I finished a book last night

And it was really good! This should come as no surprise since I think of books like I think of ice cream: a daily necessity.....

You're not going to believe this... I just went to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary to look up a synonym for "crave" and I kid you not, their description reads "to have an earnest wish to own or enjoy <craves ice cream at all hours of the day>" Looks like I'm not the only one with such sentiments towards the frozen delicacy.

....a daily necessity that must be engaged in for the joy it brings me is worth the time spent/calories. I started this post with the desire to talk about this book I just finished, but now all I want to talk about is my favorite kind of ice cream. Because contrary to popular belief, all ice creams are NOT created equal. I don't know what they've got over there in New Zealand masquerading around as ice cream, but it's not. Definitely heavy on the cream part and LOW on the ice factor. I like Breyer's ice cream the best because it's so icy... Then I pour milk over it and it gets this extra layer of icy-milky crust, and the inside is so soft and sweet. Gosh. It's divine.

But anyway, back to THE BOOK! Let's see. I'll start with the title and author. It's "eat, pray, love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. She went on a year's worth of travel to Italy, India and Indonesia (Bali specifically) on a quest for God. Or her experience of God. Balance. Pleasure. Piety. New-agey style. And it was a good read. She's got a good style. I mean, I should hope so because the publisher paid her in advance for the book before she even went on the journey she would write about. Pretty interesting huh?

This book came to my attention because an old family friend told me she read a book that reminded her of me. She hoped I would read it and then tell her what I thought of it. So I did. And now I need to call her and be like yes! I can so write a book about my travels too! I've had some interesting experiences. But then I stop a minute and think... who would want to read about dorky little Leigh Ann running around getting up to no good? And then I have to think... who wouldn't want an opportunity to read someone else's diary? That's what makes some blogs so interesting... is that you get rare glimpses into people's personal thoughts. We might be good friends but 9 times out of 10, I'm not going to verbalize in conversation what I write here. And for good reason. It's asinine. And I'm a terrible conversationalist. But also because when I sit down and start to type, it's my thoughts that come out. These thoughts that would otherwise be kept away, apart and unknown. The opportunity to know them is what draws people in. Works on me like a charm. Diaries are like privileged information.... which is like a secret... which everyone wants to know.

So, back to the book. This chick is wack. For real, she has issues. And it was so fun to hear her discover them by her interactions with other people. Some of them she knew (like how needy she is for attention, how chatty she is, outgoing, etc.) but others were a surprise (she's controlling). But don't let me paint a negative picture here, she's a good person with loads of positive qualities. Yet she made NO attempts to hide her flaws. They were almost the star of the book and the reason for the book at the same time.

So she went through a nasty divorce, got medically depressed, had a lascivious romance that did more damage than good and decided it was time for a change of scenery. This year she spent abroad was a quest for closeness with God, with a healthy, happy self and learning to find balance in a world (mostly our culture) gone amok. But what I got from the book is that the food in Italy is TO DIE FOR, the Italian language is apparently more beautiful to the ears than French (alert the media), spending four months in India but staying in an Ashram the whole time is the best way to stay disease-free and Bali is a place to go to escape. Oh, and we all need to find an older Brazilian man. Apparently they're so great, you'll get one of those infections. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.

Now that's not to say that there isn't more in the book, oh there is so much more. But I'm not writing a book report, my friend! But I will list a few things I learned from this woman who wrote so openly about her suffering, search and joy:

• when visiting other countries, ask the locals where to eat. Once here, tell the sweet old lady in the back you'll have the house special. (hopefully it will be as orgasmically good as her experiences)
• make as few plans as possible before traveling and go on long walks to make all sorts of wonderful discoveries
• and um... I guess that's it. That is all that I can think of at the moment. There are other things that I would add about my own experiences-ish. Mostly things I would do differently if given the chance. And I do hope there are lots of more chances. :-)