7 ways to celebrate Pride and Prejudice without being obvious

If you're a particular kind of literary nerd, you know that today is a very important day: It's the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice.

I've known about this for weeks, and I've tried to figure out how best to commemorate this day that, for Jane Austen fans, is like a blend of the Fourth of July and the Queen's Jubilee.

{That's because we feel, instinctively, that a day as momentous as this should involve fireworks and people speaking in British accents while wearing pretty clothes.}

Sure, you could be obvious and re-read a favorite section of Pride and Prejudice, but that idea just lacks imagination. That's exactly the kind of thing Caroline Bingley would come up with, and we all know that we don't want to be like her.

This morning on my run, I channeled the spirit of Elizabeth Bennet {although if I were really chanelling her, I probably wouldn't have been in quick-dry shorts that exposed so much of my legs...}, and came up with:

7 Ways to Celebrate Pride and Prejudice without Being Obvious

1. Walk across a muddy field. Arrive somewhere fashionable and proper looking distinctively messy and unproper. If you can find a stile to cross, all the better. If your walk ends at a house like Netherfield, you may be in some sort of Austen-themed amusement park. Watch out.
2. Refuse to read any article about this anniversary that starts with "It is a truth universally acknowledged..." They're not even trying to be original. Whoever writes like that probably starts every other article with "Merriam-Webster defines [hope, growth, whatever] as..." If you like Jane Austen, you're allowed to be a words snob.
3. Never use anyone's first names. Call everyone you know Miss This and Mr. That. Your boss may especially like this one, and if your company is like my company and your annual review is coming up soon, he/she may be so taken with your return to this level of formality that you get a raise.
4. Wear an empire-waisted dress. No, wait, that one is a little obvious.
5. Don't watch Lost in Austen. It was made by ITV {they of Downton Abbey fame} and the premise sounds so good: a modern-day woman gets transported back into the story of Pride and Prejudice. She realizes that she has the ability to change the novel, and oh my, what to do with such power and lack of modern conveniences? I can tell you what: NOTHING interesting. It's mostly her saying to characters, "Oh, I remember when this happens in the book!" and then, understandably, them looking at her in confusion. Four hours of confused people in period costume is not entertainment.
6. Watch the Colin Firth-coming-out-of-the-water-in-a-white-shirt scene from the BBC version. That scene wasn't in the book? Elizabeth actually started to fall in love with Darcy when she saw how beautiful Pemberley was, not when she saw Darcy's abs? No one cares. More Colin Firth. Colin Firth all the time.
   
   
   
7. Read a favorite section out loud in a British accent. Oh, I'm a girl with a British literature degree: I am already obvious in my love for Jane Austen, so I may as well celebrate today in a very obvious way. I might as well go all the way and drink a pot of tea while I do my reading. This doesn't, by the way, mean I'm like Caroline Bingley, who I earlier accused of lacking imagination. In fact, it means I'm like Elizabeth Bennet: aware of her own mind and unafraid to speak it.

   And my mind right now says: Go read Darcy's second proposal.
   
   My mind also says: Consider embroidering it onto a tea towel and selling it on Etsy. Jane Austen fans love that kind of stuff.

if only i were in Little Women: thoughts on cross-stitching

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship."

Amy says that in Little Women, and perhaps because I've been re-reading that here and there, I've had a hankering to cross-stitch. {Meg would probably admonish me for saying "hankering," since it sounds so slangish and colloquial.}

This cross-stitch desire has only been intensified by how I'm also re-reading Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet, when staying for several days at Netherfield while Jane is recovering from a severe cold—

Sidenote: Do you ever wish you lived in the time where you came down with a cold and it was perfectly acceptable to lay in your bed all day, maybe even for several days? A person got a headache and down in the drawing room, everyone else was all, "Oh my, shall she ever recover? Shall we take her tea? Have the pillows been fluffed? Can she have a clear broth?"

And then they rang the bell and somebody would take it up to them.

I'm suspecting what is most appealing in this scenario is the part where someone brings me stuff in bed.

I don't actually want to live in the time when medical knowledge involved leeches and bleeding out the sickness; I'd rather just have a lady's maid who brings me stuff. Maybe somebody from Downton Abbey could pop over.

So back to my point: While Elizabeth is staying at Netherfield, she, at times, takes up her needlework. She then has very witty conversations with Mr. Darcy that make him smile as he turns away {lest he betray his true feelings by, gasp, smiling at her}.

