My paper's four-fifths done; or, why the star-chart policy should never have been discontinued

So I fell like a ton of bricks and totally unexpectedly for David Boreanaz in Buffy the Vampire Slayer – seriously, how old am I, twelve? I am usually very unimpressed by these tormented vampires, and even though I liked Con in Sunshine I'd have definitely gone with Mel, given the choice, because he is serene and nice and would surely give up his motorcycle if I asked him very sweetly. But anyway I have a big crush on Angel, and what with that and Joss Whedon's being generally brilliant, I have been watching a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer over the past few days. Hence the no posting at all. I kept justifying it to myself by being all, Oh, I'll just watch it while I'm studying for logic or my classical studies class, and then when I'm done with that, I'll turn it off; but what happened was that the studying would turn out to take much longer than I had anticipated and then I wouldn't get to bed until two in the morning.

This weekend, however, it has been very important for me to get some work done. I have a lot of crap to do this weekend, like my paper for English, some other smaller papers for my other English class, an oral presentation preparation that includes watching a movie and reading a book, my federal and state taxes, a big batch of cookies, all my homework for next week, my personal statement that decides my whole future, a confirmation thing, and sufficient exercise at the rec center.

(It makes me tired just looking at all that stuff.)

Let's just say this was never, ever going to happen while Buffy the Vampire Slayer was around. It went into seven seasons, and my sister owns them all, and furthermore it spawned a spin-off show that is only about Angel, and that went into five seasons, and the public library owns them all. None of this is as good as Firefly, but whatever. If I had Buffy and Angel around this weekend, I imagine I would have done my taxes, the confirmation thing, maybe the exercise if I felt like it, and my homework for classical studies and logic, which I can do in front of the TV. The papers and the oral presentation work, not so much. The future-deciding personal statement, very very not so much. So I brought all of Buffy over to my house and gave it to my mum to hide from me.

And guess what? I've done – well, not four-fifths, two-thirds is a better estimate – of my long paper, made the cookies, read a whole bunch of Walden and written one of the three papers on it that I'm going to have to write, and gone to the rec center. And washed my hair.

When I was a little girl, and I did something naughty, my parents would take something away from me that I liked a lot, like desserts or movies or lying on my bed during the day, and I couldn't get it back until I'd been sufficiently good for a sufficient period. The Evil Things were called star-charts, and what they were, were these papers with each day broken down into morning, afternoon, evening, and bedtime, and for each time period that I was good, I got a little star in that spot on my star-chart; and if I got a prescribed number of stars in a row (say, seven or eight), then I got back the thing I liked a lot. It was an excellent incentive to behave well.

Giving Buffy to my mother is much like that. This English paper is not in fact due until like – I don't know, definitely not before Thursday of next week, so I could put it off for a long time, but as long as I haven't done it, I can't have the DVDs back. So I've written a ton of it today, and I promise you, it's not because of inherent scholastic devotion. I've just been cruising along writing paragraph after paragraph like a martyr of heavenly virtue, because I really, really, really want to get to watch Buffy some more.

As you can imagine, this is pretty humbling. I think of myself as a good student: I do well on tests, I write reasonably good papers that get reasonably good grades, and teachers write me favorable recommendations when I ask them to do so. But I have never gotten so much of a paper done in so short a time: I've been up since nine, in which time I've watched Oliver! (longish movie) and read some critical essays regarding Nancy's death (not very useful, as it goes), gone to the rec center and done a thorough workout, washed my hair, brainstormed a bit and invented a thesis, and written four pages of paper. All because I want to get Buffy back from my mum.

Plus, I was at my house yesterday, and it was kind of lame how soon I cracked. I gave my mother the DVDs and told her under no circumstances must she return them to me unless I could put my completed English paper in her hands; she hid them; and maybe, I don't know, maybe twenty minutes later I was already trying to convince her to give them back to me just for a little while.

I'm really not sure I deserve to live any longer. Robyn isn't even with me on this, and we usually share our tragic TV addictions. I feel so alone. I'm making a star-chart now.

The running high of emotions

We finished watching Buffy today. We have now seen all the episodes that there are. There are no more new episodes for us to see, ever.

Robyn and I had different reactions to this. I cried eleven tears and fetched my laptop to go write my story, as I do when things end that I didn't want to end. She cried some tears also (I didn't count because I don't care about her) and then went into her room claiming she wanted a nap, and I went in later to fetch my laptop to write my story, and discovered that she was trying to smother herself with her pillow. But don't worry, I was in time to stop it.

We were very sad that Anya died. We thought it was more misfortune than poor eye-losing Xander deserved. We've been really loving Xander in the past two seasons - he's grown up a lot since the old days when he was all jealous of Angel. Plus, you know, he's the only one who's managed to make it through seven seasons of apocalypse without stopping being sweet. Like, Buffy's not a bit sweet anymore, and we never felt the same about Willow after she turned evil and started going out with Kennedy, but Xander's still a dear. In fact he's become more of a dear. Not less. He's had positive growth.

I'm sad no more Buffy. We've been watching Buffy since February, and we have great love for it. We think it deals honestly with relationships which is, actually, kind of rare in our experience. All these TV shows and - GOD - Twilight, which is disturbing and kinda antifeminist - no, wait, don't let me get off on that tangent - anyway, all these things where people continue to have insanely dysfunctional relationships because, I guess, it keeps TV interesting, and nobody ever says, Holy shit, you're insanely dysfunctional and have serious issues and/or mental disorders and then talks about the emotional issues and tries to figure out where to go with them.

On another note, my big sister, the warrior goddess, is leaving tomorrow, to go and do Life. Robyn and I have entertained the notion that some of our tears are Anna-related, not Buffy-related. Anna's swell. I'm happy about her Life but I'm going to miss her.

News

I bet you thought I was going to say something about Obama getting the nomination. But I’m not.

(I shot myself in the foot there… What I mean, of course, is that this post is not primarily about the Obama nomination. But since I’ve now wasted several sentences discussing the Obama nomination and how I’m not going to talk about it – this is praeteritio – hi, Cicero, I miss you, baby, and your periodic sentences; whatever happened to us? – I am going to have to say a lot more about my real news item, which is actually very short, in order to stop this post from being primarily about the Obama nomination.)

I made my skeptical sister like The Office. It’s true. Because basically I bought seasons two and three of The Office used, and I’ve been watching them straight through in order to make sure they are scratch-free, and Anna, who enjoys bonding with me while cross-stitching and watching movies or television shows, has been watching it with me. Which means that she now totally cares about what happens. And last night we finished watching the third season, and I mentioned to Anna that if she wanted to start watching the fourth season, we could probably swing it, and Anna gave me a look.

And it was very weird to see that look on her face. I am accustomed to seeing that look on Robyn’s face, when she does not want to stop watching Angel (or Buffy, or The Office, or Felicity, or Gossip Girl – it’s ubiquitous!), and I have felt that look on my face in similar situations, but never ever ever have I seen Anna make that face. I didn’t even know that her face was capable of making that expression.

I won’t lie. It was a happy moment for me.

Also, I miss watching Buffy. I haven't watched Buffy in like. A week. Maybe more. And since I no longer have Angel to prop me up while I wait for the next time I get to watch Buffy, this is actually pretty sad.

(Hm. I forgot about that. Amusing to contemplate the extent to which, as previously mentioned, Angel took over my life, considering that I started watching it only so that I wouldn't go into hardcore Buffy withdrawal and start getting paranoid and throwing up and imagining formaldehyde babies on the ceiling.)

P.S. I just checked. It hasn't been a week. It feels long, but it has actually only been five days. Wow. My life is sad.

Those unsolvable mysteries of life

Seth Green.

Seth Green, Seth Green - there are so many things that baffle me about Seth Green. Like, why is Seth Green not in more stuff when he clearly should be? And like, why is it possible for Seth Green to completely pull off wearing John Lennon sunglasses even though he is not like John Lennon at all and those sunglasses should just make him look like a poser? And like, why was there was a movie of Trumpet of the Swan? Haven't we learned by now that it's not a good idea to film EB White's books?

But mainly, why is Seth Green so lovable?

