Never was a gossip girl...

I'm totally lying about the title. I love gossip. I love reality shows - though I watched one on MTV tonight (something about this terrible teen who spent $200,000 on a Sweet-16 party) that made me feel dirty. This girl was awful, though oddly reminiscent of someone I went to high school with. I like work gossip, and family gossip, and even the Gossip Girl series. But this week, too much gossip has made me tired. As I mentioned last year, August is the season for tempers to flare. They did so today, dramatically, on a listserv I'm on. I'm tired and depressed by this. In a world where the Administration is pursuing unwise political paths here in the U.S., and it seems that the world is going to hell in a handbasket (made at Wal-Mart, natch), I hate to have one of my safe havens become a quarrelling ground. Not saying there weren't good reasons - just saying I'm tired.
I'm still reading Anna Karenina. Anna's motives are becoming more clear, though I still find them tiresome. I'm amused by Levin, and laughed out loud at some bits when his brother came to visit (not Nikolai - Sergei, I think his name is). the last book I finished was Dorita Fairlie Bruce's Dimsie Carries On, which wasn't the best DFB I've ever read.