You can see the obvious link between Mr. Darcy falling in love with Elizabeth and her doing needlework, and with an example like that, who wouldn't want to go buy embroidery floss right now?

No, seriously, who wants to go? Get in the car, and we'll meet at Hobby Lobby. I'm sure that's exactly like the store where Elizabeth went in Meryton to buy her thread to do her Darcy-attracting needlework at Netherfield.

Before we go, I'll research Little Women and Jane Austen cross-stitch patterns so that we know what we're buying. I'm sure that somewhere on Etsy, someone has made a pattern for that storm quote, and maybe it's on special today since it is Louisa May Alcott's birthday.

But wait.

{I'm going to Internet shout; prepare yourself.}

LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND.

I may love Pride and Prejudice and I may love the BBC production of the story, but never, under any circumstances, do I want something like this in my home.

Also, it would take me approximately 17 years to complete, and don't you think there's something accusatory in Darcy's eyes? It's like he's saying to you, "I'm a classic character from British literature and this is what you turn me into? Why couldn't you have gone for the much more mundane and obvious choice like the one below?"

I bet those eyes of Darcy follow you wherever you go in the room, and that has made up my mind: a Little Women cross-stitch project is the only way to go.

thither and felicity: talk like Jane Austen day

It's Talk Like Jane Austen Day, according to Twitter—and if only I had known before noon today. So many missed opportunities for Jane-ness! I could've demanded someone bring me tea in bed or made the guys at the front desk of the gym call me Miss Walker early this morning.

{However, if I were true to my Jane Austen-ness today, I probably wouldn't have gone swimming. Even my very practical one piece would be rather shocking, although perhaps if I called my swim cap my "bonnet," I could've gotten by.}

There's a website devoted to Talk Like Jane Austen Day. You can see it here, but I would like to warn you that it's not the prettiest of sites and it includes this gem: "All tolled, Jane Austen published four novels in her lifetime..." as if her novels were part of the Illinois Tollway and you need an iPass to get from here to there.

So, praytell, how does one talk like Jane Austen?

For starters, work in the word praytell wherever you can.

Also, use one a lot. Whenever you would say you, you should say "one," even if leads to awkward constructions/social moments.

For example, when offering someone coffee, ask, "Does one take cream or sugar?" This will make the person feel like 1) you maybe can't remember their name and you're disguising it by being so formal, 2) you were raised by the Queen of England, 3) you don't like them very much—certainly not enough to call them "you."

To increase the social awkwardness, one might want to ask about how much money one "has" every year. It's basically asking for their salary so that you can judge them worthy of your company at the ball you're both attending.

That's the other thing: if you really want this Talk Like Jane Austen Day to be a success, you might want to attend a ball. Then you can say, "To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love." People will be impressed that you're quoting Pride and Prejudice, but do watch who you say this to. Imagine if one said it to someone one didn't care for very much: it could give the wrong impression.

{Bonus Jane Austen fact: The original title of Pride and Prejudice was First Impressions.}

Or you could watch this clip from You've Got Mail where Kathleen Kelly {Meg Ryan} tries to convince Joe Fox {Tom Hanks} to read Pride and Prejudice, which she has read about 200 times.

{And which I re-read every year, making it easy for me to offer these very helpful Jane Austen tips.}



Thither.
Mischance.
Felicity.

Work all three of those into conversation tonight, and you will officially be a Jane-ite and part of the club. We meet quarterly and wearing an empire waist dress is not required.

french enough for me

A few weeks ago—no, over a month ago now—when I was in Quebec, I picked up a French book at the airport. This may have been a desperate attempt to keep my French self happy as I left a cobblestoned, francophone area, headed back to the suburbs and the dare-I-say-it harsh tone of our wide-mouthed American English.

{If you disagree with me on this harsh tone point, please just watch any period piece from England and tell me if you don't wish you had a mellifluous accent like that.*}

I found a book by Philippe Delerm and snatched it up immediately, as if there weren't 10 other copies. Philippe is one of the French writers I can understand without too much thinking. He is, I mean to say, a writer I can read as if he were writing in English, and when I read his books, I sometimes have to stop to think: OMG, I might be bilingual. {If I'm really immersed, that might even come out in French.}

But really, it's Philippe Delerm bilingual, but I'm okay with that. I live in the middle of America and go to French-speaking areas, on average, once every year. In other words, my French brain doesn't get much use, although I'm forever telling myself that I should watch more French movies or read more French books or join a French conversation group.

