COLD SORES

I have developed the most horrendous one right in the middle of my top lip. I have *never* suffered from these before and this is freaking me out unimaginably because I look like the Queen Hideous Creature from the Planet of Hideous Creatures. Does anyone have any brilliant suggestions for how to minimize it? Get rid of it? Make it less irritating? Make me look somewhat more human? (Yes, thank you, no cracks, please.)

LIBRARIANS

While reading a hilarious librarian blog that I'm sure someone on the Maud list recommended (http://community.livejournal.com/library_mofo), I found a mention of a new movie called "The Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians Through Film." Here's the film's Web site.

WHAT I'M READING (and you have to admit, "Librarians" to "What I'm reading" was a far better segue than "Cold sores" to "Librarians")

I was at the library yesterday picking up a stack of reserved items, and I spied a shelf near the new releases called "Lucky you." Apparently the friends group at my local library purchases copies of currently hot books and puts them on the shelf -- and if you happen upon them before anyone else, you get to check them out without waiting on an interminable reserve list. So I checked out "Lean Mean Thirteen." I have been vocal in the past about how Janet Evanovich has been phoning 'em in ever since about the fifth Stephanie Plum book, and so far I feel the same about this one. Yet I keep reading them. Hope springs eternal.

I'm also reading "Pontoon" by Garrison Keillor, which, in its first few pages, includes one of the most charming descriptions of dying I've ever read; "The Fair Adventure" by Elizabeth Janet Gray, which was recommended to me by Constance M.; and "Dead Connection" by Alafair Burke (the daughter, apparently, of James Lee Burke, who went to college with my mother but who nevertheless has a very odd first name).

I have so many books on my to-be-read shelf that it's highly unlikely I'll get them read in this lifetime, and they will have to accompany me to the after-library. However, rising to the top are "Spilling Clarence" by Anne Ursu, "Changing Places" by David Lodge, "No Angel" by Penny Vincenzi (recommended by the charming and wonderful Suzanne N.), "Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife" by Irene Spencer (being loaned to me by the charming and wonderful Joan Kossack), and "Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far)."

I blame GoodReads. Every day I add more books to my to-read list. It's a blessing and a curse, I'm telling you.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INDIA AND INDIANA

While we were in the car on Sunday, on our way to brunch or the bookstore or somewhere, Andrew announced that in Indiana, they say "Magnificent" instead of "Cool." Upon questioning from Cindy and me, he said there is a character in one of his Hot Wheels movies whose name is Sanjay, and he's an Indian, and he says "Magnificent." And Indians come from Indiana.

I can add no more.