I'm seriously asking this question, and if anyone has any answers, I'd be enchanted to hear them. I don't understand what is so lovable about Seth Green. He's, you know, this little tiny pasty ginger guy that's not in a ton of stuff, and like – I don't understand! Why is he so lovable? What quality does he possess that makes everyone like him so much?

I've seen him in three things now (not counting, obviously, his Chris voice in Family Guy, though kudos for that, guy). He was the sleazy brother person in Rat Race (the movie that I know I shouldn't like because it's ridiculous but it always makes me laugh until I cry), and he was the ghetto poser bathroom sex guy in Can't Hardly Wait, and he was Oz in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And, you know what, when he first showed up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I totally didn't know he was in), he wasn't even doing anything, and still my head exploded with glee and I was all SETH GREEN! IT'S YOU! OH HOORAY! and I immediately demanded of my sister, who knows these things, how long I could expect to have him around (several seasons, hurrah!). And I can't account for it! Yes, he uttered one of my favorite movie lines ever, and yes, he and whatsherface completely stole the show from whatshisface and Jennifer Love Hewitt (hi, I'm Jennifer Love Hewitt! I don't deserve this name, because I am so, so bland) in Can't Hardly Wait, but that's no excuse for my reaction. Because if Johnny Depp, whose acting I really admire, and who delivers a line better than most ("The years no doubt have changed me", anyone?), had suddenly strolled into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I wouldn't have shrieked with glee and hoped he would stick around, not one bit, nope. I would have been surprised, and pleased that he had had such a gig, and but the joyous shrieking, and the dismay at the notion of him ever leaving again, and the anxiety over his fate when Willow discovers she is a lesbian? Nope.

AND. I looked him (Seth Green, not Johnny Depp) up on Wikipedia, and apparently he was meant to be the pity death guy when Angel turned evil, but everyone liked him too much so the writers changed their minds and killed (thank God because I hated her, that unpleasant wench messing with Giles's head and getting him all stabbed and, oh yeah, WHERE DOES SHE GET OFF HAVING MY SAME NAME?) Jenny Carpenter instead. Which means that this isn't just me, it's everybody. Why, everybody? What does Seth Green have that makes him so lovable? WHAT IS IT?

Whatever. It's beyond me.

Incidentally, I was watching Angel (and I swear that after this I'm never mentioning Buffy the Vampire Slayer again – it's amazing how these TV obsessions take hold of me and rule my being, though in my defense I am working virtually the entire time I am watching them, either learning French usefully or revising my story), and Oz showed up unexpectedly, and I had the exact same reaction that Cordelia had about five minutes later, which was: "Oz! Oh, it's Oz! Oz, Oz, Oz, Oz! Hooray, Oz!"

Which, um, means I'm apparently the same person as Cordelia.

Pooh.

*sniffles*

Last night we watched the fifth season finale of Buffy. It was very sad. I got extremely choked up, and I was weirdly upset on Spike’s behalf – though in my defense he did look very, very sad. This was the saddest episode ever. Much sadder than when Buffy had to send Angel to hell, and I was really sad that time that Buffy had to send Angel to hell. And the “Grr…Argh” monster that used to send me into fits of rage until I understood why he was the way he was? He didn’t say “I think I need a hug” the way he did at the end of the second season, even though I definitely needed a hug more at the end of the fifth.

Anyway the point is this: JOEL GREY BETRAYED ME AND BROKE MY HEART.

You know, I used to love Joel Grey. I loved him in Cabaret and I loved him in Wicked and I loved him a special lot when, um, he came on the Muppet Show. I think Joel Grey is as cute as he can be, and he spawned a cute offspring, and I just like him a lot. I mean, until yesterday, when he necessitated Buffy’s INCREDIBLY TRAGIC DEATH.

In addition to which, there was a shot of him before one of the commercial breaks (which obviously no commercial breaks for me because I’ve got the DVDs), where he’s standing there smiling at Dawn and there’s a big (but not stagey-big) knife that he’s holding right next to his face, and that shot may be the single scariest thing I have ever seen.

Even scarier than A Beautiful Mind which scared me more than any movie ever, and substantially scarier than that time I saw Scream in seventh grade English class.

So now, in addition to being broken-hearted and betrayed, I am now going to have terrible knife-filled nightmares.

THANKS A LOT, JOEL GREY.

Leap Year; or, I don't understand you people

Well, today is Leap Year...um...Day. February 29th. And every time Leap Year happens, I feel a little sad because everyone is so blase about it. Like, today's Leap Year, but I came to work like I do on Fridays, and everything was pretty much business as usual, everyone wanted coffee, compiling of databases, urgent tasks to be taken care of – and, you know, like that. Work. Like any Friday.

But! What everyone seemed to have forgotten! Is that it is LEAP YEAR DAY.

Seriously, this is a whole extra day. A whole extra free bonus day that we just get every four years, like a big cool tetrannual present from the god of time. How cool is that? It's a bonus day! It's miraculous! Every year there are 365 days, but this year, this year there are 366. So I don't understand how it can even be possible that anyone can just hang out and not notice the fact that this day, this day that we are having right now, IT IS A SURPLUS DAY. I don't understand how I'm on the perpetual verge of spontaneous internal combustion with glee while everyone else is just going about their business like nothing special is happening.

I've always felt that Leap Year Day should be a holiday. It's a complete miracle of a day, and it only comes around every four years, so we should totally have it off. That would be very cool. And it could be, like, the hanging out day. On this day everyone would just hang out and do fun stuff. You could dance in the streets and go have picnics (in Louisiana we could anyway – for once I'm bragging about our weather, which is cool and was sunny yesterday and will be sunny again on Tuesday), or if it was rainy/snowy, you could stay inside with blankets and popcorn and sour Gummi-Worms and have a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon.

Or, um, whatever. Doesn't have to be that. People like different things and all.

(Mm, sour Gummi-Worms.)

(Sidebar: I called my friend Diwen and told her about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how I have a very big crush on Angel, and she (ever-critical even though she had just finished telling me a story in which she met Sean Astin and completely failed to be cool by asking him many probing questions about working with Orlando Bloom (Diwen's big crush, neither as badass nor as broody as Angel, nor possessed of as good a coat), and then inquiring about his (Sean Astin's) daughters like she was their old baby-sitter instead of a total random-ass stranger) said "Are you serious? You're too late. You're like ten years too late. Everyone had a crush on Angel in seventh grade. Loser." But I asked my other friend Megan, with whom I also went to middle school, and Megan affirmed what I remembered, that in seventh grade the girls had crushes on girly boys like Jonathan Taylor Thomas and the Hansen guys, not on Angel the Nice-Jacket-But-Not-As-Nice-As-Mine Vampire. Except me and my sister. We had a crush on Judas Iscariot. We vowed we would never give ourselves to any other. Mm, he was so yummily angsty.)

Point is, this Leap Year apathy, it has to stop. Everyone just has to snap out of it. This is an EXTRA BONUS SPECIAL PRESENT DAY.

WOW.

Er, that said, I'm working all day today and then studying for my English midterm. Not celebrating. But if I'm very virtuous and get enough stuff done, then I can watch some episodes of Angel (I got it from the library to make it possible for me not to watch Buffy until I could watch it with my dear sisters) while writing my story. Yay. And then tomorrow if Anna is agreeable we are going to have a HUMONGOUS BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER MARATHON WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Breaking my promise almost at once

Okay, I know I swore, no more Buffy the Vampire Slayer posts, but this is too funny and I have to. But no more after this, I swear. For real this time.

So I have this aunt who is totally fantastic in every way. She is brilliant and strong-minded and articulate and generous and just a totally good person whom I want to be just like when I grow up. (I know, I'm grown up, but it sort of doesn't count until I'm as awesome as my aunt.) And even though I admire her just absolutely vastly, I do acknowledge that our taste in film is a little different.

Actually, I can't figure out her taste in film apart from it is definitely different to mine. She baffles me. But as a trend it seems like she prefers cheerful films that don't have a ton of violence, or else moving and redemptive films that don't have a ton of violence. That said, she one time became so hooked on Firefly, which she was watching with my sister Anna, that she watched "War Stories" without Anna to tell her when to close her eyes. And for those of you not in the know, that's the episode where Mal gets brutally tortured with the electrocution and the ear being cut off and the yucky thing that went CLAMP and did all little squirmy things underneath his skin – ew, it was gross.