That doesn't happen, though, when I get caught up in my very English life here, and so I use Philippe Delerm to make my French self feel better: At least you can still read this, I tell myself.

The thing about Philippe Delerm {besides that he's from Normandy, where I used to live} is that he writes in French about stuff I like to write about in English: brief snatches of every day life. Little descriptions of how the sun played off the roof on a walk. What the first sip of a coffee is like.

We are surrounded by insignificant-seeming moments, but Philippe Delerm shows them to us and gives them a glow of great significance. That's what I try to do in {some of} my writing and maybe that's why I can understand him so easily: we speak the same language, of a sort.

My new book by him is Le trottoir au soleil: The Sidewalk in the Sun.

Just listen to this:

On arrive là en fin d’après-midi, on fait une grande balade autour des champs qui encerclent le hameau. Le soleil commence à fléchir quand on revient vers la voiture. Il y a une petite terrasse de café. On ne resiste pas au plaisir de s’y installer. […]

La lumière est en vous aussi. Chaque seconde qui passe vous rive advantage à ce miracle. Un soir d’été. Comment partir?

Beautiful, n'est-ce pas?



*My gosh, I am so classist, but I'm trying to hide it in a footnote. When I watch English shows—Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility or of course Downton Abbey—I wish for the mellifluous accent of the upper classes. I would also like someone to bring me tea in bed every morning, but I would be demanding/unusual and request coffee. I would also be unpredictable and sometimes want it from a French press and sometimes from an Italian press.

for darkness shows the stars: a new take on jane austen

I swung by the library last night after work to pick up a new book.

At home, I am surrounded by books, and in case you can't tell from that widget over there on the right {scroll down: see the one called "Also, I Heart Reading"? Yeah, that's what you need to be looking at}, I'm almost always reading multiple books at once.

Stacked around my apartment in odd places—no, let's not call them odd. Let's call them quirkily surprising places. Let's call them proof that I love reading; surely I must if there is a stack of books on top of my microwave.

And on that tiered lamp from Target; one of the other shelves is currently holding nesting dolls from Russia {well-travelled and literate and a stacker!}.

And by my fruit bowl.

I am surrounded by books wherever I go, and so it's always surprising when I find myself uninspired with my selection. I have—literally but not in a hoarder kind of way—stacks of books to choose from. Books that at one moment I found interesting enough to buy but that, at this moment, aren't meeting my reading need.

I read multiple books at once to fulfill multiple reading needs. I like non-fiction for the weekends and travelling, when I have more time to read.

I like literary prose for the early mornings, when I do my best writing.

And I like engaging stories for bedtime, and that was what I was missing. I was trying to read literary prose {Dearly Beloved, a stream-of-consciousness novel by Anne Morrow Lindbergh—yes, that Lindbergh—that makes me think of my beloved Katherine Mansfield} at bedtime, and instead of calming me and transitioning me into sleep, it somehow made my dreams fantastical and memorable and I woke up more than I usually do.

No, that wouldn't do at all, so I swung by the library last night to pick up For Darkness Shows the Stars, a young adult book set in a dystopian future.

Nothing says "will not give you fantastical dreams" like "dystopian future," eh?

Oh, but it's more than a dystopian future: it's a re-imagining of Jane Austen's Persuasion in that dystopia.

Last year at this time, I re-read Persuasion {you can read about it here}, so maybe this is just my Persuasion season. Maybe next year, I can read a utopian future re-telling of it.

But for now, I hope in this For Darkness Shows the Stars, I get:

• discussions of how many pounds a year a man has: Unless this dystopia has no money and therefore no way to judge a man by how much he's worth.
• a silly, overdramatic scene that takes place on the pier in Lyme Regis: If you've read Persuasion, you'll know that there's a pivotal scene involving some jumping that is too precipitate, poor communication, and an unfortunate hitting of the head on the pier. I think in this re-telling, Lyme Regis should still exist—it should represent some indestructible part of society, and it should be the only place left to have fun, even though, in the movie version of Persuasion at least, it looks like a wet, windswept, unfun place to be.
• a letter written by the Wentworth character that makes the rest of the story worth it: As I wrote about last year, I will read 234 pages of that story, just to get to the point where Wentworth passionately declares his love—in a letter. {Um, sorry if you've never read the book. I probably should've said: SPOILER ALERT.} In this dystopian future, I will accept a hologram communique {you know, like in Star Wars} as the form of this letter.

to try with the pug

Really Awesome Idea to Try with Little Pug

I can wear a pretty dress.

