austen

courtesy- homestudio. go buy here because you live in america and can!

because she doesn't need much more of an introduction than that, does she?

i love austen.  just this week i read emma and watched sense and sensibility and pride and prejudice.

(not the original bbc p&p. the kiera knightly version. i have to say my preference will always be for the bbc mini-series- COLIN FIRTH I LOVE YOU- but there's something about the music and the gorgeous cinematography in the recent version. and both have just the BEST attention to details, with hogs running around, and table items so clearly...victorian.)

she's just the most brilliant author of her time.  humor, love, getting to knock down the stuffy, snooty, awful neighbor/family member/slighted wanna-be-lover.  what's better?

and to think i refused to even read her prior to my senior year AP language assignment of doing so.

(in hindsight, thank you ms. keezer.  and sorry mom, for the millionth time of not listening to you and perhaps going out of my way to avoid doing as you said i should do. like read pride and prejudice.)

i've decided that if you love austen, or even just love one of her books, we're meant to be bosom buddies.  soulmates do arise out of the crisp pages of an austen novel, by golly they do.

do you just want to PUNCH fanny?

does listening to mrs. elton make you vomit a little bit in your mouth?

do you rejoice oh so loudly when mr. bingley gathers his senses, ignores his stupid sister and finally rises to the occasion to be deserving of jane?

and let's not even TALK about the all encompassing joy that bursts through your limbs when elinor and edward are finally in the same room and elizabeth and mr. darcy admit their affections, only strengthened with time.

so, if you are in agreement, let us heretofore declare that the twenty eighth of march shall forevermore be exclaim-your-love-for-jane-austen day.

and exclaim i shall!

three things that really struck me today

a very, very old photo that i think speaks to the topics of the day.

today, i spent a happy twenty minutes diving into three particularly well-reasoned articles.

one almost makes me sick to my stomach with the injustice of the country that i call home.


10 reasons the rest of the world thinks the u.s. is nuts

one makes me think harder about why i am maybe a bit passive aggressive and have a tendency to freak out if topher tries to tell me i'm overreacting.


a message to women from a man: you are not "crazy"

and the third makes me consider a bit more deeply why i held out so long on using words like "bitch" and "slut" and why i should try even harder to go back to not using them, not even in moments of humor or levity.


the problem with slut-bashing

i highly recommend taking a quick read on your monday morning, and then coming back to tell me your thoughts.

why jo, anne, heidi, mistress mary and even amy are my fictionary soulmates

so because i plowed through the recently popular books that i'd been holding out on (such as the help and all of the millenium series), i decided to fall back on those free books i'd downloaded with the desperate to need to have a full kindle, a full library abroad.

in fact, i resorted to the books that i'd read once as a young girl and had either a) discarded in favor of the babysitters club or b) decided to enjoy the movie versions more, with the likes of christian bale and maggie smith.  

can you think of it?

yes, i fell desperately, deeply and irrevocably (a la bella) in love with the lovely classics written about women.

like, little women.

and the entire anne of green gables collection.

and the secret garden.

and even heidi.

if you can believe it, jo is far more endearing on paper than when winona ryder played her.  and, even better, i absolutely fell for miss amy, who started out as a silly little girl and turns into this actually really sweet, kind-hearted, woman who has the ability to...

forgive other women with grace, humor and genuine understanding when they maliciously try to take credit for her awesomeness; make laurie realize that he needed to get back on track and grow up; was willing to marry fred vaughn not out of some haughty love of money but really because a girl growing up in the 1860's realizes that some daughter has to find a way to take care of the family.

why, i actually found myself wishing i had the temperament not JUST of miss jo, but of blonde, snub-nosed miss amy even a bit more.

and then there's anne. my god, how i AM anne.  i was am such a strange little creature unto this world, such that when i was little i spent hours entertaining myself wherein my mother would come looking for me, because i was so quiet, imagining games and worlds for myself.  i love everything there is to love about anne.

why, when she was facing marilla and ever so politely trying not to cry as she imagined her return to the orphanage, i was actually crying for her.  me, all misty eyed, because you just know this little ten year old girl deserves the amazing world of green gables.

and then i cried when she got to stay, and i instantly longed for a bosom buddy such as diana and i just know that a girl is meant to have ever so many bosom friends throughout life, as anne does as she travels from avonlea to the island to her dream home on the coast, and i just believe that women should be allowed to shout out "i love you!" to each other, even when they both have husbands, and children, and many other interests.  because love just shouldn't be constrained, even platonic love.

le sigh.

and even though mistress mary quite contrary in the secret garden is such an unloving, unloved little thing, my heart just reached out to her, playing on the moors, and i could feel the cold wind in my hair and the earth build up under my nailbeds as she and dickon resurrected rose bush after rose bush. 

and all i want now is to speak to sparrows and rescue foxes, like my own little dickon-ess.

so, as it turns out, the classics and their heroines are so much more wonderful when read through the eyes of a twenty six year old, rather than a nine year old.

do tell me, who reaches out to you from the yellowed pages of classic novels and speaks directly to your soul, like the deepest of bosom friends?

and tell me, if you could have just one young woman for the lifetime of bosomness, just who would you choose?

i can't choose between anne from her house of dreams, or amy from her time living abroad. i do think all three of us would get along just splendidly.