Book Club

"She flirted with the moderator. That's how she got the list."

"I did not! We talked about Neil Gaiman and comics. And science fiction/fantasy." I pause. "And Brian K. Vaughn. Talking isn't always flirting."

"You maintained eye contact with a virtual stranger!"

We're on our way home from book club and I'm getting raked over the coals.

"Listen. It wasn't flirting. It was being articulate and witty and charming. I can do that sometimes. It's like a mutation I haven't learned to control. And besides. If it was flirting, rest assured that's the super power I only use for good."

"Yeah, what good is that?"

"Getting the list of the next year's worth of books ahead of time."

The car groans. Collectively.

I love book club night.

***

I'm thinking a lot about Neil Gaiman these days.

We're reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane for our July book club. It's nearly the one year anniversary of my first reading of it, and it's almost a year since I met Neil Gaiman and told him he saved my life. 

Ufff. I got a little teary just writing that. 

When I say I've been thinking a lot about Neil Gaiman, what I mean is that I've been thinking a lot about The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I have a funny relationship with that book. I've read all of Gaiman's other work (with the exception of Sandman, which I'm just not ready to face again) multiple times. But I haven't been able to pick up Ocean again. It may be that while I was reading it my life was so unsettled and I haven't wanted to revisit that feeling. Maybe I secretly liked it a tiny bit less than his other work. 

Whatever the reason, I never picked it back up. Until it was announced as our book club's July pick and I realized that I couldn't just walk into the room and start enthusing about how wonderful Neil Gaiman is, that I would actually need to say something substantive about the book and the writing. 

I reread it in a day.

***

"I don't think I'll be able to go to book club in July."

"You know your schedule that far in advance? It's May, for godssake."

"No. I mean, I loved Ocean at the End of the Lane so much that I don't think I'd be able to handle a bunch of jerks ripping it apart." He looks in the rear view mirror. "Close your mouth, Kels, you look like a trout." 

I've been surprised to learn that among my immediate circle of friends, a number of them have read at least some Neil Gaiman. Many of them have read Ocean at the End of the Lane, of those who have read Ocean, all of them read it after hearing me gush about it all last summer. 

All of them kept it a secret.

They had varying reasons for keeping it a secret. Some of them didn't like the book. At all. And they didn't want to go thirteen rounds with me over why they didn't like it or listen to me try to convince them they should. Some of them didn't finish it and didn't want a scolding. But by far the biggest number of friends read it and loved it.

They still kept it a secret.

Anyone who has sat next to me during Joss Whedon's  Much Ado About Nothing or taken me to historical site of some personal meaning (sorry for making you tromp through all those cemeteries) knows that I have a hard time keeping it together around things that I love. I have actually jumped up and down and clapped my hands. (Do not do this standing in front of William Tecumseh Sherman's grave. Trust me on this one) On more than one occasion, I've kissed someone out of sheer emotional overflow. Let's call those reactions my baseline enthusiasm. Now multiply that baseline enthusiasm by Neil Gaiman. 

Yeah. Okay. 

***

I have a hard time sleeping on book club nights.

Obviously, it's stimulating for an introvert to be in a room full of a hundred people. It's even more stimulating to ask for the mic and to get into conversations with strangers. By the time I get home I'm usually vibrating and a little bit wild. 

It's not my inner introvert freaking out. 

There are few things in life that I enjoy, that I love as much as talking to people about books. Don't get me wrong, intellectual sparring in any capacity winds me up. Here's the thing, though, books have been my lifelong companions, my way of escaping when things become unpleasant. They've taught me the sheet music of stars and the history of modern medicine. I've cried over the deaths of hundreds of characters and still sigh a little bit when Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth Bennett. 

I'm shy in big groups of people. I have to pep talk myself before dinner parties where I don't know a lot of people. Sometimes when I'm meeting new people or hanging out with people I haven't seen in a long time, I have to go hide in the bathroom for a few minutes because my hands are shaking. And, sure, these things might make me a better candidate for the Mars mission, but they aren't helpful in my real life. 

But ask me about Seamus Heaney? Solicit my opinion on the Sandman Slim series? Question why I think adults can read YA without being embarrassed by it? I forget that I'm shy and (more than) a little bit awkward. I'll have an animated, articulate conversation with you without stuttering once. I love talking about books with strangers and I'll happily chat up someone who asks me about the book I'm reading at a bar or while I'm perusing the shelves at Magers and Quinn. 

As a result, it stings a little when I realize that the same intensity that makes me articulate and funny at my book club is what keeps people from talking about Ocean at the End of the Lane with me. Talking about books makes me feel like the best possible version of myself and I want to be that person around the people who have seen me sick, tired, and crying. I want to share the books (and music and television) I love with them and not have them have to worry that I'm simply going to steamroller over them with excitement and delight. 

I want to use my super powers for good.