the world, but had never once been branded by any man. Their attraction was instant...and intense. But could their five-alarm affair turn into lasting love?"

"Keegan Tabor had walked the fine line between love and hate, leaving Eleanor Whitman despising him for his long-ago betrayal. Now another man sought to claim Eleanor's heart, but Keegan wouldn't rest till this sweet lady was his once again...."

"Kathy Maxwell knew the legend of the dreamcatcher. But never in her wildest imaginings could she have foreseen that the lover from her dreams would appear in her life...as a flesh-and-blood man!"

I should have just put the book down and gently backed away, but of course. . .

"This is part of it," Rye said, watching Lisa's eyes as his palm rubbed against her.
"It?" she said breathlessly.
And her thoughts shattered into a thousand brilliant shards of pleasure with each motion of his hand. She moved helplessly against his palm, sending a cascade of shining hair sliding over him. He shivered at its whispering caress.
"This is the home of the velvet fever," he whispered against her lips. "Can you feel it, honey? Hot and sweet, hungry and beautiful...so beautiful."

I placed the book back on the desk, walked to the sink, and washed my hands with the hottest water I could get out of the tap. 'Nuff said.

I never understood the whole "romance-novel-as-soft-porn" thing. The premise is always the same: the stubbornly independent (yet beautiful) woman encounters the burly Fabiolo in a cowboy hat and ripped jeans. He sweeps her off her comfort-casual shoe clad feet with his gentle words and she submissively acquiesces to him (i.e. "she gives in to her deepest desires".) Not my cuppa tea. Besides, the mellifluous writing would always send me screaming from the room before I got to "the good part". And the good part? Always a let down, man. (This is how you write a "good part".)

When I lived in Houston, we'd sit in the balcony of the Shepard Bookstop and try to guess what section people would go to. It was always easy to guess the romance novelistas - stodgy frumpets in floral prints with bad hairstyles and the aura of elementary school teacher about them. A stereotype yes, but isn't there some truth in stereotypes? After all, a stereotype has to originate somewhere, doesn't it?

Always,
S