Why Girls (more specifically, me) Go Apeshit For Austen

Over the summer, I was staying with my bestie and we finished off a bottle or two of wine while watching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice.  Needless to say, it was a fantastic evening.  Her flatmate, a self-described viking, asked me: "What's deal was with chicks and this movie?"  He just didn't get it.  My answer was less than stellar--deer in the headlights comes to mind.  I was drunk and it never occurs to me that everyone isn't Apeshit for Austen like I am.  To me it hardly bears explaining, it just is, like breathing: obviously.

I devoted the majority of my studies to Romantic Literature.  Austen falls right before this genre started, but a lot of teachers still include her.  I avoided Dickens in college (mistake) and took every class that offered any of Austen's books. Since everyone in my classes was also into Austen (especially my All Austen class), I only ran into one person in college (also a guy) who wasn't into Austen.  How my professor, Prof. Peter Graham, who has written TEXTBOOKS on Austen didn't fly across the room to throttle this gentleman in the face...I've never quite known except that he is a gentleman of Austenesque standing.  Long story short, it is very rare that I find someone who doesn't get "it" since most of my peer group waxes euphoric about Jane.  I guess I shouldn't be surpirsed, the Bronte sisters really didn't like Jane Austen.  I like both Austen and the Brontes, so I'm excited to read an Austen Spin-off where Lord Byron turned her into a vampire and Charlotte Bronte is her vampire archenemy through the ages.  (Are you really surprised that storyline exists with all the spin-offs and vampire books popping up?  There is a market for everyone.)

Anyway: So, what is the deal with chicks and this lady, Jane Austen?

Allow me to break down what I think attracts women to Pride and Prejudice and then Austen in general.


Since Pride and Prejudice is the most universally popular/viewed/read for school it only makes sense that there are a lot of different types of P&P fans.  Is P&P my favorite?  No.  That distinction goes to Persuasion, Austen's last book.  However, there is a lot of great character development and gooshy love-stuff in there.  In fact, P&P was what originally did "it" for me.  I read Sense and Sensibility in high school and loved it (I'm a bit of an Eleanor), but it wasn't until I watched P&P on my freshmen exam sickbed that I really got "it."

So what's the deal?

1. Yum...Darcy--The Darcy groupies are probably the classic example of the followers of P&P.  This has everything to do with the BBC mini-series and Colin Firth.  I'll admit it: Darcy will always be Colin Firth in my mind, even when I'm re-reading the book.  I've never met a lady that didn't love a tall, dark, and handsome, brooding sort of guy.  It's the mystery and the knight in shining armor bullshit. Austen's world is stocked full with social boundaries: not touching, dressing from head to toe, and all out sexual repression.  So when Darcy takes a dip in the lake on his way back to Pemberley, all the while fighting with the inner turmoil over Elizabeth's rejection and chastisement...well, it's basically wet, t-shirt Regency porn.  True story.
   
2. Pair Darcy with his foil Wickham and girls go nuts.  We all have that guy in our past who is our Wickham, the one we thought was great or "the one" and it turns out that he was a dead-beat.  So we love to watch Lizzy figure out Wickham isn't all he's cracked up to be, because we feel vindicated.
3. The Crazy Mother-- If you made Mrs. Bennet a religious zealot and gave my mother a lace cap they would be the same person.  "Why aren't you maried yet?" or "Why aren't you better at x, y, z" are pretty much my daily bread and butter.  Austen is in true form in P&P with relate-able characters, which brings me to number four:
4. Relate-able characters--Most women can sympathize with at least one of the Bennet sisters. My Austen prof actually wrote a book comparing the Bennet sisters to Darwin's theories about birth order in the animal kingdom. Brilliant.
1. Jane: pretty, shy, gets walked over 
2. Elizabeth: considered pretty (but she's no Jane), witty, bookish, daring, and honorable
3. Mary: homely, misunderstood, blacksheep
4. Kitty: always outdone by her younger sister
5. Lydia-rude, impulsive, notorious flirt
5. The language can be a little obtuse at first, especially if it's your first time reading literature from this period, but as you become more accustomed to the syntax, the language becomes a main point of attraction.  Especially the absolutely biting, subtle, and polite way the characters tell each other off.  Lady Catherine's visit to Elizabeth at Longbourn is probably my favorite example.  It's delightful because if I ever said this to another woman, they probably wouldn't even understand what it meant.  Oh it's so delicious!
6. The costumes are fantastic in the movies and the descriptions are very detailed in the books. You can tell a lot about a person in Austen's world by how they dress as well as their titles.  A knowledge of the history of social titles and dress can explain a lot about personalities in the books.

