One of the things I love about my iPhone is the ability to buy and ready instant eBooks. I read myself to sleep at night, sometimes for 2 minutes, sometimes for an hour.  I like long books or series so I don’t have to keep remembering new characters (which is hard, when I fall asleep in the middle of every chapter). I read all the Anne of Green Gables books (free!) and all the Sherlock Holmes books (also free!) plus all the Game of Thrones books and all the Stephanie Plum novels and a bunch of young adult appocolyptic end of the world type stuff. I don’t really have a TYPE, just a general rule that I don’t read anything that requires more than 10% of my brain at any given time.

This week I finished my end-of-the-world-secret-Nazi-plot-wormhole-through-time-and-space book (it was called The Atlantis Gene, it wasn’t terrible but the rest of the series isn’t written yet so no real ending) and I started skimming the Kindle lists for a new book. I stumbled across a book called Lowcountry Boil, and since a) lowcountry boil is delicious and b) it was 99 cents I bought it. I like books set in the south and the description said it was a mystery which is one of the genres I almost always enjoy.

So I started reading the book. I can’t spoil it for you, because I am only a couple chapters into it, but I NEED TO TELL YOU ABOUT WHY IT IS FREAKING ME OUT.

It started with normal coincidence stuff. The main character is 31 years old and I am 31 years old! (Unimpressive, lots of people are 31 years old.)

The main character’s childhood best friend – who returns as a ghost – is named Colleen and MY childhood best friend is named Colleen! (Still not impressed, since it’s a fairly common name and also real-life Colleen is very much alive and I think even reads here sometimes so maybe she can confirm she really existed.)

The main character starts in Greenville, South Carolina but goes home to an island off Charleston and visits lots of Charleston places. I went to college in Charleston and recognize a lot of her locations! (Eh, lots of people like Charleston. And I bought the book knowing “lowcountry” was in the title, so I shouldn’t be surprised.)

The main character is named Elizabeth (which is not my name) but her middle name is Suzanne (which IS my name). OK, that was the point where I messaged Amy and said “THIS BOOK WAS MEANT FOR ME! IT’S BOOK FATE!”

And then I read one more chapter, in which the Elizabeth Suzanne (who is a private investigator) starts investigating things. She’s looking into the town council and the mayor, who is named Lincoln. Lincoln is my grandfather’s name! Not a super common name, but not unheard of. AND THEN she mentions the mayor’s wife is named Mildred. Which is my grandmother’s name. The one married to Lincoln, in my real actual life. Those are my real actual grandparents, Lincoln and Mildred and also two of her supporting characters in a book about a 31-year old named (Liz) Suzanne in South Carolina with a childhood best friend named Colleen.

TOO MUCH! I mean, no, it isn’t. It’s not like ANY of the story applies to my life in any way. It’s just the framework is full of random coincidences that makes me feel like this book ending up on my kindle IS fate.

I Googled the author and she went to my college (at this point, I’m not surprised) but not at the same time as I did. I think I’m going to social media stalk her a little, just out of curiosity. Maybe she’s somehow related to me on my mother’s side? Or we rode on an airplane together?? I’m going to keep reading, since it’s a really good book so far, but at this point I have to stop looking for MORE similarities. OMG, the main character likes coffee and I like coffee! She finds the ocean relaxing and I find the ocean relaxing!!!! She walks on two feet and I walk on two feet!!!!!!!!

I’ll definitely let you know if she ends up married to a guy named Evan and with two ginger children. Then I might get suspicious.

(This random is brought to you by not enough sleep and way too much Halloween candy.)

I get a lot of spam here on ye olde bloggity blog. I would take it as a sign that I was somehow hitting the big time in the internet world but the truth is I’ve ALWAYS gotten a ton of spam, even when I had exactly three readers. I think I just look like an easy target: no comment verification, no captcha, the ability to post with a fake email address. Luckily, WordPress has a handy-dandy feature called Akismet that catches 99.9% of the spammy comments without any effort on my part. But that’s not to say the spammers aren’t TRYING to get published. Today I thought we could examine some of the valiant spam attempts to get their links and keywords published instead of banished to the spam folder (current count: 3,682 comments)…

Flattery:
What I dont comprehend is how youre not even a lot more popular than you might be now. Youre just so intelligent. You know so significantly about this topic, created me consider it from so many diverse angles. Its like men and women arent interested unless it has some thing to accomplish with Lady Gaga! Your stuffs great. Continue to keep it up! (I’m the next Lady Gaga! Says the guy who’s allergic to apostrophes!)

Dang i thought your blog was killer, gave me a car load of information, i never knew, thanks blogger.

Never thought blogging could be soo fun and interesting. Man you know how to do it brother. (Thanks…brother)

You are such an amazing writer. Wishing you a strength and peace that surpasses all understanding as you continue to walk the high road … you are amazing, and I honor you for being YOU! You represent grace and dignity … with a smile that melts anyone blessed to be on the receiving end of it. God Bless you Always, Carrie!!!! (oh, well, that was going really well until the end there)

Sympathy:
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Regardless, just wanted to say excellent blog! (Oh noes, penis enlargement medication website, I am SO SORRY we’ll never know what you had to say!)

