(no subject)

I reached my first goals in tackling my book piles: 50 books in unread, 30 in partially read. YAY! Now I must NEVER GO ABOVE THAT EVER.

I'm reading Sense and Sensibility now, to fill up a space so I can read an unread book. It's okay so far, and making me realize why I think Pride and Prejudice fell from my head: I don't think when I read it I was quite smart enough to get the indirect speech thing that she does ALL the time. And Austen gives "Tell, don't show" a workout like you wouldn't believe. Still, it's kind of fun to read something like:

Mrs. John Dashwood saw the packages depart with a sigh: she could not help feeling it hard that as Mrs. [Henry] Dashwood's income would be so trifling in comparison with their own, she should have any handsome article of furniture.

It's prettier than saying "Even though Mrs. John Dashwood was already a damn bitch who disinherited her mother-in-law, she wanted more shit."

That Becoming Jane movie is out. I'm still on my "not going to movies unless with someone" kick. (Chris and I are going to see The Simpsons Movie sometime after the 11th because of this.) And Anne Hathaway strikes me as a thoroughly mediocre actress ... and yet I still feel like I want to go ... I'm possibly insane. Especially when I figure in that Jane Austen kind of bugs me. I feel a little bad that she does bug me, too, because it's not like I hate her works or anything. Well, I do agree with Charlotte Bronte's criticism of her books lacking passion but I don't go so far as to say any library would be better without her books as Mark Twain does*. She's entertaining enough.

But ... I have to admit, her fans really, really, really, really bug me. Bug me to the point where I don't really want to defend her if she's picked on.** I just hate the sort of ... fan culture? Maybe? That's developed around her books where she is some sort of supreme Goddess of ROMANCE!!!! and everything was better with her type of ROMANCE!!! and why can't *I* find a man like Mr. Darcy? Or ... I don't know. Maybe Hugh Grant and Colin Firth just make me roll my eyes a lot. But I seriously do think that there are women writers who are much better and certainly much more FUN and sometimes more intelligent than than her and why the hell does she get all the babes?

Plus, DEAR FUCKING GOD why does Pride and Prejudice need approximately three billion published fanfics and retellings. I mean ... I don't remember much but I know it had a happy ending. What more do people want?***

So ... considering all this, I don't know why I want to see this movie. Okay, I kind of do ... I want to write a biopic ... pretty soon. I sort of want to see the competition. Maybe I should just rent Miss Potter. I think I'll do that ...


* Although, fuck him, really. I like Prince and the Pauper but Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are irritating brats and I hated boys like them when I was little. And the positive "Blacks [although we don't call them that in this book] are people, too!" message of Huck Finn is nice but doesn't make up for the evil American Indian in Tom Sawyer. And yes, I reserve the right to be a hypocrite about it and read Shakespeare and Dickens and possibly Marlowe anyway. Bratty boys make me more sensitive to racism ... or something.
** Oddly enough, Virginia Woolf inspires the opposite feeling in me. Her opinions kind of bug me and I'm pretty certain Mrs. Dalloway is going to be one of those feminist novels with the message of "Oh, men will never let you be who you want to be AND want to fuck you, so you should just kill yourself." [kicks The Awakening and spits on Hedda Gabler] And yet I get really pissed when conservatives rip on her. No accounting for taste ... or loyalty.
*** Sex. Yeah, I know. That doesn't explain the books about the kids, though.

WHAT THE FUUUUUUCK? YOU FUCKING SUUUUUCK!

(Had to live up to my name once. Anyhoo ...)

Last night a gross smell, something like plastic burning, started coming from my vents, and so I turned it off ... it's still here tonight, so now I'm using my fan. But it's really hot and the fan does next to nothing and ... urgh.

I feel a little better after the cold shower, but I can tell this will be one of those crappy, barely sleeping nights. The fact that my electric bill jumped $30 higher seems to be adding insult to injury.

But whine whine whine ... I'll call the office tomorrow.

Meh, I wanted to write about how I had fun shopping for presents for a lot of people's birthdays and how I was able to get to three places nowhere near each other without getting lost, and how awesome my little copy of Wuthering Heights is because it is SMALL and it will make me blind but it is still SMALL and SQUEE but ... meh. Not into it so much.