71: The Girl With The 26.2 Tattoo

I've been in and out of a lot of airports this summer and literally everywhere I go I see people reading The Girl the the Dragon Tattoo. I used to wonder whether I was just noticing it because of its genius bright cover artwork, or if it had actually become the handbook of a generation. In June I committed myself to only reading books about running. I wanted total immersion; but I couldn't help feeling curious about this book I kept seeing everywhere.

Recently, I took a series of four flights in rapid succession and noted 6 people on one leg reading TGWTDT, 2 on the next leg, 8 on the third leg, and then a whopping 18 people reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on my final flight home. Were they giving free copies out at the W.H. Smith? Nope. That's when you know a book is no longer just popular fiction, but a social phenomenon.

I wrapped up my latest running book (a beginner's guide, put out by Runner's World magazine) and decided to join the flock. I'm not against commercially trendy books (I mean - my biggest dream is to sell one myself!) but I do have a slightly snobbish view that such a book, while it may be very entertaining, probably doesn't do much to build character, or teach me how to be a better (more literary) writer. My time is limited. Fluff gets in the way of my priorities. Still it seemed in this case I had to make an exception.

By the time I flew to Maine last weekend, I'd cleared the dreaded first 50 (slow) pages everyone talks about and was turning them back as fast as the other florescent "card carriers" who had inspired me. My friend's husband and daughter picked me up from the airport in Portland and, after running across the airport to hug me, the little girl honed right in on my book, which was stuck in an outside pocket of my bag. "Mommy has this book!" she squealed.

My friend's husband works in publishing at a very reputable firm, arguable the most reputable, and he is their editor in chief. This is a person with probably the highest critical taste in writing that I know. Upon having been outed, I felt the need to explain my trendy choice... I rambled about the 4 flights, and how at this point I was really only reading it as a social experiment, to get into the mind of the mainstream book consumer, and... He interrupted me, smiling. He was very glad to see me reading it, actually, since it was his book. Errr... So now I feel a little bit less guilty about taking a break from reading about how I over trained for my first 6 months and probably caused my own current foot situation.

The title of this book has me thinking about how common tattoos are now, and how I often see runners out there with the number "26.2" inked permanently on their calves. There's even a facebook fan page called Marathon Tattoo! Check it out: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marathon-Tattoo/390581032914 I can't imagine doing that! Still, if there were an occasion in my life that I'd want to commemorate on my body, forever, it would probably be this upcoming marathon; or more accurately, 26.2 as a symbol of the journey I've been on - hard work, the sacrifices, the growth. Though I seriously doubt I'd ever actually go for a real tattoo, maybe I'll sport some permanent marker on the big day and just pretend...