One collection of comic strips today but what an amazing collection -- Alison Bechdel's The Essential Dykes to Watch out For. Most of my free time this past week has been spent experiencing a two decades-long soap opera in which the fabric of the social, political, and legal life of our country was brilliantly woven into these characters' lives in funny, moving, frustrating, and very smart ways.
This is not a review. Maybe one day when I've had more time to digest the whole thing and savor it, instead of rushing through it so I can go back to work, so I can return it the library for the next person to read it, so I can find out what happens *next*. This copy goes back to the library but I'll be getting my own so I can explore this great book on my own time in my own way.
Reminder: this is not a review. Instead here are 10 reasons why I love Mo best.
1. This much neuroses shouldn't all fit in one person. Yet she wears it well.
2. Besides being occasionally naked and once wearing bike shorts and a sports bra in a hot tub with her lover's parents, I don't think Mo has ever worn anything but a striped shirt. Yet, again, she wears it well.
3. In a million years, I never would have guessed her full name at birth was Monica. Mo is so much better, don't you think?
4. Martha Stewart kink. She gets originality points for that, if nothing else.
5. Proving opposites really can attract -- after all, she's got a best friend like Lois and a lover like Sydney.
6. Hummus from a box. Which is her usual party dish. A girl after my own heart.
7. She's a cat lady.
8. a. Thinking about the HQ library stack gets her hot.
b. She has spent her entire adult life surrounded by books. Definitely my kind of gal.
9. Hands down the most self-absorbed person in the entire strip. Yet she very rarely is outright selfish. A very interesting balance of character traits.
10. Eventually she goes to graduate school. Proving without a doubt that those of us without any discernable marketable and / or social skills end up there at one point or another.