A mixed bag, but another blonde woman comes to my attention.

I'm reading the Henrietta Lacks book for my book club. I'm 78% through (you can always spot an e-book reader these days) and I'm not at all sure how I feel about the book. It's certainly a downer, but that shouldn't have been a surprise to me. It's a fascinating medical story, but a way-too-sad personal story. I was working for the National Cancer Institute in the 1970s, just about the time when Henrietta's family (living 30 miles north of me) was beginning to fully appreciate how her cells were being used. During the course of any given day at work I would read or type or say the words "HeLa cells" constantly. Little did I know. Although I DID know. I knew that HeLa stood for a woman named Helen Lane, which turned out to be not exactly right. And that her cells were being used everywhere to study chemotherapeutic agents. Sort of makes me uncomfortable.

And sadly I must once again call out a blonde woman for some criticism. The woman above, who will go unnamed, said an awful, hateful thing about another blonde woman, Meghan McCain, and it made news, of a sort, on many so-called news sites. This particular blonde woman gets my award for lowest of the low, but I fully admit that she really knows how to get attention. And I guess she makes a living at it. Horrible woman.

Betty Draper is a whack job.

It may appear that I'm picking on blonde women, see last post, but I'm really not. It also appears that I'm not thinking very deep thoughts these days, which is true. For fans of Mad Men, you will know what I mean about Betty being a whack job. She was never particularly stable but she's now way over the top psychologically.  As one headline said today, she's now "WTF Betty." It was great to have the show back last night. 

I've read trashier books but not many.

But I'm enjoying every single badly written sentence in this (library) book. I've been mentally composing some generous words to put here about the book or the author, sort of in the spirit of not being snarky or holier than thou. But then I read a few more sentences and I laugh in amazement. It's a hoot. Too bad four children are involved and had to watch the story unfold. Or will find this book in the future and be tempted to read it. I should be ashamed to be spending my time on it (but confessing it here makes it OK somehow. What's up with that?).