Reading On The Road: Home Sweet Home

I am indeed at home this weekend (my parents' house to be technical, but it will always be home to me) for some family affairs. Of course, I'll be taking advantage of the mostly unplugged down time to catch up on some reading. Here are my picks for this lazy fall weekend:

• Cereal boxes. My parents have always had a large library of cereals, and their containers encompass such a wide variety of genres, from the playful fiction of Cheerios to the weighty yet informative Grape-Nuts.
• Movie listings. I've read these at least 20 times while trying to plan a group outing because no matter how many times I look them up, I always find one family member who insists a 3:15 movie is completely out of reach if we leave at 2:45 because what if we don't have time to get popcorn? Tragic.
• The kitchen calendar. Truly the definitive familial work of the 21st century; comes encoded with such a wealth of symbols and references, it's practically written in its own language.
• My brother's college essays. The form exemplified by Didion or Wolfe has given way to the stark themes of nihilrealism, a form of writing that delves so deep into minutiae in efforts to appear longer that it is, in fact, about nothing.
• The TiVo Wish List. A damning indictment of contemporary culture and of how much my sister, who isn't even living at home right now, adores procedurals. (Except CSI: Miami.)