I went to Border's yesterday, to spend the gift certificate I got for Christmas. In general I feel very smarmy about spending money, but since this money was a gift I didn't feel horrible. x.o' I'm a very discriminatory consumer... unless it's a cheap, I rarely buy things unless I'm willing to commit illegal acts to get them. Given that, I only bought two books, a magazine, and Sailormoon SuperS 4. I also bought a Harry Potter calendar (for a dollar :O), which is cool and neat and obviously not illustrated by Mary GrandPre. I bought two actually; one for me and one for this little girl that comes over to our house sometimes who's also very into HP (she was Hermione for Halloween, if that gives you any indictation :B;)

The first book I bought was The Silver Kiss, which, in my opinion, is one of the best vampire books ever. Yes, it lacks the flowery writing (for the most part) and homoeroticism of our friend Anne Rice, but I would much rather read this book than any of her stuff any day. :B It is, of course, a Young Adult novel, so it's not horribly graphic..but you'd be surprised at how far you're apparently allowed to go in YA. :B;

I also bought a new book, a collection of stories, by one of my favorite authors in middle school, Bruce Coville. I stayed up until god-knows-when last night and read the WHOLE THING (okay, so it wasn't very long, but I usually don't read whole books in one sitting) and it was AWESOME. A few of the stories I had read before, but most of them were brand-new. If anyone wonders whose style inspires me the most, it is this man. I hope that one day I can evoke the emotions in my readers that he evokes in me (tears, laughter, agony xx). I'll tell you about my favorite stories.

First was the Japanese Mirror, which was about a guy who worked in an antique shop. One day the owner received an item from (badum) Japan, a mirror that he said had been carved over three hundred years ago. The guy, Jonathan (it's told in first person, so you don't find his name still some time in :B;), is quite fascinated by the mirror. Now, before then, he had a pretty bad temper, supposedly inherited from his father (who's now dead). But as the mirror stays with him (he looks into it every time he's in the shop, and is always having to clean it), he finds that his anger suddenly drains away every time it comes to him. This happens first when he cuts his finger in the shop, and that cut sort of remains throughout the story, as a bloodstain on the mirror that won't come off and just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Finally, the mirror is sold to an old woman. By this time, Jonathan had completely changed from being Violent and Angry to Calm and Strong. But all his anger had been concentrated inside the Japanese mirror--and now whenever he looks into mirrors, he sees his ugly, angry self instead of the calm person he's forged himself into. So now he has to stop all this concentrated anger from breaking free from the mirror and wreaking havoc on his loved ones (which it has promised to do xx).

The second is called Am I Blue?, and it's about gay guys, so yeah. You know it's gotta be cool. XD Basically it's about this boy named Vincent, and it opens with him getting beaten up by a guy named Butch (har :B;) because Butch (as the story says) decided that Vincent wanted to jump his bones. As Vincent is escaping, he meets Melvin, his fairy godfather (who is very gay XD). Melvin explains some facts of life to Vincent as they talk in a cafe, and then says that one of the great gay fantasies (he can't say the first two because Vincent is too young XD) is to have everyone in the world who is gay turn blue for one day--so that everyone who's not would have to face up to the fact. He also informs Vincent that he has two wishes. :B;

Vincent is extremely confused about everything, especially his sexuality, and he can't really tell who's gay and who's not..so Melvin gives him the ability to see it, by, of course, making him see gay people as people with blue skin. The degrees of blue, obviously, indicated degrees of gay-ness. Vincent goes around for a while like this, very surprised at what he finds. His own face is mildly blue, showing his insecurity. :3; Vincent thinks very long and hard about things, and then asks Melvin to enact that third gay fantasy and make everyone who's gay blue for one day. Melvin does. Crazy business happens. XD Then Vincent asks Melvin to turn Butch (the guy who beat him up at the beginning) blue, and Melvin goes to do so, but comes back saying that Butch is already as blue as..well.. a blueberry XD XD

There were a lot of other cool ones, but those two really kicked ass I thought. :B;