about the next book

So, I am listening to Eat, Pray, Love on CDs, which means that I can't use Post-it notes to mark the things I will want to discuss later. I am also too lazy to write things on a piece of paper. Therefore, I want to bring up a few things I'd like to discuss when we meet. I am still on the first part. We are still in Italy.

I wasn't initially too impressed with the book. The literary snob in me kept nagging about the writing. The word that kept coming up, though, was "self-indulgent." Do we really care, thought I, about another well-educated woman who is depressed because her life is not going who she planned? How hypocritical of me. I too had a few years of self-proclaimed hell, anti-depressants, the drama that enveloped me so completely, that it was the only thing that existed. So why then is it so hard for me to just relax and read about smart, pretty, successful women, instead of reading about starvation and serial rape? I don't know. What do you think?

I think she finally won me over when she quoted the country song that goes "I've been screwed, sued, and tattooed, but I am still standing here in front of you." So now I am mostly enjoying the ride. As a consequence of reading/listening to it, I am thinking that I need to rethink my relationship with pleasure (although I am not American, I think I have fully bought into the mentality she so well describes, which doesn't allow doing nothing), and especially with food. Maybe I can stop eating cereal for dinner out of plastic containers.

But, to shorten this long rant, my main question is this: how do you all feel about reading this book, knowing that, most likely, you will not be able to do anything similar to what she did, probably in the next 15 years? Are you envious? Am I envious? It's a whole different world that she talks about. And I can't even have lunch without Joe pulling on my legs to pick him up. Am I envious? I don't think so. But it sure is nice to fantasize about escaping to Rome for a few days.