I have a confession to make.

Not that is will shock anyone to the core, but it's something I keep buried whenever in the presence of literary sorts. Although, to be frank, they may not be shocked themselves. Anyone who has read my blog can certainly recognize I'm more of the homegrown edumacated sort. I think mah words too damn fast, and type too damn fast...grammar can't keep up. I shame myself on a regular basis.

However....I don't think I can carry on this facade once I begin my lit courses. It's been so many years since I've had to think critically, that I may very well be scuh-rewed.

Here is it: I....READ....TRASH.

I do. And it's a concious choice.

I am in awe of people who can sit and read K.A. Porter short stories and quiver with excitement. I bow down to anyone who has read Ayn Rand...and who can actually pronounce that name. A friend told me I would love, "Fountainhead" and I ended up wanting to slap someone at the end of it.

I have one of those gigantic anthologies from early literature classes...and every once in a while I swear I am going to open it up and read Madame Bovary, but I can hardly get past thinking of ways to tease someone with that name.

A few weeks ago, I finally signed up for the Kyle Public Library (I showed up with two forms of ID and a utility bill to prove I do live here...they just needed to know my first and last name. Ah..charming :-) ) I never buy books b/c I am cheap, unless we're talking Harry Potter. I reread the same books I own about 50 times...a library is really my only hope of learning any new vocabulary.

I strolled through the 2 stacks (just TWO...gah!) of adult fiction. I picked up a mystery and a Fannie Flagg. I realize these are NOT top drawer fiction, but even that was cruising higher altitudes for me. The problem with reading new fiction is that I get a bit obsessed. Once I start reading, I can't put it down. Shortly, I will find that it is 4 am and I've finished the stupid book. Now I've got one migraine, one irritated husband and one less source of entertainment. Part of my problem being that I save my reading until bed time. It's supposed to be my "wind down so you don't overthink yourself all the way into 3 am" time. Clearly that's not working.

So I move slowly back to my old ways...to my shame.

You see, I like a good story. I like a plot, a twist, big hook, something juicy. I even find that I will at times scan over descriptive passages, simply to get to the point.

So here it is. My favorite type of book is......scary short stories. There, I've said it.

When you read ghostly short stories before bed I, a) can read just 1 story and get to the conclusion in 10 minutes, allowing me to put it down and sleep, and b) the covers are excellent for hiding your head under.

Morbid twisted child that I was, I chewed up any book I could find at Fretz Park Library on Ghosts, Ghouls and heinous ways to disappear. My dad was a big Stephen King Fan, so one of the first adult book I read (other then crates of my mother's Silhouette /Harlequin Romances) was...I think..."Night Shift" at about 7 or 8.

I still, god help me, love it. Last week you could find me sidling up to the counter at Half Price Books to plonk down my 5-lb anthology, entitled, "Dark Descent." It felt strangely like I'd just tried to purchase the kind of book that might be titled something like, "50 Ways to Bend your Lover."

Now some kinder literary sorts might try to discuss with me the offerings of James' "Turn of the Screw." At which point I would have to scoff and say, "Liar! That was no ghost story...itwas a psychological drama!" Like trying to drink Sprite and it turning out to be water. How many times have I seen some Horror anthology attempt to nobilize itself by including, "Metamorphesis," "Yellow Wallpaper." I'm not fooled! Even Clive Barker is just a little too damn preachy to me.

Trash...I want me's trash. If it isn't about a clown stalking children (the ageless evil being sort, not John Wayne Gacy) or involves revenge from the grave in fairly plain speak, then I turn my back to you (except Shirley Jackson, she's a-ok.)

If I really set my mind to it, I can analyze ol' Hester Prynne with the best of them. I can even wind up with my teacher writing, "excellent insight," on a paper or two (along with multiple marks for split infinitives and misuse of prepositions.) But I'm just faking it...rahhhly I ahhmmmm. Though I'm not certain I am the only one. I happen to know of an English major who has an obsessive love with trashy romance novels. I guess we all have our dark places.

One of these days I'm just going to have to figure out how to find enlightenment and thought process stimulation to be as fun as getting the pants scared off of me.