She can row the boat.

Just-picked flowers are essential to this idea, as is that hat.

I don't know, though, if I can pull off looking so bored. I'll be ON A BOAT. WITH A PUG. AND FLOWERS.

I bet tucked under that brocaded-blanket {seriously, it looks like curtains} is a copy of a Jane Austen novel—or maybe it's "The Lady of Shalott." Maybe I could have my own Anne of Green Gables re-enactment while I read "The Lady of Shalott." You know, like here:

And then Little Pug could rescue me.

These are the kinds of things, by the way, that you think about when it's such a glorious May day outside your office window.

on a treasure hunt {part 2}

So as we learned in part 1, there was this guy who followed me from one store to another in downtown Glen Ellyn—all to tell me I'm pretty. I realize the "following me" part makes it sound slightly stalkerish, but I promise it wasn't as creepy as it potentially sounds.

------

Treasure House Man: So...can I have your number?
Me: My number? Really? How about you give me yours?

POWER SHIFT. Bam.

I like to think this was me being a modern day Elizabeth Bennet, not that she had a telephone, let alone a smart phone, but I think, given the opportunity, she would've told Mr. Darcy: "Can you call on me? No. But I'll call on you when and if I desire. POWER SHIFT. Bam."

She probably wouldn't have said bam.

Also, I may not get hit on all the time, but I know enough not to go handing out my number willy nilly. I mean, I once got propositioned in an elevator in Las Vegas; if I can make it out of that situation, I can certainly avoid giving away too much personal information in a shabby chic decorating shop in the suburbs of Chicago.

Treasure House Man: Okay, we can do it that way. Do you have a pen?
Me: Um, no.

I know: I'm a terrible writer. We're supposed to carry pens and Moleskin notebooks at all times, ready for when inspiration strikes, but I forgot, okay? I thought I was going armchair shopping with a friend, not arranging coffee dates.

Speaking of my friend, she spoke up here.

Elizabeth: I can help!

Oh, bless her. For many reasons, including that she laughs at the same things I do and loves France more than I do, but in this instance: bless her for her iPhone.

This was, actually, the first time I'd looked at Elizabeth during this entire conversation with the Treasure House Man. I was sure, as he said things like "pretty" and I said things like "robot," that if I looked at her, my eyes would grow big enough to be frightening as I tried to communicate silently: OMG, can you believe this is happening? Can you give me some sign that this is real? Do you think I should meet him for coffee? Is this bizarre or the beginning of a romantic comedy? Speaking of that, do you think there are hidden cameras around here?

We women might try to convey too much with one glance; despite the fact that we are very, very good friends, I don't think Elizabeth would've picked up on all of that. She probably would've looked back at me like this: Look at him! Not at me! What is wrong with you? Do you have something in your eye?

Treasure House Man: [Tells Elizabeth his phone number and she taps it in as a note. He looks at me the whole time.]
Me: [internal monologue] WHY IS HE STARING? Oh right, because he thinks you're pretty. Smile. Not too big. Yeah, smaller than that. Get it together, Walker.
Treasure House Man: So...it was good to meet you.
Me: Good to meet you, too.

And he walked out of the overpriced store.

Even before the door clicked shut, a woman popped her head around the corner. If Hollywood were trying to represent the perfect suburban mom in 2012—if they really wanted to make sure they got it right so that 50 years from now, people watching the movie would say, "Oh, I see what life was like back then"—they would film this woman.

Ballet flats, cropped pants, a wedding ring the size of Lake Michigan.

Not a hair was messed up, despite the fact that it was raining out and she was carrying a very trendy cloche hat: the woman can wear a hat and still have her hair look like the 2012 version of Donna Reed.

Slightly Unnervingly Perfect Glen Ellyn Mom: Oh, honey, I'm so flattered on your behalf! That was so amazing to overhear.
Me: Oh my word, I know! Can you believe it?
Slightly Unnervingly Perfect Glen Ellyn Mom: No! I mean, look at you! You aren't even dressed to be hit on!