Well, yesterday my sisters and I had our Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon as scheduled, and it was great fun, and we had it at my aunt's house. And all day long I felt guilty and chagrined because my aunt and uncle sat in the room and watched it with us, and I was like, God, I'm totally ruining their day, making them think they have to sit in here and watch this show they probably don't even like just because we're over at their place.

Around 5:30, in the middle of an episode, my sisters and I had to head home for dinner. And I figured we'd just take the DVD and finish watching it at our house, because it wasn't a good episode for Aunt Becky, being the one where (HA HA HA) Jenny Carpenter gets brutally murdered. (Lame loser totally deserving everything she gets because she is lame and does not do justice to the very cool name of Jenny.) But Aunt Becky was all, We can't finish? Can you come back after and we'll finish it? which, sure, we were up for.

Well, after dinner we came back, we finished the episode, and I was pretty much thinking that the episode in its great unpleasantness would have put Aunt Becky off Buffy the Vampire Slayer permanently, but you know what she said, do you know? She said, "Do y'all have time for one more? Do you have to get back?"

Not really.

And then at the end of that episode, she looked guiltily at us and said, "Do y'all have to get home right now?" and when we all looked at her in surprise, she said, "Well! It's not often I get to spend a whole day with y'all!"

Sure, uh-huh. That's what the allure was. She wanted to hang out with us. Yeah, sure. We buy it, totally, we're completely taken in by that excuse, yup, it's all about the aunt-niece bonding experience. SURE IT IS.

And at the end of that episode (a semi-depressing one because they were playing like Angel was nice again), it was 10:00 at night and we'd been at her house since 11:00 that morning, with the break for dinner, and she looked at me sideways and held up one finger and mouthed "One more?"

Moral: It's not just me. That shit is addictive.

And you know what, you know what? Before Angel got evil, I was thinking that he wasn't going to be a very good villain and I was really not looking forward to him being a villain because I was all, Ugh, I can't maintain a crush on someone who's a lame villain, cause you know, if they're going to be bad they shouldn't do a half-assed job. But in fact the wicked Angel is so creepy. He sends little creeping creepy things creeping up my spine. I can't maintain a crush on him while he's evil because he's just SO DAMN CREEPY. Which isn't to say I didn't want him to kill Jenny Carpenter, because I really did (ugh, she sucks so bad), but still I get all tense and antsy every time he's on the screen and I totally don't like it when he's around or like thinking of being around, or when he's just hanging out with Spike and Drusilla (Spike! Aaaaaaaaand Druuuuusilla! I love Spike and Drusilla!) and the possibility of him being around other people is hanging in the air. It's very uncool. I wish he'd get good again. Spike is a more relaxing villain. In fact the centipede guy was a more relaxing villain.

And I miss Oz, whom we haven't seen in a while.

And you know what else, since I can't ever make another of these posts without being a promise-breaker twice, I have to say this. A while back there was an xkcd cartoon (PS, today's one is the best ever even though like tim I don't believe it's true and actually he MADE ME LOSE) that mentioned choreographing elaborate fight scenes in his head. Which, though it made me laugh, was not one of those things that I myself do, and I remember thinking when I read it, Huh, what a weirdo. But ever since I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I have totally started doing that. When I come into a room I start looking around gauging what things could be used as weapons and whether there's anything around that could be used as a stake, and how I would play it if each person in the room suddenly turned out to be a vampire/demon. My brain's all, Okay, well, I could take these pens and hold them in a cross position, and then if Sarah could grab that pencil and stab it from behind really hard – but would the graphite in the middle disqualify it for use as a stake? And frankly, we can't be completely positive that Sarah wasn't herself turned into a vampire just now while she was supposedly fetching more paper clips. So okay, then the other option is the blinds, I could open the blinds. Hold the pens like a cross while I go over and open the blinds and then POOF FIRE no problems there. But if the sun isn't streaming directly in, or if it's behind a cloud, I can't totally count on that working, so let's see, there's several trash cans, but only one of them is metal instead of plastic – not very useful; it's like they want us to be weaponless in here – whereas that bobble-head Yoda is actually quite heavy so I could throw that, and although I'd hate to waste the expensive technology there's always the possibility of smashing the demon's head into the computer screen in order to disorient it, but I have to be careful not to let it get its hands on that piece of wood that used to be a shelf because if it hit me on the head with that it would hurt pretty much a lot and huh, I should really bring a lighter in here because if I tossed it into the recycled paper box and then smashed the vampire sideways with that picture frame into the burning box then it would ignite very handily.

Which I'd feel dumber about if not for this: My ex told me once about this video game he used to play where you got points for chasing ambulances, and he said that when he had played it for a while and then he went out in his real car, whenever he would hear sirens he'd be like SWEET! AN AMBULANCE! and have the instinct to go haring off after it. And this is similar. And as we have seen the XKCD guy does the same thing. Ah, validation.

Oh, Spike (a Torchwood update)

I started watching Torchwood for much the same reason that I started watching Angel – because I’d fallen in love with the show from which it had been spun off, and I wanted to make the original show last longer while still feeding my addiction. Torchwood isn’t as good a spin-off as Angel is. I think partly because Angel gets a little cheerier on his own show than he is on Buffy, but Captain Jack – who was cheeringly cheerful on Doctor Who – gets grimmer. And I like cheerful people. Part of the reason I like Doctor Who so much is that Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant are both really, really cheerful. Plus, to be frank, the cast of Torchwood isn’t a terribly good ensemble cast, whereas the cast of Angel is quite, quite superb. Like when they brought on Wesley, and he was a rogue demon hunter? Ah, the good old days. The Torchwood characters are less fully realized.

I only bring this up so that when I refer to Spike it’ll be clear that I’m not likening Torchwood to Buffy and Angel at all. It’s not as good. Sorry. Maybe because Steven Moffat wasn’t involved in Torchwood.

Spike is in love with Captain Jack. And, I mean, why not, right? All the people who meet Captain Jack seem to fall over themselves being in love with him. Something to do with 51st-century pheromones (don’t blame me, I didn’t make it up). There are confusing innuendos about stopwatches. There are gun-shootin’ lessons. There are dances atop invisible spaceships next to Big Ben. But today Spike won the being-in-love-with-Captain-Jack contest, because today Spike urged Captain Jack to sing along with the song that was playing, because (he said) “It’s our song”, and Captain Jack said, “We don’t have a song. And if we did have a song, it wouldn’t be that song.”

Referring to Sarah Brightman’s enduring classic “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper.”

I’ll give you that again. Spike told Captain Jack Harkness that “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper” was their song.

Mm. I guess this is so funny for me because Spike and Jack were already making me laugh by – well, just everything really. I mean Torchwood is drastically not as good as Doctor Who, I only carry on watching it because Welsh accents are funny, but it’s brilliant to have Spike show up and be in love with Jack. Their relationship is not unlike the one Spike and Buffy share. With the Spike liking the object of his affection a lot more than the object of his affection likes him, and with the beating each other up and trying to kill each other in between making out. And then just when I thought that there was no way at all for them to be any funnier, they toss in “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper” and call it their song.

And in case YouTube won’t load for you:

Tell me, Captain Strange, do you feel my devotion
Or are you like a droid, devoid of emotion
Encounters one and two are not enough for me
What my body needs is close encounter three

I lost my heart to a starship trooper
Flashing lights in hyper space
Fighting for the Federation
Hand in hand we’ll conquer space.

La la la, la la la. La la, lally lally la la la.

My uncle Jim is coming to visit! Hooray! My lovely uncle Jim! He is so swell! We all just love him so much! And he obviously loves us too, and how I can tell is he called to say he wanted to come visit, and he just wouldn't do that if he didn't TOTALLY LOVE US. I wish he would come live here. Then when we started to get sad because we were all Jim-deprived, we could call him up on the phone and be like WE MISS YOU SO MUCH AND WE ARE COMING OVER RIGHT NOW.

... That might be nicer for us than it would be for Jim.

