Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

Oh my God. OH MY GOD. This book was so good. I know that, practically speaking, every book is a page turner (unless you have a Kindle), but I finished this book in about 24 hours, and that includes about seven hours of sleep, during which time I WOKE UP THINKING ABOUT THIS BOOK. I contemplated getting out of bed to finish it, just so that I could know what happened. And I want to recommend it to everyone I know, and I've loaned it to my friend in New York and I'm contemplating buying an additional copy so that I can have a loaner copy and a stay-at-home copy. I only have two other books like that (and I'll send you five bucks if you can name them both).
Here's a description I found on GoodReads, which seems to be a version of the back-of-the-book description:
"In 1986, fresh out of college, Susan Gilman and her friend Claire yearned to do something daring and original that did not involve getting a job. Inspired by a place mat at the International House of Pancakes, they decided to embark on an ambitious trip around the globe, starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent travelers for roughly ten minutes. Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche, an astrological love guide, and an arsenal of bravado, the two friends plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, they quickly found themselves in over their heads. As they ventured off the map deep into Chinese territory, they were stripped of everything familiar and forced to confront their limitations amid culture shock and government surveillance. What began as a journey full of humor, eroticism, and enlightenment grew increasingly sinister-becoming a real-life international thriller that transformed them forever. Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a flat-out page-turner, an astonishing true story of hubris and redemption told with Gilman's trademark compassion, lyricism, and wit."

SEE!? Even the book jacket calls it a page turner! It was so, so good - and I finished it right before I got to select the book for my book club, so this is our July read. I'm going to be so disappointed if the ladies don't love it.

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven - A+

Hacked.

So I got hacked last week. While I'm not sure which came first, the Hotmail or the Facebook, it has been a ridiculous week full of frantic phone calls to the bank and credit card company and a flurry of changing usernames and passwords. Which really sucks, because my memory's not that good and I have hard time remembering which password I use for which thing, but I shouldn't use all the same password, because that's bad. And The Hubs and I have had a few tense moments because of this - the hidden scourge of hacking.

The bright side, an old friend Googled me and found me at work; concerned, she tracked me down and we ended up having a wonderful chat, and may be back to be being real friends again. And, one of my Stardoll buddies did the same. Imagine, a woman who I've never met, never spoken to on the phone, FOUND ME to check and make sure that I wasn't stranded in Wales with no money... and I'm pretty sure she was willing to help me if I was stranded. So while hackers are bad, I've determined that people are generally really, really good.

Take mey advice: change your passwords.

hackers - F