Austen is nothing without her social commentary.  She is a subtle wit who takes to task society, women's issues, the education system, and the social ladder.  She was a huge champion of education and sense for women.  In fact, she was so biting that her sister destroyed a fair chunk of her correspondence after Jane's death to cover up some of the things she said about people.  I really wish Cassandra hadn't done that, but I guess she had as much prophetic understanding as her namesake.

Austen also bears the attraction that she died very early.  I'd love to see what she would have written if her career had continued, yet at the same time I don't because I fear it might not have been as good.  She was a formula writer, which might sound boring, but even though you always know the book is going to end with a wedding, each time you read her novels you're always in agony about whether they really are going to get together in the end.  She's very good at delayed gratification in multiple ways, again, it's the sex or lack there of.

Even though she might be "old hat" in a modern world, it is her nuances and woman's intuition about people and situations that continues to draw modern readers to her novels, as well as, her extremely detailed characters that continue to hold our interest and parallel people we know.  She reinforces that even 200 years ago, individuals were still yearning for the same things: Love, Happiness, and Social Justice.

Don't you love how this started as a blog post and ended with a conclusion paragraph?  Psh, you don't want to read those college essays.  2 years later I still haven't brought myself to read the solid, gold crap I turned in for my seminar class.

What's Your Jane Austen Character name?

If you know me, then you know I have a Jane Austen problem. A deep-rooted problem that doesn't bother me one bit. Although, I'm sure that Steven will run out of Austen inspired gifts for me eventually. My latest acquisitions are a Marvel comic version of Pride and Prejudice and a new novel entitled Jane Austen Bites Back where Jane Austen is a vampire still "alive" and working in the publishing industry.  I'm pretty stoked to read it.

Anywho.  I just found a Jane Austen character name generator.  I'm:

Miss Elinor Martin

It's kind of an interesting combo of Elinor Dashwood (a personal favorite from Sense and Sensibility) and Harriet Smith who marries Mr. Martin in Emma.  And I'm clearly unmarried in Austen's world, dang it! Oh, I'm a dork.

In other literary news: Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens arrived on my doorstep before we woke up this morning.  Got to love amazon's prompt delivery!  If I disappear for a while, it's because I'm nose deep in some good reads.

Christmas in May?

It's extremely difficult for me to wait for my favorite holiday: Christmas. I live for it the whole year. Lately I've been thinking" "oh, I should start present hunting and baking goodies...getting out my holiday tunes and all that jazz." However, I will sit here patiently waiting until at least Halloween.

My birthday is coming up and I'm really excited about that too. Like...Christmas excited for it. Today at lunch, I told Steven I wanted a birthday tree of my own and I'm half tempted to put up my little 2 ft tree and put some really colorful not-so-christmasie-ornaments on it. I'm also hoping that the birthday-Santa leaves me some goodies under this tree. :D

I'm still debating what to do for my birthday. I've scheduled a cleaning and orthodontist consultation for the day before...completely boring, but they need to be done. I've taken 2 days off, so I should have a long weekend to myself if the pier is generous and doesn't schedule me. I'm hopeful, but not delusional. I really want to take a day and go to the city either solo or with the Steben. We live 45 minutes from D.C. and we never get up there. Shameful, isn't it?

Oh! Also excited that amazon has informed me that the new Sookie Stackhouse book has been shipped and will, I hope, arrive on the book's release date. Lately, I've lived for book releases. I've done more pre-ordering off of amazon in the past few weeks then in the whole existence of amazon.com. Once Hitch 22 arrives I'll probably disappear for a good week or so until I go to a book meet-and-greet with the author...