By this, I assume she meant: You aren't even wearing a cloche hat and ballet flats, like me!

And it's true that I wasn't looking my best: I'd spent part of the morning picking up trash along the Prairie Path, the running path that goes through my town. Every year around Earth Day, there's a trash pick up day, and since I use the path so much, I like to help.

I'm so eco-friendly, but I wasn't exactly pretty clothes-friendly that day. I had on a puffy vest, people.

And a hoodie.

And tennis shoes. The tennis shoes are from France, though, I'd like to point out. At least part of me looked trendy.

I hadn't showered, I had on no make-up, and I'm pretty sure I had brushed my teeth.

Me: I know! Look at me!
Slightly Unnervingly Perfect Glen Ellyn Mom: Gosh, I'm married, but I might go next door to see what kind of compliments I can get.

You should probably leave your cloche hat here, I wanted to say. Clearly Treasure House Man is looking for someone with a less put together look.

-------

Elizabeth and I didn't spend much longer looking at overpriced decorations.

"I need to sit down," I told her. "We need to process this, debrief this, analyze this, and we can't do that here."

That was partially because of the Unnervingly Perfect Glen Ellyn Mom—and partially because everywhere you saw to sit down {paisley armchairs, teal wingbacks, floral loveseats} was covered in tea trays and trinkets, all arranged to look as if you'd just thrown the display together in your shabby chic cottage by the sea.

A bonus lesson from the day: I am not a shabby chic person.

-------

Elizabeth and I processed, debriefed, and analyzed in a cafe just down the street. That double shot of espresso very much calmed me down, and we came up with an action plan: I would call him the next day.

And that's just what I did—

The next day after a nap {to boost my energy because seriously, it was this gray, rainy weekend that sucked all my normal perkiness} and many pep talks {to channel that energy}, I called him, the man who perhaps was a treasure from the Treasure House.

Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone when your only point of reference for them is "Um, you followed me into a store in downtown Glen Ellyn and um, also, you think I'm pretty"?

It's a challenge, but he turned out to be a not-so-bad conversationalist. An excerpt from our conversation:

Treasure House Man: So, what are you up to tonight?
Me: I'm going to watch this BBC show called River Cottage with some friends. Do you know it?
Treasure House Man: I don't know that one, but I do love British shows, especially Downton Abbey.

OMG, HE LIKES DOWNTON ABBEY.

We probably should've made plans to elope right there on the phone; preferably it would've been an elopement to England, where we could spend our honeymoon at the real Downton Abbey.

Kidding.

Instead, we made plans to have coffee one evening after work.

I scheduled it for just before Bible study {always smart to have a defined timeline when meeting someone for the first time}, and now you can start placing bets on whether:

• I had such a wonderful time that I skipped small group
• I had such a terrible time that I lied and said that small group was at 7:00, or even 6:45. No, I am not above using the Bible to get out of uncomfortable situations.
• I had a magnificent time but still made it to small group, where I wasn't able to focus on the Gospel of Matthew because really, what's the Gospel in comparison to a guy who makes his own custom tools in the shape of robots?

I'll tell you the answer soon enough.

on a treasure hunt {part 1}

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon in downtown Glen Ellyn, and my friend Elizabeth and I were wandering this resale shop called the Treasure House, picking up ugly pictures and dresses to laugh at but also looking for an armchair for my new office.

"Excuse me, please."

I turned and saw that we had somehow ended up right in the path of these guys who were trying to move a large couch. There was a matching armchair, by the way, but it didn't say "office of a literary person who happens to be a medical writer" so much as it said: "if you buy me, you should also start crocheting afghans and collecting hairless cats."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," I told the worker's back and then sidestepped him, being careful to avoid hitting the display of cut crystal and someone's grandmother's wedding china.

And then I decided to buy the small springform pan I'd seen over in their kitchenware section, and I left the Treasure House thinking more of the quiches and tarts I would make than of the man I'd almost caused to drop a large pink floral couch.

Maybe I should've been thinking more of him because while Elizabeth and I were in the store next door {a laughably overpriced store where their business plan seems to be: find a mirror or whatever on the side of the road, paint it teal or rosy pink, call it shabby chic, and then charge $70 for it}, he—the great lifter of the couch himself—came in and said:

Treasure House Man: Hi, I just came to see if you were just as pretty in here as you were next door.

