Sticky Fingers

Somebody asked me the other day to name my favorite author. Wanting to sound literate, I quickly scrolled through my brain, searching for the names of authors of great books I was supposed to read in high school and college but either didn't or can't remember. Shakespeare? Dickens? Sidney Sheldon?

"Jill Ocean!" I blurted it out in a panic.

"I'm not familiar with her work," he responded, looking a bit embarrassed. Plan B had worked. Score one for Mrs. Potato Head, who was feeling like a pretty complex carb while the pompous questioner licked egg off his face. "What's her genre?"

Stumped again. I should have gone with Shakespeare. Is mid-life insanity a recognized genre? I changed the subject. "Whaddaya think about Lindsay Lohan?" I thought if I started a conversation about current events I might come out of this unscathed. After all, the idea of a spoiled, wealthy starlet stealing a one-of-a-kind bauble and then wearing it as the paparazzi snap away is certainly good fodder for an intellectual debate.

Apparently it wasn't, but the good news is the conversation ended quickly, and I was left alone with my own deep thoughts. And I just couldn't stop thinking about why someone who can purchase any necklace she wants would steal one? Back in the day, when I was even more naive than I am now, I had my wallet stolen three times in one year. It just never occurred to me that someone would take another person's belongings, so my purse tended to dangle freely from my shoulder on a crowded bus or sit unattended beneath my chair in a crowded restaurant. Three times! Really.

I thought back to the question about my favorite author, and I realized I have not done very much reading at all in the past year, particularly since I started blogging. I think I'm not just opposed to stealing; I'm afraid of it. If Lindsay Lohan could steal a necklace, what would stop Jill Ocean from stealing a few lines of eloquent prose without attribution. I'm simply terrified of reading something so good and wishing so fervently I had come up with it myself that I just take it. And nobody's out there snapping pictures of me, and hardly anyone is out there reading my blog. Who would know?

So I continue not to read, and I devote myself wholeheartedly to being original. Let me tell you, friends, Romans, and countrymen, it is the best of times, and it is the worst of times.