You know what's nice about Jim? He's not afraid to talk about his feelings. Robyn and Jim talk about feelings all the time. She tells him it's okay to cry, and he drinks large gulps of beer so he can tolerate her presence. It's really special.

And you know what else is nice about Jim? He likes Buffy the Vampire Slayer too. He knows that Buffy talks to him. He says that when Buffy stakes a vampire, she gets a certain look in her eye, and he knows that she's thinking, That one's for you, Jim.

And another nice thing about Jim? He listens attentively to my advice regarding kitchen cabinets, and he gives me really good advice in return, like how I should join the French Foreign Legion and give him all my wages. And he tells us really exciting stories about running races and about the wild 'n' wacky world of public defense.

And when we were little, he used to let us put flowers in his hair and silly hats on his head even though it was apparent to everyone that his genuine preference would be to remain flowerless and hatless. And um, you know, he still lets us do that. Though his preference on the matter hasn't changed since we were small.

Ah. Jim.

This won't surprise you but

Neil Gaiman makes my life happy.

I discovered that his new book, The Graveyard Book, the book that's going to make my September happy (well, my October really – like I need anything to make my October happy!) , it's called that because of The Jungle Book. It's a joke. Get it? There's a little baby that is two and gets abandoned in a graveyard (instead of a jungle) and raised by dead people (instead of wolves).

Why should it be that Neil Gaiman is so insanely awesome? Why should that be the case? Like remember that time when he wrote that really good screenplay for what turned out to be a really good movie about a girl who wanted to run away from the circus and join real life? AWESOME. Why should it be that way, really? When there are so many dozens of awful people around who could use some equal distribution of awesome, and they can't because Neil Gaiman is using it all up?

...But not all of it actually, now that I come to think of it. I am glad to report that my three favorite living authors (that I can think of right now) are all publishing books in this upcoming year. Diana Wynne Jones (God please preserve her life forever because her books are my longstanding and permanent love affair) is releasing another book about Sophie and Howl (darling Howl! I fell in love with Howl when he said his shining dishonesty would be the salvation of him) on June 10th; and Elizabeth Peters, bless her, is releasing another book about John Tregarth on August 19th; and Neil Gaiman is releasing his Graveyard Book on September 30th.

WOW.

Oh, and, and, and – not my favorite living author but I do love her a lot – Lynn Flewelling, who apparently has the same birthday as Viggo Mortenson that I also love and adore (he's this generation's Manly Epic Dude, and I think he is generally much better at it than the late Mr. Heston), she is also talking about releasing another book this year. July. But I don't believe it. I've heard this story out of her before, and I waited around two years for Oracle's Queen and was kind of let down by it when it finally arrived. So there will be no hopes-getting-up with me, because I can no longer be fooled by her tricky little games.

AND, Pushing Daisies is coming back in the fall for season number two (probably the last season, but more season than I really had reason to expect given its strangeness and the team of people working on it), AND there is a new Joss Whedon show about which I have excitement feelings, AND another season of The Office, AND I am thinking of taking kickboxing, AND I will soon be getting my very first apartment that is a real apartment with rent and utilities and everything, AND there is my car, my lovely car, my beautiful car, that will remain in my life and not have to be sold, AND I have a new and really excellent hat. And although I have lost my beautiful jacket that meant the world to me, I must just think of it as passing it on to its next owner, and not being greedy with what is clearly the best jacket in the whole universe, and feeling grateful for having had my jacket in my life for so many years before it was required of me to give it up. (This is Acceptance.) And I have reason to believe that I will soon be in love with Doctor Who, about which I have heard for such a long time now, and that would be very joyous because the deep desperate Joss Whedon withdrawal is not far away now (I know it's two seasons left of Angel and four of Buffy but that is so few! compared to five and seven as it was two months ago! that's HALF of how many there were left when I started, which, wow, means that I've watched three seasons each of Buffy and Angel since mid-February).

(Wesley Wyndham-Pryce is, incidentally, dead to me. Like Stephen Colbert, we keep a brief list of people who are Dead To Us, and last Thursday I was forced to the unpleasant necessity of adding Wesley to it. It's such a shame considering all we've been through together, and how awfully awfully fond I was of him when he first showed up on Angel and he was a rogue demon hunter. Oh well.)

Oops, I wasn't supposed to ever mention Buffy again. Oh well.

And the happiness continues because my lovely flatmate Marie is going to live at my place in May, and my lovely friend tim is coming for a visit in the summertime if she wants to and I can get off work to entertain her, and darling Kate is coming home in a month and I've thought of a really brilliant gift to get her if I can obtain it.

Er, this started out as a brief sentence about The Graveyard Book but then I got distracted by remembering all the new good books that are arriving later this year. So that was my bad. I'll stop now.

The part of my brain that peddles the Crazy

I had a $100 gift card to Amazon recently, and I used it all up buying books. It was an agonizing decision. There are a lot of books I don’t own or have readily available to me now that I’ve moved out of my parents’ house for good, and it was very, very hard to choose which books I wanted. And I think that the decision-making process was one of those things that really throws into sharp relief the perils of giving in to the Crazy.

Graphic novels: I thought of getting Death: The High Cost of Living but did not on account of Anna having left her copy at home when she moved away (plus I am holding out for The Compleat Death which I just discovered existed); and I wanted to get Blankets by Craig Thompson but could not remember if it was as good as all that and furthermore it was $20, far too large a chunk of my $100 for a book I couldn’t even remember that well. I do remember it being quite, quite good though. And I wanted to get it because I am trying to read more books by men so that I won't be a sexist reader. Because this one time I fussed at my friend Chris for only reading books by men, and then I remembered that virtually all my favorite books (Fire and Hemlock, The Color Purple, I Capture the Castle, The Time Traveler's Wife, To Kill a Mockingbird, Greensleeves, Jane Eyre) are by women. And this would be a guy author and a graphic novel and a grown-up book, so it would fulfill three affirmative action type quotas. But it was $20. None of the other books I got cost that much. I'd have had to sacrifice two big or three little books in order to get Blankets.

Bookshelf limitations: My bookshelf is quite large, but it has quite small shelves, tall enough for mass market paperbacks but not trade paperbacks. I have to stack trade paperbacks and hardbacks sideways on my bookshelf. This was a problem during the book-ordering process. I wanted to get Fire from Heaven but could not because my copies of The Charioteer and The Persian Boy are both mass market paperback, and Fire from Heaven was only available in trade paperback, and then they wouldn’t have matched so I would have had to shelve them separately.

Strategy: I didn’t get any still-in-print kids’ books (apart from Hilary McKay, who is unreliably available in America), any recent bestsellers, or any classics, because I think those are more likely to be discoverable at garage sales and library and university book sales. Hence I did not purchase The View from Saturday or Jennifer, Hecate, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth; I did not purchase Special Topics in Calamity Physics; and I did not – although I greatly wanted to – purchase Aurora Leigh or anything by G.K. Chesterton.

St. Ignatius and his theories about consolation and desolation: I almost didn’t get the three Martin Millar books. I thought, Oh, Jenny, hold off on those, you haven’t read them enough to be sure that you will always like them, and you haven’t read Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me at all. But when I thought of not getting the three Martin Millar books, I was filled with a soul-deep sadness, and I ended up getting them after all, because it was clear to me from this sadness that God wanted me to get them.

That’s right. My life is all about strategy. And yes, okay, I will acknowledge that my life is a little bit about serious control issues, and sometimes I should just chill out and get the books I want when I want them – but I HAVE A SYSTEM.