I will pause here to let you imagine 1) what I said in reply, and 2) what you would've said, had you been in the same situation. I like to think I'm kind of, sort of, maybe witty, but what I said was:

Me: Really!??!

Yes, really, that's what came out. For all my reading of Jane Austen, I still rarely have witty comebacks when approached like that, and let's face it: when you don't have Jane putting words in your mouth—when you are left to your own devices on a Saturday afternoon—it's rare that Elizabeth Bennet-worthy quotes come out.

Treasure House Man: Yes, really. Do you ever have coffee with college professors who volunteer at resale shops on the weekend?

How very specific. I should've said something sparkling and sharp in an attempt to recover my Elizabeth Bennet status—something like, "No, I can't say I've ever encountered this particular situation before, and how uncanny would it be to meet more than one college professor who volunteers at resale shops on the weekends and follows pretty girls from store to store?"

But I didn't say that. I chose to focus instead on the college professor part and said:

Me: Maybe. What kind of college professor would this be?

In retrospect, I think two things:

One, this need to categorize him came out of my mouth so quickly. Is there a kind of college professor I wouldn't go to coffee with—some kind that my subconscious is aware of but the rest of me isn't?

Two, this is probably the most Jane Austen part of the conversation—where I try to discern in an unsubtle way if he's my kind of people. I may as well have asked him, "And do you have an income of 50,000 pounds a year and a house in Derbyshire?"

Treasure House Man: I was a professor in New Mexico; I taught metal working. I make things like this. [Pulls keychain out of his pocket.] It's a bottle opener and [I think something else, but I can't remember/wasn't paying close enough attention because most of my brain was shouting, "HE THINKS YOU'RE PRETTY!" All I do remember clearly is that it was very shiny and shaped like a robot, leading to my next astute comment.]
Me: It looks like a robot!
Treasure House Man: Yes, that's the logo for my company. So...can I have your number?

--------

Coming soon: Did I give him my number? Did he turn out to be a treasure from the Treasure House? Will I ever not make such obvious, socially awkward statements when someone says I'm pretty?

re-arranging {part II}

You may want to take a glance at Part I before you get into this.

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The MUST DO list has just a few things on it, and that's the way it should be. Instead of feeling that everything is dependent on today, the MUST DO list shows me that no, I don't have to a superwoman. I don't have to be one because that's impossible—

this mix of

Hillary Rodham Clinton {sharp and powerful}
Julia Child {because if you have to eat, it may as well be French}
Martha Stewart {perfectly, plastically Stepford she may seem, the woman really knows about presentation}
and several characters played by Amy Adams {girl-next-door prettiness with some quirky chipperness thrown in}

I just need to be me and accept that whatever happens in a day is all right.

On the Sunday of my room re-arranging, my MUST DO list had on it:

• choose cookie recipe for Tuesday night's cookie exchange
• go to grocery store {for cookie stuff and general food}
• run {outside! It's 40 degrees in December!}
• winterize kitchen window {because it won't always be 40 degrees!}

The NICE TO DO list is, of course, much longer. It's the bonus list, the icing list. Here are things that it would feel good to get done, but if I don't get to them, they will keep.

Sunday's was:

• order new swimsuit
• go to Home Depot {new lightbulbs}: wander around bathroom section, thinking lovely re-do thoughts
• start birthday thank you cards
• cut out fabric for kitchen door project
• email catch-up

I know that it's all just words and trickery, this MUST versus NICE; I know that my to-do lists are just as leggy as before, but since I've added these titles, the lists look more manageable, and they're less guilt-inducing.

I even re-arrange them: if, halfway through the day, I realize that something I thought was essential in the pre-dawn darkness {when the world does indeed look different} isn't, in fact, all that essential in the bright afternoon sun, I move it from the MUST to the NICE list.

This, too, is trickery, a sleight of hand as if I were the Magician of Productivity. It's the listmaking equivalent of moving furniture to make your room feel new and maybe even a little bigger.

Nothing has changed but the placement of an armchair and a lamp, but you feel like you can breathe more easily in there. You feel more like you want to curl up in that armchair and write things that would make people say, "You sound like a modern-day Jane Austen."

There is an incredible, calming freedom in doing three or four things well and completely, instead of trying to muddle through 29 things.

I'm slowly learning this lesson—and attempting to keep myself from putting on my MUST DO list:

• Learn, for once and for all, how you can't do everything and be everything to everyone every day. Learn how to give yourself a break.

