Jane Austen Novice

There’s something I’m rather embarrassed about but no longer wish to be.  My mother and sister and I are Jane Austen addicts.  Pride and Prejudice is our drug of choice, and I will tell you right now I have watched at least 4 versions of it, read the book,  and listened to the Irene Sutcliffe audio version numerous times.  I will also tell you, in strictest confidence, that we bought the board game (this, I blame entirely on my mother).  It turned out we knew all the answers anyway, so we only played it once.

In no way do I wish to argue that this is healthy.  It is merely enjoyable, and it has become a tradition for my mother and sister and I to watch the 1980 version (we imprinted on it like baby chicks; we enjoy the other versions but they do not give the same sense of home) once a year or so when I am back in Iowa.  My dad has typically avoided this activity, presumably out of some half-formed desire to hold onto whatever masculinity can survive living in a household full of women and a pug for however many years — but THIS year, I cleverly brought home a cold virus that weakened his defenses, so he huddled sniffling and gurgling in front of our small television with the rest of us.

And it was the best!  I had feared that a cold-sodden skeptic would dampen the festivities somewhat, but it made it all new again  — watching him chortle at jokes that the females in the room had known so long they had transmuted from joke into Universal Law.

As usual, we drank tea (and Manhattans, my mom has invented a truly amazing new recipe for them) and my Mom made her usual arguments that Mrs. Bennett was perfectly right about all the things that fit into her (admittedly small) worldview;  my sister fought the usual accusations that she was just like Lydia (I am always Eliza, because I was born first and made the call early, though I sometimes think I may be Jane, or fear I may be Mary); we all judged the fashions and yelled along with our favorite lines.  But whenever a pivotal scene or favorite joke came up, all eyes turned to my dad, to catch that first delightful grin of comprehension.

High fives to all the Jane Austen lovers in the world.  (To those of you who aren’t, you’re not reading it right.  Try again.)

The world is not ending, I am just bored. Repeat.

It is Monday, and it has been raining spitefully all day.  No titillating thunderstorms or cathartic downpour  sessions ending with rainbows –  just evil, shoe-filling globs of water.

I’ve tried a lot of tricks throughout the years to pull myself sanely through these kinds of days.  Most of these tricks involve sugar and escapism.  Just for fun, I thought I’d record their evolution thus far…

The first I can remember is books.  Somewhere around 2nd grade, I began to like them (The Boxcar Children were my first real addictions).  I developed a system wherein, if I got bored in class, I would pretend to drop a pencil.  Then I’d lean down to pick it up, and crawl into the large closet at the side of the room.  I would then read books in the light of the crack under the door.  I truly believed no one noticed, until roughly the 100th time I’d ventured forth, when a fellow classmate hissed “she’s doing it again!” — and I picked up the ‘dropped pencil’ and resumed my seat.  It was the end of an era.

I kept reading books, lots of them.  I signed up for a GoodReads account the other day, and just ranking the obvious ones took a few hours — but it was a blissful few hours.

Then, for freshman orientation, my college dean taught us the following mantra: “No matter what you say or do to me, I am still a worthwhile person.” It doesn’t work.  Sorry.

A mantra that works better, which I wrote on my arm in sky blue ink during a drunken rage at an innocent then-boyfriend, is: “Remember puppies!!!!!”

Serotonin supplements help, but I think they make me lazy, so I cut back.

Caffeine is AWESOME.

Today I am assaulted by feelings of insignificance and the sense that the world is spiraling inward to death by boredom and self-disgust.  Every once in a while I snap out of it and realize I’m just bored and irritable. Hence the title mantra.  I’m alternating the boredom mantra with the fact that my grandparents went to a “Senior Prom” at their retirement home two nights ago and danced romantically.  So there might be hope for the future, after all.

Senior Prom

The Well-Dressed Ape

The Well-Dressed Ape, by Hannah Holmes (awesome name!  because she’s, like, the Sherlock Holmes of SCIENCE) is an excellent book, recommended to me by one of my favorite magazines (Discover).  I got it from the library, though, not from Amazon.  I always link to Amazon, because it is easy, but then I feel guilty, as though I’m telling people to go spend money.  Although, if you must spend money, supporting authors is a great cause. But then you’re a little broke and you have a mountain of books and they don’t fit on your bookshelf and they’re fighting for floor space with your dirty laundry and you start to worry that they’re harboring cockroaches and silverfish because they ARE.