Here was the final tally:

Saffy's Angel
Indigo's Star
Permanent Rose (all by Hilary McKay; because I haven't got them)
Keturah and Lord Death
The Dollmage
Tom Finder (all by Martine Leavitt, my new this-year discovery)
The Blue Castle, L.M. Montgomery (because my old copy got all coffee-y)
Sunshine, Robin McKinley (I haven't got this either, and almost didn't get it because the other Robin McKinley book I own, Beauty, is in the not-grownups book section of my books, and buying Sunshine will necessitate a transfer of both to the grown-up section. But then I remembered that I also want to buy Deerskin so I would have had to have Robin McKinley books in the grown-up section of my bookshelf anyway. So I went ahead and got it.)
Getting the Girl, Markus Zusak (it is a sequel but the first one isn't in print here)
The Good Fairies of New York
Lonely Werewolf Girl
Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me (all by Martin Millar, my other new this-year discovery - or maybe last year? I can't remember when I read The Good Fairies of New York)

I also got two other books I can't mention here because I am getting copies of them for Anna for Christmas. Don't tell. I am most of all excited about the books by authors whose first names begin with M, three of which are new books to me. I am so excited about Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me that I lost patience waiting and went to Amazon and read the excerpt they offered me, and it was charming and made me feel even more impatient. I wanted to run searches on Amazon Reader for random words that would allow me to read large chunks of the book, but I forbear because I want to delay gratification. Here's the bit I read:

We go into a comic shop on Oxford Street and look at some comics and then Manx finds a large display of dolls from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There are figures of Buffy, Willow, Xander, Angel, Spike, and some others. We are entranced...

"I'd like to buy all these Buffy dolls and play with them. I'll have time on my hands soon, I've almost finished the Led Zeppelin book. I'm at the 'nice and big' stage."

"What's the 'nice and big' stage?"

"I go through the text making sure I haven't used any long words. If I find any fancy adjectives have crept in I replace them with small words like 'nice' and 'big'. I've liked these words ever since I was told not to use them in English class at school. And I make sure that the sentences are short so as people won't get confused and I shorten all the chapters so they won't get bored. I can't read anything complicated these days, my attention span is too short. Everyone else probably feels the same."

I love Martin Millar. I really do. I am only sad that Neil Gaiman didn't tell me about Martin Millar long ago. And I am glad that I had desolation in response to the notion of not getting his books, so that now instead of having no books by Martin Millar, which was not representative of my ever-growing fondness for his books, I will have three.

Edit to add: Shit. I've only just remembered that Good Fairies is mass market (because if I got it in mass market paperback I got Saffy's Angel for free), and the other two trade, paperback. And now it's too late to change. However, I have rationalized this into being okay because I have put some of my Neil Gaiman books (the hardbacks and graphic novels) on the top shelf of my bookshelf, and I have put the paperbacks on another shelf. And I will just do the same with Martin Millar, and Good Fairies can be sensibly shelved with Neil Gaiman as it has an introduction by him. Hurrah. Serious shelving crisis averted.

Proof

I am so relieved. Seriously, I am so, so, so relieved.

Ever since I got my library card renewed (it’s a major change in my life, this library card renewal business, brought on a serious existential crisis), I’ve been desperately worrying that I am Not Cut Out to be a writer, and that I’ve been sort of nailing my colors to the mast all this time when really I am just doomed to be miserable no matter what I do, and being a writer won’t make me happy. But I am pleased to report that my experiment from yesterday worked perfectly.

I read two books yesterday. I love reading. And you know what makes reading even better? I will tell you what makes reading even better: feeling like you are achieving work while you are reading. Actually, this makes everything better. This is why I like cross-stitching, and covering books in contact paper, while I watch movies or Merlin or whatever. If I have an end product, I feel like the time I spent watching Merlin wasn’t wasted, because look! I accomplished something! I protected my books for the rest of forever! Anyway, so yesterday I read two books, and when I finished them, I was like, YES! I HAVE LEARNED! WITH EACH BOOK I READ I BECOME MIGHTIER IN KNOWLEDGE. NOW I MUST GO FORTH AND CREATE! And then I laughed an evil scientist laugh and put a few more bolts into the head of my monster and set him loose on the populace.

And then I worked on this one story until three, and by then I was tired, so I put on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I haven’t watched the fourth season in forever – it’s sad when they all split apart and don’t love each other!) and watched that while revising another story, and that was very satisfactory, and then in the evening I ate an unhealthy dinner and washed my hair and went to bed early. Which I expect is about what I would do if I were for reals a full-time writer.

And today? Today I am in SUCH A GOOD MOOD. Holy crap. I have such love for humanity right now. This morning after I got dressed, I was like, Hey, Buffy’s hair looked so pretty when she tied the front bits in the back. I’m going to try that with my hair. I get these ideas a lot in the morning, and normally it goes like this:

(JENNY tries to make HAIR do what she wants.)
HAIR: Fuck you. I would prefer to be in a braid.
JENNY: NO. THIS IS WHAT I WANT.
HAIR: I refuse to obey you.
(HAIR gets into a hopeless snarl and JENNY is reduced to tears at how unmanageable HAIR is, but after two tries she recognizes that it’s never going to work, so she just puts stupid HAIR in a braid.)

If you see me, and my hair’s in a braid, then it’s not terribly unlikely that the above scene played out that morning. But today, it went like this.

(JENNY tries to make hair do what she wants.)
HAIR: Fuck you. I would prefer to be in a braid.
(HAIR gets into a hopeless snarl.)
JENNY: Oh, Hair darling, if you only knew how much I loved you!
(JENNY untangles HAIR gently and lovingly, and gives it another go and succeeds brilliantly and looks pretty and thereafter has to keep checking herself out in a mirror because she loves her hair ever so much and never gets to see it all long and nice because ordinarily when it’s down it gets in her eyes until she hates it and puts it back in a braid.)

So, good. I am not doomed to misery. My hair looks pretty today, and writing is definitely what I’m supposed to be doing. End library card renewal existential crisis.

Last night we finished Angel

I really don’t know what to do now. Robyn and I watched the last episode – we kept pausing to remind each other how momentous this all was, the last episode of Angel ever, so it took longer than usual – and when we were done we just felt so empty. So very, very empty. We sat there looking at the blank TV screen, and we just didn’t know where our lives could possibly go from this point. We thought about it and realized that we’ve been watching Angel since February, which I know isn’t an incredibly long time in the grand scheme of things, but in terms of devotion to a single item of media, that’s a solid three and a half months right there. I’d say a good three months in which Robyn and I were constantly scheming ways that we could avoid doing other stuff and instead get together and watch Angel. And it’s not like The Office, because that took less time to watch through, and furthermore when we had watched all the episodes that there were, we still knew there would be more episodes forthcoming.

Whereas now we are just sad, and it’s all over, and no more Angel. Ever.

Over the past three months, if Robyn and I have been in the same place at the same time, and if we have had access to a TV and a DVD player, it has been pretty much a foregone conclusion that we have been watching Angel. Things have changed as time has gone on – we missed Doyle, we loved Wesley, we knew we could never get behind an Angel-Cordelia relationship because he loves Buffy best, we felt uncomfortable with Gunn, we reserved judgment on Fred, we loved Gunn, we loved Fred, we strongly supported the Angel-Cordelia relationship even though he loves Buffy best, we hated Wesley – but you know, in a general overall sense, it’s been pretty much the same. There’s been a lot of this exchange: “I should go”; “Yeah, I guess so”; “Maybe I could stay for one more episode”; “Yeah, you probably better should, just because it doesn’t make any sense to stop with one more episode left to go on this disc”; “What can we do? Our hands are tied”. A lot of speculation about Pylea and the Groosalugg and why, why, why. A lot of evil hand jokes. And now it’s all over. All, all, all over. (I mean, not the evil hand jokes, of course. That will never be over.)

When the episode ended, we lay on the bed complaining about the end of an era, and then I was all “Well, I guess we could watch a movie” and then we were both like “Oh yeah. Movies. Huh.”

If it weren’t for the fact that I just started reading The Ground Beneath Her Feet again, I would be lying in a corner weeping right now. But I can’t possibly do that when The Ground Beneath Her Feet is around. Seriously? I love that book. Wow. Salman Rushdie. So many good things I am reremembering – the tragedy story that has much to do with goats, and the mens sana in bally corpora sano, and “Disorientation: loss of the East. And of Ormus Cama, her sun”, I really liked that line. Oh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet. I loved it so much that after I read it, I never read another Salman Rushdie book. I know there are still The Satanic Verses and Shalimar the Clown and The Moor’s Last Sigh (that’s the order, from least to most, of the extent of my desire to read them), but I just haven’t read them. I’m just afraid to. The Moor’s Last Sigh I am saving as a special treat for myself, but the other two, I know I won’t love them as much as I do The Ground Beneath Her Feet, and I’ll be so sad if it turns out I don’t love them at all.