That's just not a to-do list sort of item. You can't check it off in one day.

But you know what you can do? You can find an arrangement that works for you in whatever moment you find yourself in. You can figure out what is best for you so that you can thrive and enjoy where you are, instead of feeling like you're simply checking off another item on your never-done list.

Right now, it's most helpful for me to focus on doing a few tasks well. Right now, I need my MUST versus NICE to help me, in bold caps, prioritize.

But there will come a time when this arrangement—as well as it is working now—simply won't work as well. I know this. And when that time comes, I'll do a little re-arranging to open up my life again.

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Re-arranging my living room was not on my MUST DO or even NICE TO DO list on that Sunday.

But I'd already finished everything I knew I had to get done that day. The Christmas tree was lit, The Mary Tyler Moore Show was on, and I was on a chair changing a lightbulb, feeling so accomplished and energetic.

After months of feeling that my life was closing in on me with obligations, I was finally in a position to look around and see the possibilities.

And so I moved the armchair.

jane austen may have looked like this

On Monday, big news hit the Jane Austen world: she may not have been ugly.

No, seriously, this was one of the headlines: Jane Austen wasn't as ugly as people think.

Jane has been in the news quite a bit over the last year or so—

Last fall, it was revealed that Jane's original manuscripts are full of terrible spellings and laughable attempts at grammar. The Queen of the Period Drama, unable to make a coherent sentence? If I knew what smelling salts were, I'd call for them; instead, I just wrote a little thing on her spelling mistakes, which you can read here.

Then there was the time a few weeks ago when a murder mystery author suggested that Jane Austen had been poisoned with arsenic. You can read about it in the Guardian here.

But—and my crime knowledge mostly stems from watching Law and Order with my parents {that chung-chung clangy thing they do at the end of scenes is addictive, I think}—don't you have to have a motive to have a murder? And who would want to kill Jane Austen?

I guess you could say someone who was jealous, but Charlotte Bronte {never Jane's biggest fan} was only 1 or so when Jane died. I don't think even the author who put a crazy lady in the attic of Thornfield Hall would've been familiar with arsenic in the cradle.

But—ooh!—maybe someone wanted to kill Jane because she was NOT ugly?!?!

Yes, it seems that Jane Austen was murdered because she was fairly all right looking. Let's go with that theory. I think that sounds like it should be the top item on the BBC News tonight.

This whole not ugly thing came about because an author who's writing a biography about Jane discovered what may be a portrait of her—and up until now, there have been just two accepted portraits of Jane.

One is an 1810 sketch by her sister Cassandra, and everybody says she looks cross about being a spinster in it.

This raises an important question: How do they {you know, smart academics} know she's cross about spinsterhood in the drawing? Couldn't she just have been upset that Elizabeth Bennet's character wasn't coming out right? Or maybe her sister was teasing her, or maybe she had a case of the mean reds.

One frown in a woman who is not married does not a cross spinster make. But you can judge for yourself—see the picture below. What do you think she's upset about?

The other accepted portrait is an 1870 re-doing of the sketch, one where Jane is not frowning but is looking off to the side, as if she's daydreaming about Mr. Darcy. This is the one used on most of the book markers and book jackets for Jane because who would want a picture of an angry spinster staring at you every time you picked up Sense and Sensibility?

So those are the two images we've had of Jane for hundreds of years, and when you're talking about a woman who couldn't spell and who may have been murdered, it's tiring to have to trot out the same images.

Enter the new portrait—and a sigh of relief that Jane wasn't ugly, although...

Okay, look at this potential new portrait of Jane.

Do you think this proves she wasn't ugly?

I see a crazy cat lady writer with a really long neck.

And I also think this: Why is it so important that we think of Jane Austen as pretty? As a successful woman? As a non-cross person? Why, if we can see so much of ourselves in our characters in their flaws and small joys, do we want Jane to line up with some sort of ideal?

Please discuss via a five-paragraph essay format. I will not judge you on your grammar and spelling, but do please include a picture.

on pushing 30

"The one thing you should know about me is this: I'm the consummate good girl."

That's how the back cover of a book by Whitney Gaskell begins. The book is a pinkish-purple, and the cover involves a swirly font—looks like it could've been handwritten by a 15-year-old hoping to appear fancy—and high heels.