Also, in other life events: I have fluorescent orange pee. Yeah, you read that correctly. It's a side effect from one of the medications I'm taking to get rid of a bladder infection. Very nasty and annoying things that completely disrupt your life. I genuinely hope you've never experienced one. I'm trying to take it as easy as I can, but I know that I'm just not getting enough sleep. I never get enough sleep these days.

All work and no play really does make Ms. Domestique a dull girl...I know, I know...

I'm feeling rather bookish lately

I've really wanted to join a book club of some sort. I need to do something to get my English brain fired up again. I was thinking about it and had the crazy thought of reading my way through the BBC's top 100 books.

It might not be as bad as it sounds. I've already read 25 of them. Another 25 I've started, hated, and put down. The other 25 I'm pretty sure I already own, and the last 25 I've never heard of. So it looks like I should get to reading, eh?

Maybe I could do the 200 list?

Oh, not-so-posh reading...

In the last 2 months or so, I've polished off 8 of 9, soon to be 10, of the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Now I know that these are not epic literature, but I figure after 4 years of complete devotion to the cannon of English Literature I'm allowed to read trashy, American backwater vampire novels, right?

Well I certainly think so. I do love me a vampire or two, and I'm talking real bloodsucking vampires that can't go out in the day and don't sparkle. I also love a stronger female lead who, while loving a vampire, can still tell him to piss-off.

I'm trying to finish the books before I watch the TV series based on the books: TrueBlood. From what I've heard, they are very loosely related. Most book to video renditions are and I'm trying to get used to that.

If you haven't read them, they're almost charming; especially if you grew up in a similar country town that only has a Walmart (nothing says home like Walmart). They're full of a lot of interesting fantasy elements: vampire hierarchy, werewolves, weretigers, lots of were-animals, fairy godmothers, and all sorts of supes.

So all and all they're great to pass the time because they're entertaining, but they aren't going to expand your mind. I've been trying to find/start a book club so that I can read some good stuff! I miss class discussion in college. That was the best!

Christopher Hitchens' memoir comes out in July and we've already got tickets to hear him speak about it in DC sponsored by the Center for Inquiry. SCORE! The man is an atheist rock-star. I highly recommend his book God is Not Great or his works on George Orwell (I'm still trying to get through that one).

I just started reading Mary Poppins! I found it while wondering through Barnes and Noble the other week and I swiped it up because I didn't even know it was a book. Of course, most Disney stories are. How silly of me not to have thought of that! So far it's almost dead-on with the movie. Although, the Julie Andrews Mary is much nicer than the book version portrays her.

I've just realized that I've been reading a good bit of children and young adult works lately. I read the entire Percy Jackson series: brilliant, brilliant, brilliant books! I actually had to look up a lot of the Greek stories and I took Greek and Roman Myth in college. I think they're a great way for kids to learn about the old stories because they'll have to look stuff up, or at least read the Odyssey to really get everything. The characters are amazingly thought out! Rick Riordan definitely figured out a way to modernize the Greek gods and still keep there personalities. The movie was a complete waste of time, of course. We saw it as our Valentine's treat this year. It was great to get out to the movies since we never go, but I spent the entire time going "What? That never happened" "Why did they leave out this very major character?" "What do you mean the gods can't interact with their kids?" "Why'd they cast that person as this character?" etc. Oh it was so bad!

As you can tell I've been a busy reader! I love that I can fit time in to read. I just wish I could start fitting in time to do other things like paint, clean, or get myself new work pants! One day.

Where have I been?

Oh blog readers, I know that I have dropped off the planet. My life lately has been a jumble of activities. I'll try to lay out the past few months for you, catch you up, and start writing again.

Work:

I've been working about 37 hours a week for peanuts at the Pier 1 up here. My assistant manager is horrible and is probably the first person I have never been able to find anything I like about them. I've been trying for 5 months to find something I can like so that I focus on that when I have to deal with her. The search has been fruitless, and I've just about given up hope on her. I spend most of my time at work protecting the associates from the wrath of this woman and it's getting to me. It's a very toxic environment to say the least. The customers up here are also very rude and I get a lot of people who think I'm too young to be a manager.

