Weird Like Me

Note before I officially begin post: Something in my office smells like baby formula. There are no babies here. Conclusion: Someone's lunch smells like baby formula. Why would anyone eat something that smells like baby formula?

I've gotten stranger since I left college. Maybe even since I moved out of my parents' house one year after college. Strange in a I-role-play-on-the-weekends-wanna-see-my-Magic-cards kind of way. Except I don't roleplay. What I do is watch the Sci-Fi channel. Some of it. Like Firefly reruns, Battlestar Galactica (which I'm pretty much obsessed with), and the occasional Doctor Who.

And I've started reading paranormal romances. Which basically means vampires and anyone other supernatural being that happens to be befriending the vampires.

I haven't been too worried about this outlandish behavior, as my college roommate (who, ahem, needs to start posting again) independently took up Sci-Fi and vamps around the same time.

Turns out, however, it's just college grads in the suburbs of Bmore who are getting stranger. It's everyone! Paranormal romance is the new pink. It isn't just that, now that I read vampire romances, I suddenly see them popping up everywhere...they really are popping up everywhere. Which just proves that America obsesses over strange things...and now I'll probably grow bored of the entire thing.

For instance: I read everything about the Titanic disaster I could get my hands on until the movie came out and the market was flooded with an overabundance of Titanic books. Then I lost interest.

Anyway, if you wish to be inducted into the vamp-romance phenomenon, I have a few recommendations:

1)Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
This is the series that got me hooked. Harris creates a world where, thanks to synthetic blood, vampires and humans can peacefully co-exist. Her heroine, Sookie Stackhouse, is so great that HBO is creating a television series about her. My former roomie prefers the Mary Janice Davidson books, but I think the Southern Vampire series is much smarter and more engaging.

2) Happy Hour at Casa Dracula by Marta Acosta
This is a fun, chick-lit type vampire romance only recently released. I found it made an excellent beach read. Check out a full review here.

3) Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
I've only read the first chapter of this book (so take this recommendation with a grain of salt), but I've been trying to get ahold of the book ever since. Hamilton is, apparently, the Queen of the Undead books, so it should be pretty good. If I ever get it.

And if you want to get into Battlestar Galactica before the start of Season 3 in October, get going...there's a lot of space fighting to frakkin' get through! Though I'm pretty sure once I got hooked it only took me about two weeks to catch up. Yup, I'm a big, strange geek. And lovin' every minute of it.