I think I’m reading the world’s most depressing book ever, written by the world’s most depressing writer ever! Ok, maybe not the most depressing writer. Ha Jin, the Chinese writer who wrote Waiting was also pretty effective at depressing the heck out of me. I was partly depressed about having wasted my time reading that book though. Anyway, back to my world’s most depressing book ever, My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Now I knew about this writer. She’s known for her country-music-esque stories. If you want a good bawl, she’s your woman. The couples’ kid dies, their dog runs away, and then the husband strays, and then the other shoe falls. It’s just too much to take. My Sister’s Keeper is also a movie, so you can just skip to that but I think despite the sad storyline, it’s a well-told story. It’s about a family who has a daughter to donate bodily items to their other daughter who has leukemia. The donor daughter finally draws the line when they want her to donate her kidney to her dying sister as a last ditch effort, not to save her, but to prolong her life a while longer. Basically the mother’s all-consuming desire to save her unsaveable daughter ends up sacrificing everyone in the family. It’s depressing.

Fall is a terrible time to be reading sad stories. I will be going back to my regularly scheduled program of the Shopaholic series. It’s much better. Reading this stuff makes me wanna have some shopping therapy of my own.

Granted, I went in watching the movie knowing it would have shortcuts from the book. That’s understandable. So the basic plot line to the story is Dex is engaged to Darcy even though he’s in love with her best friend, Rachel, the protagonist. He ends up engaging in an affair with Rachel, all the while engaged to Darcy. Even while reading the book, I had a hard time empathizing with the characters’ lack of character. I was mad at them while reading the book, but because it delved deeper in character development, I could kinda’ suspend my judginess and just go with it. With the movie though, it just brought back all the anger I felt for the male lead, Dexter. Like I wanna feel sorry for him that he can’t break up with his fiance to be with the woman he loves, but I don’t. I think he just needs to grow a pair. Since I read the book though, I understood the courage he had to find to break up an engagement. I mean, I’ve met people who are divorced who said they saw it coming before they got married. It’s not an easy thing to do, I get it. The movie didn’t really remind me of that though, so had I not read the book, I would’ve really disliked the movie. As it were, I think it was a well made translation of the novel and the big scenes were all there. The only big mistake that was blatant was when the cheated-on Darcy finds out Dex had been cheating on her with her best friend, in the book she finds him in Rachel’s apartment wearing boxers. Pretty damning evidence. In the book, she finds him dressed in slacks and a button down shirt. Innocent chit chat for all she would know. I mean even in that scene, he was just there to chat. Again, had I not read the book, I would’ve been all, hey waitaminute, isn’t she overreacting? How did she get that they were cheating just by that? Such a big leap of logic that would’ve been so easy to fix.

Sorry if I ruined the ending for anybody. This isn’t really a suspense story anyway.

Since fall is a little less than 2 weeks away, now’s the time to start preparing for the onslaught of dry itchy skin that comes with winter.

Although the general belief is that body washes tend to be less drying than bar soaps, I haven’t found that to be necessarily true. Dove Moisturizing bar soap for example is very gentle. I wouldn’t hesitate to wash even my face with it. On the other hand, Dial body wash is probably not something I’d want to put on my face. So in general, I don’t really have too much of an opinion on what kind of soap to use, as long as you use something. I suppose. Well there’s another theory on that, not using soap or not soaping the whole body. Or even skipping a shower in the winter. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Currently I use body washes. Whatever happens to be on sale at Costco. Like I said, I don’t have an opinion on that.

So what works for me is being diligent about applying lotion after showering. I find lotions with shea butter to be particularly helpful. Also you can try applying oil instead of lotion. Jojoba or olive oil are both quite effective against crackly winter skin. The point is, that you use it. I should take my own advice.