The job hunt has been very slow goings. Even though I have a degree and a lot of kick-bootie grades, most employers only notice my retail experience so it has been extremely difficult to break into any professional scene. I'm still working on it. I think that to really have the time to find a new job I will have to quit my old one. This is very emotionally taxing since I do love my company and I have been there for 2 years. However, I need a job that is full-time and has benefits. There was a brief lead with a stationary company, but the most they could offer me was 2 part-time positions at once where I shuttled between two of their stores and it was a pay cut.

Home:

The house is slowly coming together. The key word there is slowly. I've been doing some craft projects, we finally hung some stuff up, and our room has a mind of it's own. So far the design is a mix of Pier 1 and Ikea. Ikea is such a magical place and I live 30 minutes from it. I live about 30 minutes from most major retailers. There is even a Tiffanys store somewhere near me. I can't afford anything so I've figured it would be dangerous to go. Anywho, I'll post some pictures of my house updates soon. I need to charge my camera...I haven't done that since we moved and that has affected my blogging.

Steven is amazing. I relish in every moment I have off from work to spend with him. He is so supportive of me and gives the best hugs. It has been great to live with him and have him around all the time. I love it! We play tennis with his family and I'm getting quite good. So much fun!

Health:

Through the stress of the move, my crappy job, and lots of eating, I gained back all the weight I lost for my graduation. So I got a gym membership at an amazing gym called the Freedom Center (the pool has a huge water slide) and I go every morning for 30-45 minutes of cardio. Steven is doing a biggest loser challenge and has lost 20 pounds in 3 weeks. He's doing so well on the program and I'm extremely proud of him.

I discovered soon after I moved here that I needed to have a root canal done. My mother canceled my dental insurance just before my graduation so I've been paying out of pocket. I have been going back to Gloucester for this because it saves me about $700 to go there then to have it done here by an endodontic specialist. In the end it will eat up $2205 from my savings. My tooth also got extremely infected and I had to take a lot of antibiotics. For about 2 weeks all I could eat was mashed potatoes.

Literature:

Where would I be without my books? So far I've spent a lot of time re-reading Harry Potter since the last movie came out. I'm currently reading The Historian. I'm halfway through it and I find it to be predictable. I hope that it gets better because I've had several people recommend it to me and those are normally good books. As Dracula books go, it hasn't been that entertaining for me. After you have experienced the joys of Tanya Huff and her Blood series...one cannot go back to just any vampire story.


Those are the big things that I've been up to. So much has been going on. I need to start writing again for my own sanity it seems, so stay tuned for further updates!

James Baldwin: Paper topic and New Love

"I believe in love. I believe we can save each other"

Take the Quiz here!

Every time I take an Austen heroine quiz I get a different character. I guess it all depends on how the wind blows. It is also fitting since I really don't have a favorite. I do have my least favorites. Hands down, I do not like Fanny Price, followed by Emma, and then Catherine Morland. However, those novels have other characters that redeem it for me...except maybe Mansfield Park. I do love the fact that Mrs. Norris in Harry Potter is a tribute to Mrs. Norris in Mansfield. Little trivia fact for you if you're ever on Jeopardy or something.

I spent my Thanksgiving evening watching Persuasion; I can't get enough of that movie. Captain Wentworth's letter gets me every single time.

Anyways, take the Austen quiz (even if you've never read a word of her) and let me know who you got so that I can play at Elizabeth Bennet and judge you and then through self discovery learn that there is more to people than meets the eye.

The Vagina Monologues (May contain offensive content, just FYI)

I love the Vagina Monologues. Eve Ensler is a personal hero of mine. If you haven't seen them I recommend it. Heck, get the book, perform it yourself, and give all the proceeds to a women's shelter. I've got the book and a video version and I can't get enough of it.

I had my first women's doctor exam today and it made me think of my favorite monologue: The Angry Vagina. When I had the pleasure to see this performed at William and Mary the actor used a British accent. I think it works very well for this piece so that's how I imagine it.

It's extremely vulgar, but if you can get past that, I hope you find things that you can enjoy about it.

oh, and if my vagina could talk it would say: "I am the essence" and it would wear Audrey Hepburn's beatnik outfit from Funny Face.