Aside: Salman Rushdie, why did you get U2 to write “The Ground Beneath Her Feet” song? Why U2? Why not someone cooler, like the Decemberists or the Shins? Seriously, why not the Decemberists, Salman Rushdie? The Decemberists are much more like your books than U2. Shit, the Decemberists pretty much are you, in musical, American form.

(Hm. The Decemberists and Salman Rushdie. Really frighteningly similar. tim, am I right about this? I think that I am. Interesting.)

Oh my God! I just looked up – oh my God, I’m totally going to hyperventilate – Salman Rushdie has a new book out, like in the past, oh my God, really recently he released it, and there it is, a new book by Salman Rushdie, oh my God, and I didn’t know, and now I can read it, and there it is, a brand new book by Salman Rushdie and and and Italy and India Enchantress there’s book is Florence new love and May

(I had to slap myself in the face just then to keep from being hysterical.)

(Ouch.)

I don’t know how I missed this. Did Bongs & Noodles, a store I visit with relative frequency, just not bother putting Salman Rushdie’s new book out on display when it came out? Bongs & Noodles, what’s up? It’s Salman Rushdie. He had a fatwa! Put his damn book on display!

Seriously, though, 2008 is a happy year for me and books. When I was talking about favorite living authors I forgot all about my good buddy Salman Rushdie. So that makes one, two, three, four, five very exciting new books coming out this year, and I can only conclude that all of these lovely people are releasing their books this year as a graduation gift to me. Yes, I deserve it. I worked very hard and got good grades. I now graciously accept your tributes. Thank you, Mr. Rushdie. Ms. Flewelling, Ms. Peters. Mr. Gaiman. Ms. Jones. Thank you one and all for your kindness and generosity.

…I just reread this post. I sound not quite sane in this blog post; plus it ended up in a totally different place to where it started. Try to bear in mind that you’re witnessing a recovery process. Recovering. Gradually. From the end of an Angel era.

So I have a new job

This is a great relief since my old job expired when I quit school, and it was very necessary for me to begin making money again as soon as possible. My old job very sweetly allowed me to stay on a little while longer as a temporary (hourly) employee, and that was kind of them but not long-termy, so it was very important that I get right on that finding a new job thing.

In other news, I am tired of having everything ship from Memphis. Why Memphis? What’s so good about Memphis? Why does everybody have offices in Memphis? (By everybody I mean Amazon.com.) One of these days I’m going to live in Memphis, so when I check my packages for tracking, it will say, 6:08 AM, Left Memphis shipping office; 12:55 PM, Arrived at your house. I have two separate (alas! wouldn’t it have been cooler if I’d gotten all my books in one massive parcel?) parcels heading my way, and the big one is in Memphis. The little one is coming from Oregon, but still, out of fourteen books, only two are not coming from Memphis!

Also, after some arduous consideration, I have finally settled on my five desert island movies. I would take these five and accept no substitutes. Empire Records, Before Sunrise, Angels in America, King of Hearts, and the fifth season of Buffy. I choose the fifth even though it does not contain Angel, because the fifth does contain a lot of Anya and Tara, and I am very fond of Anya and Tara; moreover, the fifth is the season with Spike having dirty lusty love for Buffy, the Buffybot, a really excellent season finale, and (this is mean) Joyce’s death. I am glad when she is no longer around, and “The Body” is a really good episode.

I am pleased to have this settled. I have more or less chosen my desert island books – a recent change to the line-up substitutes The Ground Beneath Her Feet for The Color Purple, because although I don’t like The Ground Beneath Her Feet quite as much, it takes longer to read – but I have long struggled with the movies question.

Oh, yes, and also, today I found a website that explained how the internet works. I have long been struggling to understand how the internet works, and now I do, all because of Tim Berners-Lee. See, what happens is, there are all these computers that keep track of where web pages are stored. So I type in the address of a web page, like the library web address, for instance. Then my computer asks one of the clever computers for the number of the computer that hosts the web page for the library, right? When it gets that number, it asks the library computer to send me the library web page, and the library computer agrees to send it, and then, voila, I have it! (It comes in packets, a little bit at a time, until at last I have the whole thing, which is why a more complicated website takes longer – more packets to send!)

Lovely Tim Berners-Lee! I have always been so troubled that I use and use and use the internet without ever really understanding how the whole thing worked. I knew it was about sharing information, but I have never been clear on the process. Now I only don’t know how the clever computers manage to keep track of what websites are stored where; and also how it can be that one’s own computer knows who to ask for the number of the computer that has the webpage. And also how computers communicate in the first place.

You know what would be a good and improving project? If every time I went to the library, I got a children’s nonfiction book, in addition to my fun reading books. In this way I would learn a little bit of information about a bunch of different topics, and I would not get confused and feel stupid, and then I would have a broader network of knowledge in which to place new information about topics I have hitherto not understood (like the internet). Each time I go, I can get something from a different call number section.

Yes! Genius! I am in love with this idea! It is the best idea ever had by me in all the history of time! I will become a well-informed person only by reading children’s books! I will start with the 000s, which conveniently are computers, and after that I will go to the 100s, which are religion and philosophy, and I will work my way up. I will either go through each century exhaustively, or else alternate on successive library visits.

Soon I will know dozens and dozens of new and interesting facts. Updates as warranted.

A weird side effect of finishing TV shows I've really loved

is that I quickly become absolutely obsessed with whatever story I’m working on at the moment. After several weeks of not wanting to look at my story again, ever, because I knew that it was so absolutely useless and shameful and should probably be tossed in an incinerator (God, I’m glad I don’t write these things out longhand because I probably really would burn them up when I get in those moods), I now feel like I’ve been given a shot in the arm of interest. Life is weird.

My sisters and I watched the finale of Doctor Who’s fourth series last night. Anna graciously refrained from asking me and Robyn what was so great about Rose, though I’m sure she must be wondering. We go on and on about Rose. Whenever we say something nice about Donna, we pause and say that of course we miss Rose and wish she would come back. Whenever we sneer at Martha – mad Martha, blind Martha, charity Martha – we discuss how much better Rose was. Anna probably watched the finale and thought to herself that Rose doesn’t even come close to living up to – oh, honestly, I can’t even finish this sentence. Anna inevitably thought Rose was great, because Rose is great. Obviously. Undeniable. It is like that Fry and Laurie song – however built up it is, it could never be a letdown, because it’s so clearly brilliant.

Anyway, I got home last night intending to go to bed early and sleep until seven, giving myself plenty of sleep before returning to work. I just thought I’d glance at my story quickly, to see if it was still as crap as I remembered it being. Instead of that I worked for an hour and a half, and then I set my clock to wake me up earlier so that I could work on it in the morning.

This always happens. It did when I finished Buffy, as well. I’m not completely sure why, but one of the reasons I decided to read Lonely Werewolf Girl (thereby permanently cementing my love for Martin Millar) was that he said he wrote it because he was sad Buffy was over. Oh, how I identify with that. Maybe the reason I am so intent on finding new books and films to love is that when I finish them, I am all set to write like a mad writing fiend.

One of the most dreadful things about my year in England, which, I can tell you, contained a lot of pretty dreadful things (as well as, be it said, a lot of really nice ones), was that I was depressed and not writing anything, and I had just finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife and Jane Eyre, and I frantically frantically wanted to be working on one of my stories, and I just couldn’t get anything written. Every time I tried to write something, it was shocking crap and I practically had to print every bit of it out so I could stomp on it and spit on it and set it on fire in the kitchen sink. It was so unpleasant, like, like – I can’t think of an elegant metaphor. I can only think of yucky, poop-related ones. Never ever ever again will I be depressed enough that I cannot work when I want to work.

Life is weird

A few years ago, I sneered at Anna for purchasing seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer because even though they were only $20 altogether, I didn’t feel it was a necessary investment when she could have spent that $20 on something more exciting like, I don’t know, a whole bunch of dental floss.

The other day I found myself gravely talking to Robyn about how we didn’t think Buffy ever recovered emotionally from Angel’s departure, and how we really felt that her subsequent romantic dysfunction could be attributed to an unwillingness to let go of her relationship with him.