Randomly Political:
Thanks to the Glen Beck wannabees this stuff is occasionally taken at face value. (on a post about breastfeeding)

I think this president #needs to# go and let’s #get back# on path. I Worship this country! (on a post about my wedding)(and left by someone called “lake havasu city tourist sites”)

“In a recent study, the United States was ranked the 114th happiest country in the world. Then Sarah Palin stepped down. Now we’re at 17.” –Conan O’Brien (that was all part of the comment – I really doubt it was actually left by Conan)

Perhaps English is not their first language. Or their second:
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A powerful share, I simply given this onto a colleague who was doing just a little analysis on this. And he in actual fact purchased me breakfast because I found it for him.. smile. So let me reword that: Thnx for the treat! However yeah Thnkx for spending the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love reading extra on this topic. If potential, as you change into expertise, would you mind updating your blog with extra particulars? It’s extremely useful for me. Massive thumb up for this blog post!

(Don’t those all sound like that episode of Friends where Joey uses the thesaurus to write the recommendation letter? “Large aortic pumps!”)

Helpful and Important (and Fake) Tech Information:
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Doing some browsing and observed your internet site seems a fraction messed up in my AOL cyberspace browser. But fortuitously scarcely anyone practices it any more but you may want to look into it (maybe your problem is you’re still using AOL?)

And my favorite, Honesty:
howdy, I’m havin a tough time attempting to rank well for the term “kokomo dentist”… Please approve my comment!!

I’m not sure if all kids do stuff that totally puzzles their parents or if mine is just special, but sometimes I think my baby is the strangest baby ever born.

– Baby Evan likes to sit on people. And things. And animals. But mostly people. It started with sitting in our bookcase but now he just loves sitting in general. He will walk up to a total stranger, turn around and back up until his legs hit them and them plop right down. Sunday night he sat on E’s face twice. He also sits on other babies, which could be a problem when we have a tiny one laying around.

Lounging out on the dog

– Baby Evan’s new favorite thing is my eyelashes. He will pet each eye veeeeery veeeery gently for as long as I will let him while we’re nursing, and every once in a while during the day he comes over and pats them just to make sure they’re still there. I don’t know if he likes the way they feel or if he’s just fascinated by mascara or what, but he can’t get enough eyelashes. Adorable quirk or future makeup artist?

– Although we’re starting to see some improvement, Baby Evan is still only vaguely interested in food. AND YET anything that is not food gets eaten immediately. Dirt. Plastic. Yarn. DEAD LADYBUGS. My friend Sarah’s daughter has appointed herself the mulch police at the playground since “Baby Eban eatin’ mulch again! Baby Eban not make wise choices”. How is it possible that a kid who literally spits out ice cream and bacon will eat his body weight in mulch in five minutes?

– Baby Evan is too young to start turning everything into a gun but he’s already all about swords. Spatulas are swords. Brooms are swords. Rectangular shaped blocks are swords. EVERYTHING IS A SWORD AND EVERYTHING ELSE MUST BE DEFEATED WITH THOSE SWORDS. It’s kind of funny when he pokes the cat. It’s not so funny when he smacks me in the eye while I’m trying to change his diaper. It also makes outdoor playdates quite a challenge.

EVIL TREE! I SHALL BANISH YE!

– OK, this is definitely the weirdest thing. I’m actually sort of hesitant to even post it in case 20 years from now he stumbles across this post while Googling “why do I have this strange fetish?” at the request of his therapist. Baby Evan is in love with my feet. I think he likes feet in general (starting with his own) but mine, well, mine he looooooves. Just wiggling my toes can make him laugh hysterically (insert correct link to the video I posted of the baby laughing at my feet here, if I could remember when the hell I took so I could find it again). Sometimes he kisses them. Sometimes he bites them, but I actually manages to teach him the meaning of “gentle” by shouting when he bit me too hard. He prefers it when I don’t wear shoes but will settle for gnawing on my sneakers if I refuse to take them off. I’m hoping he outgrows it. Soon.

Please tell me your kid is weird too.

Y’all. There’s something wrong with my bebeh. First it was chewing on anything made of leather. Then it was the carrying stuff around in his mouth. Now it’s this:

Do you want to know WHY he is doing that? It’s because the tile is cold and hard and his delicate little baby knees don’t want to touch it. On the one hand, those are some mad problem solving skills for a 9 month old. His little brain figured out how to avoid doing something he doesn’t like. This bodes very well for his survival in the world but not so well for my chance of getting him to mow the lawn someday. On the other hand, I want to tell him Dude, can you not SEE your knees? They’re the chubbiest little baby knees ever and if all that baby fat isn’t protecting you from cold hard things then I don’t know what it’s for.

Also, I am slightly jealous of his flexibility. I’ve always sucked at Downward Dog.

I’m going to tell you something you didn’t want or need to know. You’re probably going to think it’s gross and weird. Technically, you are very wrong to think that. Technically. But even I think it’s a little gross so for the first time ever, I’m giving you the opportunity to NOT read something. Here comes the break, only click if you SERIOUSLY want to read about it.