My Angry Vagina*
(a monologue originally written for Whoopi Goldberg)
(* In performance, this title is normally not read aloud)

My vagina's angry. It is. It's pissed off. My vagina's furious and it needs to talk. It needs to talk about all this shit. It needs to talk to you. I mean what's the deal — an army of people out there thinking up ways to torture my poor-ass, gentle loving vagina. Spending their days constructing psycho products, and nasty ideas to undermine my pussy. Vagina Motherfuckers.

All this shit they're constantly trying to shove up us, clean us up — stuff us up, make it go away. Well, my vagina's not going away. It's pissed off and it's staying right here. Like tampons — what the hell is that? A wad of dry fucking cotton stuffed up there. Why can't they find a way to subtly lubricate the tampon? As soon as my vagina sees it, it goes into shock. It says forget it. It closes up. You need to work with the vagina, introduce it to things, prepare the way. That's what foreplay's all about. You got to convince my vagina, seduce my vagina, engage my vagina's trust. You can't do that with a dry wad of fucking cotton.

Stop shoving things up me. Stop shoving and stop cleaning it up. My vagina doesn't need to be cleaned up. It smells good already. Don't try to decorate. Don't believe him when he tells you it smells like rose petals when it's supposed to smell like pussy. That's what they're doing, trying to clean it up, make it smell like bathroom spray or a garden. All those douche sprays, floral, berry, rain. I don't want my pussy to smell like berries or rain. All cleaned up like washing a fish after you cook it. I want to taste the fish. That's why I ordered it.

Then there's those exams. Who thought them up? There's got to be a better way to do those exams. Why the scary paper dress that scratches your tits and crunches when you lie down so you feel like a wad of paper someone threw away? Why the rubber gloves? Why the flashlight all up there like Nancy Drew working against gravity, why the Nazi steel stirrups, the mean cold duck lips they shove inside you? What's that? My vagina's angry about those visits. It gets defended weeks in advance. It won't go out of the house. Then you get there. Don't you hate that? "Scoot down. Relax your vagina." Why? So you can shove mean cold duck lips inside it. I don't think so.

Why can't they find some nice delicious purple velvet and wrap it around me, lay me down on some feathery cotton spread, put on some nice friendly pink or blue gloves, and rest my feet in some fur covered stirrups? Warm up the duck lips. Work with my vagina.

But no, more tortures — dry wad of fucking cotton, cold duck lips, and thong underwear. That's the worst. Thong underwear. Who thought that up? Moves around all the time, gets stuck in the back of your vagina, real crusty butt.

Vagina's supposed to be loose and wide, not held together. That's why girdles are so bad. We need to move and spread and talk and talk. Vaginas need comfort. Make something like that. Something to give them pleasure. No, of course they won't do that. Hate to see a woman having pleasure, particularly sexual pleasure. I mean make a nice pair of soft cotton underwear with a French tickler built in. Women would be coming all day long, coming in the supermarket, coming on the subway, coming happy vaginas. They wouldn't be able to stand it. Seeing all those energized, not taking shit, hot happy vaginas.

If my vagina could talk it would talk about itself like me, it would talk about other vaginas, it would do vagina impressions.

It would wear Harry Winston diamonds, no clothing, just there all draped in diamonds.

My vagina helped release a giant baby. It thought it would be doing more of that. It's not. Now, it wants to travel, doesn't want a lot of company. It wants to read and know things and get out more. It wants sex. It loves sex. It wants to go deeper. It's hungry for depth. It wants kindness. It wants change. It wants silence and freedom and gentle kisses and warm liquids and deep touch. It wants chocolate and trust and beauty. It wants to scream. It wants to stop being angry. It wants to come. It wants to want. It wants. My vagina, my vagina. Well...It wants everything.

Sneetches on the Beaches

I really want someone to make a movie about The Sneetches. We've had Horton Hears A Who and The Grinch movies and now I really want The Sneetches turned into a film.

I heart Dr. Seuss so much.

Fall Sunset

When I saw the sky tonight I grabbed my camera and ran outside to snap some pictures. I needed my tripod! Sorry they turned out kind of fuzzy; the low light needed a longer shutter speed and that would have required me to get out my tripod and do things manually and by the time I did that I would have missed it. Maybe another night I'll plan for it. I got some cool silhouettes of the trees though.