This is the noise of a girl whose life has been made happier

It is a high-pitched squealy noise and results from the following:

1) My aunt and uncle offered me their couch and chairs for my new! beautiful and wondrous! closet-spacey! apartment!

2) Tara finally showed up on Buffy! Tara! Yay! (I have to have a relationship that pleases me, and I dislike Riley very much, and he does not win me over at all by how much he likes to drive. And although I love Anya more than my luggage, her relationship with Xander is more good for a giggle than to be invested in. Whereas Tara is sweet and earnest.)

3) Free salad with chicken from my sister who works at a food place. What a good, good, good, good thing. I eat healthy and delicious dinners.

4) Ben Barnes. He's cute. We're going to see Prince Caspian tonight, which as far as I'm concerned doesn't have to be that great (not one of the better books; in fact my least favorite after The Last Battle, which hey, C.S. Lewis, what happened to you with that one, man?), as long as Ben Barnes is in it, and he is. I have a crush.

5) Cute new clothes. My aunt gave them to me last night. Yay. I especially like my sexy new top.

6) This. I discovered it today when I was looking up math professors at my university. His daughter did it. (I also discovered to my joy that we have a professor called Yuri Antipov. He married her! Soooomewheeeeeeeeeeere my looooooove, there will be songs to siiiiiing!)

7) YES. IT IS TRUE. Using only my genius and um, the internet, I have acquired for myself A FIREFLY RINGTONE. Dum dum duddle dum, Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand, dum duddle dum, I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me. The only thing is it's a teeny bit quiet, not very carrying, but so what, don't care, it's Firefly, I don't think I could be any happier if it were Wonderfalls. I keep calling myself from the land line, just to hear my new, amazing ringtone. It's joy.

Lally la, I am not cross at Martin Millar anymore

Because how can I be? He wrote Lonely Werewolf Girl out of sadness that Buffy was off the air. I so feel that. When I finish things that I love (Empire Records, good TV shows, Jane Eyre), I very frequently go off and write things myself – witness the way I am incredibly close to finishing a draft of my gardens story. So even though Martin Millar likes Amy the Rat, and I very greatly do not like Amy the Rat, I am not cross at him one bit for having an unusual spelling of his last name and making it difficult for me to acquire his books at the library.

And furthermore! One of his books! Is going back into print! So that I can purchase and read it! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! I enjoy to read new books!

Seriously, this is the year for good authors to write new books. It is all Salman Rushdie and Lynn Flewelling and Neil Gaiman and Martin Millar and Diana Wynne Jones and Elizabeth Peters and Robin McKinley this year. 2008, an excellent year for me and books. Not to mention that I have my very own bookshelf now, a massive tremendous bookshelf that reaches almost to the ceiling and contains virtually all my books except the really big ones like the dictionary and the Bartlett’s and the Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and so forth. The fact that it only takes one (albeit one very large) bookshelf to house all of my books makes me feel sad and empty. At home, we have something like sixteen bookshelves, bookshelves in every room except the bathrooms, and those bookshelves do not even come close to holding all our books. We stack them double. Whenever I look at my apartment bookshelf, I am simultaneously thrilled at the sight of all my books in one place, and dismayed that there are so few, and filled with a lust to purchase more, and more, and ever more!

And I really mustn’t. Even though I have that Amazon gift card. It is not sensible to purchase dozens of books from Amazon. Much more sensible to use that gift card to purchase textbooks. Sensible textbooks. Be sensible, Jenny. I don’t need Holes. I don’t need Lolita and The Doll-Mage and Keturah and Lord Death and Special Topics in Calamity Physics and The Yellow Wallpaper and my own copy of the Browning love letters and all the Casson books and a hardback copy of Fire and Hemlock and more copies of Greensleeves—

Yes. I don’t need any of these things. Not a bit.

I do, however, need Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me, partly because its title reminds me of a book by E.L. Konigsburg (oo, if I ever allow myself to carry out the book-buying orgy I yearn for, I will certainly have to acquire some things from the Konigsburg oeuvre – a nicer copy of the aforementioned (afore-referenced) Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The View from Saturday), and partly because I like Martin Millar’s delightful books yet own none of them. I am living in deprivation until this state of affairs can be rectified.

Babysitters' Club

I found this website where this chick is rereading all the Babysitters' Club books. I don't know about you, but I was addicted to these books when I was small. I remember one time Anna's best friend offered to give me Super Special #10, the one where they're all in Peter Pan, if I would finish making the cookies she and Anna started to make and then got tired of. This was, like, the best deal ever, and when I conducted a purge of all my BSC books (dammit, wish I still had them), I hung on to that one particular book.

I just reread it this week, and here is my question. I get it that Jessi's being super bitchy in this book, and I get it that the boss-man of the play might not want to give the part of Peter Pan to a middle-schooler. But then he goes ahead and gives it to Kristy; so it's not about her age. And frankly, nobody in this play is going to be super-talented! So why would he NOT give the part (or any part!) to Jessi, who at least can dance and is accustomed to being on stage? He doesn't even give her a speaking part! I feel like this is an example of Ston(e?)ybrook racism, as we witnessed in Jessi's first book. But nobody even brings this up! HE IS BEING A RACIST PRICK AND NOBODY CARES.

I can't remember how they deal with Jessi and racism in the BSC books, apart from the one where she first moves to town, and also that Super Special that takes place at camp, where Mallory and Jessi are supposed to be like junior counselors in training, and their fellow campers don't like them because they're being stuck-up little snots (well they are!), and to show they don't like them, they call Mallory and Jessi "Oreos", and that's where I first learned that term, and I remember being like, Speaking of that, Oreos are delicious, and I went and stole a bunch of cookies from the long thin tin where we used to keep our cookies. Stolen cookies are always sweeter. I wonder if my parents knew how many of those cookies I stole and ate at a time.

Anyway, I'm very entertained by this website. She makes fun of Claudia's clothes. Even at age ten, I thought Claudia's clothes sounded fucking stupid. Why was she always wearing oversized shirts? Does she not have any normal shirts? I feel like Claudia would grow up still wearing these wacky fashions into her mid-thirties, which would be really tragic, but here's what it would lead to, ultimately:

CLAUDIA
(in the 360)
Um, well, this is a great off-the-shoulder oversized blouse with a short neon green skirt and polka-dot tights and ballet shoes. I would wear this like to hang out with my friend Stacey in New York City. She's super sophisticated because she's from New York City. I just think this is a really fun outfit that really reflects my personality.

STACY
There are just so many things wrong with this.

CLINTON
My eyes are burning.

STACY
(bunches the blouse together in the back)
Look what a great figure you have!

CLAUDIA
Yes, I can eat a thousand tons of junk food and never gain weight.

STACY
Oh shut up.

CLAUDIA
Or get pimples.

CLINTON
Why would you want to hide this great figure under all this SHIRT? When you wear this outfit, it makes you look frumpy and stumpy. Let's take a look at an alternative, okay?

Cut to: Cute, elegant manikin outfit

CLAUDIA
But this is so booooring!

STACY
This is not boring, this is elegant!

CLINTON
See, Claudia, this is an outfit that's genuinely sophisticated-

STACY
Which is what we want for you!

CLINTON
Yes, we do. See this ruching below the bodice? That's the kind of lovely feminine detail we want you to look for, that's going to accentuate the narrowest part of you, and really show off that adorable little figure.

Mmm, this is almost as satisfying as imagining what Buffy would do if she ever met Edward Cullen.

Two things that pleased me today

Well, Robert Browning again. I can’t help it. He’s so sweet. I’m excerpting bits of his letter where he first proposes to Elizabeth Barrett (at least, the first surviving proposal letter – I theorize that he may have proposed in the Very Shocking Letter that she got so upset about). He says:

I have read your letter again and again. I will tell you—no, not you, but any imaginary other person, who should hear what I am going to avow; I would tell that person most sincerely there is not a particle of fatuity, shall I call it, in that avowal; cannot be, seeing that from the beginning and at this moment I never dreamed of winning your love. I can hardly write this word, so incongruous and impossible does it seem—

…In so many words, is it on my account that you bid me 'leave this subject' [of marriage]? I think if it were so, I would for once call my advantages round me. I am not what your generous self-forgetting appreciation would sometimes make me out—but it is not since yesterday, nor ten nor twenty years before, that I began to look into my own life, and study its end, and requirements, what would turn to its good or its loss—and I know, if one may know anything, that to make that life yours and increase it by union with yours, would render me supremely happy, as I said, and say, and feel. My whole suit to you is, in that sense, selfish—not that I am ignorant that your nature would most surely attain happiness in being conscious that it made another happy—but that best, best end of all, would, like the rest, come from yourself, be a reflection of your own gift.