Anyway.  I really appreciated the overall premise of the book, which was that humans can be treated like any other animal and written up in biological fact sheets with standardized profiles of “perceptive senses, communication, diet, environmental impacts, and predators.”  And so she writes one.  Except it’s a book.  And it is hilarious (and educational!).  You have to read the whole book to get the structured dissection of the human species — it’s a quick read and totally worth it.   I’m putting some tidbits below to tantalize you, not to get you off the hook of reading it:

My vision apparently is best just before ovulation. (But does this count when I’m on the pill, not ovulating? And should I be scheduling my appointments with my eye doctor more carefully?) File this under useful tips, plus potential use as superpower for future comic book heroine.

Hyenas give birth THROUGH their clitoris. clitori. clitorises.  I don’t know where you want to file this one.

“… a couple of body-shape researchers have had the good sense to show the typical ‘hourglass’ drawings of human femailes to some indigenous Peruvians yet uninfected by the supermodel culture.  A common response to these wasp-waisted females was that their bodies looked malhourished, perhaps becuase they ‘had diarrhea a few days ago.’”  Ahahaha.  People are silly.

I have learned that bonobos are AWESOME and we should definitely study their political system more in-depth:

“Unlike chimpanzees, whose social life is fractious and violent, bonobos rarely encounter a conflict they can’t resolve by copulating.  When a bonobo group stumbles across a tree full of fruit, a situation that could inspire competitive aggression in other animals, they call time-out and have an orgy.” (176)

Unfairest of all: collagen patterns in the thighs differ for males and females. Male collagen fibers criss-cross to make everything strong and sturdy. Female collagen fibers are all in a straight line, without the stabilizing criss-crosses. Hence cellulite. (This makes me actually feel a lot better about all the drag queens having better legs than me. There was this one time my study abroad friends and I went to a Parisian bar filled with the most beautiful women ever . . . turned out they were men, but their elegant legs still come up in my mind when I’m feeling insecure.) File this under: Excuses.

And did you know that Stalin tried to create warriors that were half human, half chimp?  Apparently so.  History class, you have much to answer for.

I also kind of wish I had a scientific background and could start a career in zoopharmacognosy, wherein you pay attention to how animals treat their various wounds and sicknesses, and then steal their ideas.  Potential cuddly animal watching + outlet for my hypochondriac instincts + possible paycheck = ideal lifestyle!

And that is what I learned today.

Childhood books that made me crazy

All right, parents: these books may be beautifully decorated and fabulously imaginative and inspire creativity in your children — but BEWARE THE CONSEQUENCES.

Gwinna – This book has incredibly beautiful illustrations, but has an unfortunate side effect of instilling in its readers an unshakable belief that they will, one day, sprout wings.  I myself have spent a rather large portion of time “flapping” my shoulder blades, but have never achieved lift-off.

Matilda – If you haven’t read this, you have clearly been living under a rock.  And if you haven’t been living under a rock, you KNOW that this book will make you/your kid wander around wistfully asking mom if they qualify as a genius, and staring intently at glasses of water for hours.  The glass of water will never tip over, and your kid will forever have a slight, nagging inferiority complex.

Love You Forever — This one is just terribly, terribly sad and you must be warned that your children will cry whenever they see the cover forever afterwards.  Including if they happen to look at it on Amazon during work.

Lord of the Flies — Ick, do you even have to ask?  All I can think about is smashed heads and milky brains.

Where the Red Fern Grows — More dying children — and this time, as an added bonus, dying dogs!  This book, predictably, gave me a lasting fear of all sharp objects — not just a fear of running with them, but a fear of standing in the same room as them.  Or even thinking about them in too detailed a manner.

Little Women — Ever since Beth, dying, said “I was never like the rest of you . . . I never had plans for my life” (or something like that), my career indecision has weighed on me like a  death sentence.

Doggies – Yesss! I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find this one.  It starts out like this: “One Dog — Woof!”.  The page reads, “Two Dogs — Arf Arf!” (or is it yip yip?  I had it memorized, once upon a time).  IT IS AWESOME.  But your kid might bark a lot at inappropriate times.  For the rest of her life.  At the neighbors’ dogs, for instance.  Or in the grocery store.

Charlotte’s Web — Okay, this is an obvious one, but it really got to me.  Now I feel guilty about hating spiders AND eating bacon.  Thanks.  I needed MORE of that in my life.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler — I LOVE this book.  But it will engender in your children a disturbing tendency to disappear in museums and steal coins from fountains.

How to Talk  So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk — Parents, if you leave your parenting books lying around, I PROMISE you that you will regret it.  I memorized this book when I was about 7 years old, and whenever my parents and I were in an argument, I would lecture them on how they were handling it wrong.  Sometimes I would direct them to the appropriate page in the book.  There is probably no better way to drive a parent crazy, and I’ve gotta tell you — it felt goooooood.