Anyways, like all things, it reminded me of a sonnet by Shakespeare. Number 73 to be exact:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Can I be a Slam Poet?

My Technical Editing teacher showed these videos in class today. They are of Taylor Mali, a slam poet. He's my new favorite comedian/poet.

I finished my sonnet! Since I'm in the library right now, and won't get home until much later, and I have tons of homework, I need to write the sonnet down in a place I can access later and just copy and paste it... so that means that all my lovely blog readers get to read my sonnet first. It turned out pretty well. I had to revise a lot of it quite a few times. There are only a few things in there that are specific to us. A lot of it has to do with love in general so I feel a lot of people can relate to it.... yeah. So, please no criticism. I feel that everything I write is always rubbish so this was an attempt to be more laid back about the whole thing in general...

So enjoy my rubbish:

It Has Been Said:
Lovers find each other within their selves.
Though separate hearts, their bond makes them one.
Through the depths of Us we have fought and delved;
The hunt for you within myself is done.

For my orphaned heart found shelter in you;
You are the home for which I think and plan.
I gladly uproot: our dreams to pursue.
Newly family: together we band.

Whateve' the distance is never too far.
With mutual affection so binding,
Many would envy a true love like ours.
For our love's high as Heav'n's height. Where shining

Orion, in the stars high up above,
Silently watches and protects our love.

I finally figured out something to do for Steven. It is something incredibly meaningful to me because it is something I'm usually terrified of attempting: I'm writing him a sonnet. The original declaration of sentiment, the fusion of form and feeling, why didn't I see it sooner?

I'm using the Shakespearean sonnet form because I find it far less complicated then the Petrarchan sonnet (the Italian form). I haven't written a sonnet in 4 years, the last time being when I had to do it for a school competition. I did win 2nd place, but it was the hardest assignment I ever did. However, it is proving much easier then my novice days of English study. I've read a great deal more poetry now, 4 years more.

I stayed up until 3 am and I got 2 stanzas and the couplet done.

1 more stanza to go and then I'm going to edit and most likely rework the whole thing.

Wills, Keats, Byron, Elizabeth and Robert, Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Yeats, Austen, Dickinson, Poe, help a sister out!

The Bell Jar

I have had The Bell Jar since my senior year of high school. I got it in a book swap my English teacher, Mrs. Baldwin, did for Christmas. I have her original copy of The Bell Jar dating back to the days when she still signed with her maiden name. She was my favorite teacher so it means a lot to me to have something so personal of hers. I figured it was about time to actually sit down and read it. After all, Missy has always had great taste in literature.

The Bell Jar is the tortured autobiographical tale of Sylvia Plath's bout with insanity. While the main character, Esther, is on a quest to retain her sanity I would also argue she is on a quest to find herself. In many ways The Bell Jar is a coming of age tale...with a twist of course. Most coming of age tales don't have suicide as a prominent theme.

I related to a lot of Esther's stresses: college, boys, losing your passion for literature, women vs. a world that isn't built for them. However, I don't think I'll be taking it as horribly as she did.

Thankfully, Plath makes some sense out of insanity. The reader can follow Esther's thought process. You can't say the same thing about authors such as Faulkner who make insanity into a blurb of jumbled words with no punctuation or structure. With Esther you can understand and empathize with her condition.

And I wondered, was she really mad? Or was it her world that created insane women?

Twilight

Ok, at first I was skeptical about this series. It is for young adults and is supposed to be some grand romance... and I was thinking "really, how grand can it be?" However, as an English major it is my duty to read the boring classics as well as keep up with the reading trends. That, and trendy books keep me sane. I get to escape into a world where symbolism, allusions, syntax, etc., don't matter.

Granted it was a tad predictable for me, and Stephanie Meyer's take on what a vampire is was interesting (weird twists like actually being able to be in the sun), and I loved all the characters. The vampire family is amazing; broken yet hopeful.