Dearest, I will end here—words, persuasion, arguments, if they were at my service I would not use them—I believe in you, altogether have faith in you—in you.

… My whole scheme of life (with its wants, material wants at least, closely cut down) was long ago calculated—and it supposed you, the finding such an one as you, utterly impossible—because in calculating one goes upon chances, not on providence—how could I expect you?

How Elizabeth Barrett could resist this I have no idea. However, she writes back that she can’t marry him because she’s sickly and unworthy and couldn’t dream of burdening him, and furthermore her father wouldn’t hear of it (tyrant). She says, “The subject will not bear consideration—it breaks in our hands. But that God is stronger than we, cannot be a bitter thought to you but a holy thought ... while He lets me, as much as I can be anyone's, be only yours.”

It gets Robert Browning all glum. He tells her this:

Well, I understand you to pronounce that at present you believe this gift impossible—and I acquiesce entirely—I submit wholly to you; repose on you in all the faith of which I am capable. Those obstacles are solely for you to see and to declare ... had I seen them, be sure I should never have mocked you or myself by affecting to pass them over ... what were obstacles, I mean: but you do see them, I must think,—and perhaps they strike me the more from my true, honest unfeigned inability to imagine what they are,—not that I shall endeavour. After what you also apprise me of, I know and am joyfully confident that if ever they cease to be what you now consider them, you who see now for me, whom I implicitly trust in to see for me; you will then, too, see and remember me, and how I trust, and shall then be still trusting.

Er. I actually was just going to summarize this whole exchange. But I couldn’t resist quoting. He’s such a dear. And did I mention he was born on my birthday? When I was a young lass I thought that my best advertisement for 7 May as a birthday was Brahms and Tchaikovsky, but I realize now, of course, that Robert Browning is the real coup. Though I am very envious of my mother’s star-studded birthday – Tennessee Williams, Diana Ross, Nancy Pelosi, Bob Woodward, Erica Jong, Alan Arkin, Robert Frost, A.E. Housman – I would not switch with her because I have so much love for Robert Browning.)

They are totally my favorite literary couple. I like them even better than I like Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. I’m getting all suspensey for when Elizabeth agrees to marry him. Also, I’m starting to feel a little guilty for reading their letters. Sort of. But not enough to quit reading them. I may even buy a great big book of their letters. Apparently the big book o’ letters from 1845-1846 (the only letters they ever exchanged, said their son, because after their marriage they were never separated) just got put back into print – though I’d prefer, of course, to get the old hardback ones.

Number two pleasing thing is: I learned a new word!

I know this is geeky, but I love, love, love learning words for things for ideas I already have in my brain but I didn’t know there was a word for them. I always want to call up Helen Keller on the phone and be all, I totally know how you felt about the water, dude. (Sorry, Jenny, she’s dead.) Sometimes I have dreams about learning words of this kind, and they are not dissimilar to those dreams where I go to the library or the bookstore and discover that my favorite author has actually written an entire shelf of books I never read before (actually sort of true of Martin Millar who is not my favorite author but I am very fond of his books) and I get them ALL INSTANTLY because I have a library card or a whole bunch of money.

But I digress. I’m going to put my word in its own paragraph, because it deserves it.

Apophenia. Apophenia.

It means perceiving connections between random-ass things that happen even if actually there’s no pattern to the events. There’s a word for that! I have such a crush on this word. If I had had classes today instead of work, I’d’ve spent the whole time doodling on my notes, Apophenia + Jenny = <3 and Mrs. Jennifer Apophenia.

It’s most fortunate I had this word today. My brain keeps playing me snippets of songs from the musical episode of Buffy, which we watched last night, and from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It’s helpful to have a shiny new word for distracting my brain with. It’s all, I hope she fries, I’m free if that bitch dies, and I’m all, Hey, brain, APOPHENIA and it’s all, Oo, pretty! for a few minutes before getting back to the important business of trying to remember what exactly Mal says about blowing in the breeze (teehee).

P.S. While writing this blog post, I got addicted to the Brownings’ letters and read farther down, and I swear to God, I wouldn’t keep posting these excerpts if it weren’t for how Robert Browning keeps on saying things that are so nice it does my head in. Behold a bit of his response to her story about how her mean, mean father won’t let her to go Italy for her health:

Now again the circumstances shift—and you are in what I should wonder at as the veriest slavery—and I who could free you from it, I am here scarcely daring to write ... though I know you must feel for me and forgive what forces itself from me ... what retires so mutely into my heart at your least word ... what shall not be again written or spoken, if you so will ... that I should be made happy beyond all hope of expression by. Now while I dream, let me once dream! I would marry you now and thus—I would come when you let me, and go when you bade me—I would be no more than one of your brothers—'no more'—that is, instead of getting to-morrow for Saturday, I should get Saturday as well—two hours for one—when your head ached I should be here. I deliberately choose the realization of that dream (—of sitting simply by you for an hour every day) rather than any other, excluding you, I am able to form for this world, or any world I know—And it will continue but a dream.

Bless him. She said this back to him, and I swear that after this I’m shutting up about the Brownings, but I have to quote this because it’s very touching:

But it will be the same thing—for you know as well as if you saw my answer, what it must be, what it cannot choose but be, on pain of sinking me so infinitely below not merely your level but my own, that the depth cannot bear a glance down. Yet, though I am not made of such clay as to admit of my taking a base advantage of certain noble extravagances, (and that I am not I thank God for your sake) I will say, I must say, that your words in this letter have done me good and made me happy, ... that I thank and bless you for them, ... and that to receive such a proof of attachment from you, not only overpowers every present evil, but seems to me a full and abundant amends for the merely personal sufferings of my whole life. When I had read that letter last night I did think so. I looked round and round for the small bitternesses which for several days had been bitter to me, and I could not find one of them. The tear-marks went away in the moisture of new, happy tears. Why, how else could I have felt? how else do you think I could? How would any woman have felt ... who could feel at all ... hearing such words said (though 'in a dream' indeed) by such a speaker?

And now listen to me in turn. You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even you could have touched me—my heart was full when you came here to-day. Henceforward I am yours for everything but to do you harm—and I am yours too much, in my heart, ever to consent to do you harm in that way. If I could consent to do it, not only should I be less loyal ... but in one sense, less yours. I say this to you without drawback and reserve, because it is all I am able to say, and perhaps all I shall be able to say. However this may be, a promise goes to you in it that none, except God and your will, shall interpose between you and me, ... I mean, that if He should free me within a moderate time from the trailing chain of this weakness, I will then be to you whatever at that hour you shall choose ... whether friend or more than friend ... a friend to the last in any case. So it rests with God and with you—only in the meanwhile you are most absolutely free ... 'unentangled' (as they call it) by the breadth of a thread—and if I did not know that you considered yourself so, I would not see you any more, let the effort cost me what it might. You may force me feel: ... but you cannot force me to think contrary to my first thought ... that it were better for you to forget me at once in one relation. And if better for you, can it be bad for me? which flings me down on the stone-pavement of the logicians.

In all seriousness, I really admire Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She totally shook free of her father's awful tyranny and nastiness even though she had been dealing with it her whole life and even though she was an invalid, and she went off and she had her own life. And you know what else? When she got pregnant, she got off morphine. She did! Straight off! They were like, Dude, I know you take morphine all the time for your sickness, but you can't be doing that while you're pregnant, so she just stopped. She was much more hardcore than lame old Mrs. Dubose, and she was also nicer and a good writer. So there. And I also think it's sweet how they think each other are so important that they're constantly italicizing you when they write to each other.

Okay. I'm stopping. Someone should chain my fingers together so I can't type any more of these blog posts.