The rules of Librarypalooza: every month, Adam and I walk to the local library on a Saturday afternoon. One of us selects a random aisle. We must both choose one book from that aisle to read, preferably something we're not incredibly familiar with. We can then take home one or two additional books from anywhere in the library.

The first time we tried this, Adam blindly led us to the aisle that contained all of J.R.R. Tolkien's works, and hoo boy, it was a struggle for me to find anything else I wanted to try out. In the end, I chose Red Mars, the first in a trilogy about humanity colonizing Mars. I mostly picked it because the reviews on the back cover were adorable, and the front cover had this incredibly stereotypical sci-fi illustration. It's exactly the kind of book I want to read but never do because I'm sure it'll be incredibly boring or horribly unrealistic.

It was the best book I've read in years.

The next two books (Green Mars and Blue Mars) were also fantastic, to the point that I can't properly write a review because I just start gushing and babbling and maybe even drooling.

The second Librarypalooza outing put us in the aisle with all of Ian Fleming's books, and since I've only seen the newer Bond movies, I felt like I wanted to know more about this dashing hero and his fancy cars and his pretty ladies and his enviable cocktails. I took home Casino Royale, and wow, the book and the movie overlap for maybe three chapters. I don't want to get shot for telling you which one I prefer, so I'll just tell you that the torture scene was equally unpleasant in both. (Also, the book had terrible pacing, but at least it painted Bond as less of a womanizer.) I look forward to continuing the series.

This weekend, Adam and I are headed out for the third time, and golly gee, I cannot wait. What will the library roulette offer us this time?! Comedy? Romance? Manga? Comedy romance manga? Tune in next week to find out!

*zazzly outro music*

The old copier repair man never met a problem he couldn't solve, and he was generous with information that made me a better customer and a better designer. He taught me how to work with the machine to get the results I wanted, and he praised me for being willing to learn how to care for a printer. He took up far too much of my time, but I never really minded. A year ago, I was among the first people he told when he decided to move out of state to be closer to family.

The new copier repair man smells like a combination of Pine-Sol and cigarette smoke, a scent that invades my personal space even more often than he does. He laughs nervously at all the wrong times and has never once fixed a problem the first go-round. But worst of all, he is condescending when he explains to me how toner fuses with the paper, what toner is, and what paper is. "Well, 24-pound paper is very different from 20-pound paper when it goes through the machine, you know."

I smile at him as I wonder which paper gives the best paper cuts.

When I watched Bewitched as a child, I thought Darrin had the coolest job. I was smitten with the influential power of advertising, and I've been critiquing billboards and television commercials and brochures and the like ever since. It's why I majored in marketing in college, and it's how I became the "communications specialist" at my church. If I ever find out that Bewitched wasn't a secret, brilliant, pro-advertising campaign by some real-life Don Draper of the late '60s, I will be utterly heartbroken.