Even with all the predictability and the cliches about vampires, I'll be damned if I didn't sit on my loveseat giggling audibly and blushing like a school girl! I'm serious! It was BAD! Steven was a witness. When we got on skype to video chat I seriously had to take some calming breaths ad try to calm myself down. It didn't work. I just kept giggling and blushing and had to explain a gorgeous fictional vampire to my boyfriend.

So this book confirmed what I knew all along:

1. My childhood phobia of vampires was completely stupid and I wasted a lot of time when I could have been drowning in the genre.
   
2. If I ever met a vampire it would be completely possible for me to be seduced by one. I mean how can a girl possibly resist the chiseled body, piercing eyes, super strength, super speed, gracefulness, and above all their dazzling seduction moves and there little skill of you know....controlling you a little... and not to mention all the danger and mystery involved, oh and how they're always smart, witty, and have some historic charm to them...
   

I mean really, how can a girl resist?

She can't, so bottom line: Read This.

As Usual

The pre-school year nightmares have begun. I love this time of year, really. Last night I had an extremely horrible dream.

It was winter, I had on my favorite pea-coat. Sonja and I were going to get lunch somewhere (I'm guessing on campus) and for some reason I double parked... not sure why I would ever do that, but it gave my dream reason enough to give me a parking ticket. Long story, but I get a ticket about each semester and I have an extreme hatred of Tech parking services. Anyways, I got a ticket and a whole lot of paperwork. An unrealistic amount of paperwork about revoking a lot of my driving rights and stupid stuff like that.

Fast forward to my parents who for some reason hate me and were calling me a whore and a disgrace to the family name just because I kissed my boyfriend. While they're arguing about this and we're yelling I suddenly start coughing up blood and spit and the next thing I know I've coughed up some organ (I think it was supposed to be my heart). I've fallen on the ground that is covered in snow and I'm begging for help. All my parents can talk about is whose phone gets better reception so that 911 can hear them.

You know, as I lay dying (total Faulkner reference), holding my heart in my hand.

Crazy Lady

Just so you know, apple cider vinegar is crap against gnats or fruit flies or whatever you want to call them. Sugar water is just as ineffective. However, I found a great way to get rid of them: my vacuum.

I've been going around my apartment brandishing my vacuum hose at the pesky bugs. To the untrained eye it would look like I was waving my wand into thin air or practicing for a part in a sword fight. Either way, I'm cementing my position as the crazy lady in #12 who lives with her cat and vacuums sporadically at 10:30 pm while blasting obscenities at the air.

After all reputations must be upheld. I think the wise words of Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice apply: "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?"

Smoke and Shadows

Tanya Huff has done it again! She has written a series that I won't be able to get enough of. This book was not what I expected. The main character, Tony, who we know from her previous series was way more developed then his small appearances in the "Blood" series. You have to read the series before this to have any idea what is going on. Huff alludes to the other books from the get-go. I was slightly disappointed that Vicky didn't make an appearance. I have always been cheering for Vicky and Henry even when Vicky became a vampire like Henry. Long story, read the other series. I don't want to go too much into the details or I'll give too much away.

Huff is kind of difficult to find. She is at your local Barnes and Noble, but trying to find her at the library is close to impossible if you don't live in a huge city. Henry Fitzroy is the greatest vampire on the scene today. Really, they don't come any more seductive, witty, or royal. Henry is actually the bastard son of Henry VIII. That's part of the reason I love him so much. Even though he's the best, most people aren't familiar with Tanya Huff's work. I blame this on the fact that she happens to be Canadian and she just doesn't get the marketing here as she does back home. Take it from me, a person who has read four complete series from her and is starting on a fifth. You will love her books. You will not be able to put them down the first time you read them. You will fall in love with her stories and characters and hopeful outlook. I know this, because I have.

I was turned on to her books when I had pneumonia in the 10th grade. I had read all the books in my possession so I begged my mother to let my best friend come over to bring me reading material. A fan was born. While I should have been sleeping I was reading Sing The Four Quarters, still my favorite. Huff spreads like wildfire. Everyone I've turned on to Huff has not been disappointed. My college roomie (who I love to death) and I spent a good chunk of time just passing Huff books back and forth and reading choice passages to each other.

Ok, where's the next book in the series?