i brought two books with me to key west this weekend. two. i had started both, but wasn't so far into them that i thought i would finish them both over the weekend.
well, i finished them both in the car ride on the way there. whoops.
so when the rain came, and continued, i started to panic at the idea of not having anything to read at the hotel, if we got stuck in all night. "did you see a bookstore?" i asked chris's cousin, whose name sounds much like "john-jenny." he and his wife, yee mae, took the conch train tour, see. "no, no bookstore." damn.
so chris and i kept our eyes peeled on the walk back to the bed & breakfast. lots of t-shirts. btw, i was amused to see a guy standing and staring at a windowful of t-shirts, his lips moving slowly as he digested the endless witticisms imparted on the cotton. "tell your b... b... boo... boobs to st-st-stop staring at my ey-ey...eyes." you should not have to move your lips to read the front of a tee shirt, people. there were also lots of sarongs, lots of jewelry. shorts with asswriting. paintings of sailboats and tropical scenes, but no books. then finally, "look! a bookstore!"
we excitedly crossed the street. but no, it wasn't a bookstore after all. instead, it was a store that made reproductions of key west landmarks and dives, so if you loved the mermaid & the alligator, for example, you could take a sign of "theirs" home to michigan with you. we saw a very cute sign that i guess is actually hanging somewhere in key west that read: "drive carefully! we love our chicks!" it was yellow with the profile of a rooster and some chicky chicks on it. very cute. :)
we continued on our walk. i came to a very quick conclusion, which i shared with chris. "key west is not the place to buy a book. t-shirts? sure. sex toys? yep! bongs? of course! just no books." and seriously, the bong-to-book ratio in key west is disturbing.
luckily, we found a walgreens with a little book section. the walgreens worker pointed to where i could find them, in the store's back corner. i immediately worried i would have to rub shoulders with guys thumbing through issues of jugs in order to find a book to keep me occupied, but it was a genuine magazine & book section, just very small. i found lots of too-pop fiction (yes, i have read dean koontz before, but that was when i was 13), as well as two books i would actually read but already had (memoirs of a geisha and.. hmm, i forget). i was unimpressed - after all, this was key west. shouldn't there be some island fiction? a doc ford? a carl hiaasen? i'd even take jimmy buffet! and then finally, under a cheesy romance book, i found double whammy by carl hiaasen. he may be formulaic, but he's good. so... jackpot! and it turns out skink is in this book, too. yay!
then today i come home to find christmas gifts from byron, including two more books. so now carl hiaasen has been temporarily deserted in favor of a book about a puppers named marley. :)
