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Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021 - 19:47

I'm reading another Perry Mason book, this one from 1960. It's silly:

Lady: I was in this situation and then the guy was murdered after I left.
Perry Mason: Go do all this ridiculous shady stuff like try to get fired from your job and go stay with a friend instead of going back to your apartment. I'll go out to the scene of the crime and mess with the evidence for no reason at all. It would be a fairly simple thing to prove that you weren't even there when the murder happened but I'm going to fuck shit up to make it super complicated.
Lady: Thanks, I'll do exactly what you say.
Perry Mason: Great, now I'm also going to go and try to get into unnecessary fights with cops and potential witnesses.
Lady: Cool. btw my friend looks exactly like me.
Perry Mason: I already knew that so I'm going to go do weird things with her. Bye.

I still want to rewrite all these Perry Mason books switching the genders of everyone because it's so ridiculous, but this one is even more ridiculous. We're supposed to think he's so smart for conniving his way through these complicated situations, but he's the one who makes things complicated by fucking all the shit up in the first place. His first instinct is to always go the shady route.

I'm also reading a Nathaniel Hawthorne book. I read the Scarlet Letter in 6th grade (I don't know why) and don't remember much about the book specifically (just the part that hypocrites suck) - the language in the book, I mean. The one I'm reading now is the House of the Seven Gables and it's basically just:

There's this house, it's old, the family doesn't have money anymore, there's a painting in the house, comma comma comma, paragraphs and paragraphs talking about rooms and the painting and things, comma comma comma, a person knocks on the door.

And then finally I'm also reading a Phyllis Whitney book. 1968. Honestly I thought she was another pseudonym for Victoria Holt and I thought it would be a nice silly summer book, but instead it's like this:

Hi, I'm an American girl who married an English jerk who was in his 30s and I was 19. He was an abusive asshole to me but we had sex so maybe he was just a jerk because I was always messing up. I went back to America for two years because shit was so fucked up but I've come back to England because my asshole husband wants to marry another woman, so we need to get divorced. That'll be cool, or wait, I think I still love him even though he was always mean to me. There's also going to be some sort of mystery in the book but don't worry, I end up back together with my abusive husband and it'll turn out that he's such an asshole because he loves me sooooooo much. Don't think about the power imbalance/older jerk/young naive girl stuff, it's fine! It's romantic! We just love each other soooooooo much, the end!

What a weird summer.