I tell you all these cover details because, contrary to that saying, I most definitely judge a book by its cover. I am seduced by typeface, clean design, and—although this is on the inside of the book, so perhaps it makes me seem less judge-y of outward appearances—hefty, creamy paper. No, saying that I like the touch of a book doesn't make me seem less superficial.

Maybe re-phrasing this way helps: the sensory details—the aesthetics, too—of a thing add to the reading experience.

You know it's true: the weight of a book in your hands, the smell of the paper, the pressure in your fingernail when you dogear a page to mark a favorite passage. These details are valid.

And these details, when applied to the Whitney Gaskell book I found next to Wives and Daughters at the library, said:

I am chick lit.

I am set in either a big East Coast city {preferably NYC} or a small town that is based not on the reality of small town life but more on the idealized but updated Donna Reed version of small town life. In this small town, there is a charming cafe that rivals Starbucks and has vegan options, even though in a real small town, you'd be going to something called the Dairy Barn for your Maxwell House drip coffee and ham salad sandwich at lunch.

I will have a protagonist who is either in publishing or a lawyer. Regardless of which it is, she will have the same amount of money and be able to buy scarily expensive shoes a la Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City.

Those high heels may figure prominently in a scene where she meets a man who is perfect for her. She will meet him just after breaking a heel.

Or she will meet him the one time she doesn't wear the heels when she runs a quick errand—dashing out of her hardwood-floored, granite countertopped, vintage-feeling apartment that could be used for a photo shoot for Anthropologie. She will meet him when she hasn't done her hair and when she's wearing sweatpants and old running shoes.

I would make a good movie starring Katherine Heigl.

Chick lit can be so comforting in its predictability.

Chick flicks bring the same comfort. You know that Katherine Heigl is, indeed, going to get together with whoever it is after they go through a spell of "No, I hate YOU more! Also! Look at my adorable pencil skirt! Also! Have you met my whacky but endearing friends? Also! I think you're self-centered, but aha, I just learned that you can make an amazing coq au vin. You're full of surprises; I think I'll stick around."

Sometimes, you just want predictable comfort. Actually, a lot of times I want predictable comfort, which may be why I like Jane Austen so much and why I was at the library to get an Elizabeth Gaskell book in the first place.

I decided to go for the predictable comfort of the Whitney Gaskell book, too, because:

• the book is called Pushing 30: And I am, indeed, pushing 30.

  I did not get this book as either a) a guide {how can I make the last month of my 20s hilarious and worthy of a chick flick? And if I were to be in a chick flick, who would play me? I wish Audrey Hepburn were still available. I would also accept Mary Tyler Moore.}

  or b) a reassurance {OMG, THIRTY. THIRTY MAKES ME WANT TO TALK AND WRITE IN ALL CAPS.}.

  On this whole turning 30 thing: I'm not freaked out at all/delving into over-analyzation/starting to act like I'm wise beyond my years/thinking wistfully of college/officially declaring myself a spinster/planning on finally losing all inhibitions and partying until I forget how old I am.

  But I will read a silly book about someone else turning 30.

• the protagonist—Ellie—called herself the consummate Good Girl: And I relate to that, although she does talk about washing her make-up off every night, even when she's tired. If that is a sign that you're a Good Girl {and not, you know, going to church and singing in the choir and spending nights in Vegas reading Persuasion}, well, then, I may not qualify. I get really tired and lazy—and FYI, start to make a lot less sense—at about 10pm.
• the back cover talks about Ellie's pug: Honest-to-goodness, I was thinking that I could put the book back on the shelf.

  The story sounded so-so—and SO trite, actually. It's about how Ellie, our adorable lawyer who lives in Washington, DC, meets a man twice her age, and she immediately falls for him. But, OMG, can she finally have some happily-ever-after happen to her with "the one man who's so wrong for her, he's perfect"? {What does that even mean?}

  Plus, I could relate to Ellie only it that she was almost 30 and a Good Girl with a Clean Face {sometimes, on my part}. The rest of it—dysfunctional family {that's right, family, I don't think we're dysfunctional! Do not take Thanksgiving as a chance to prove me wrong!}, hating her job {Dear People I Work With: I like my job.}—I didn't relate to at all.

  Even from the back cover copy, I could tell I wasn't going to be all that invested in her family/hating work problems. Most likely, if we were friends in real life, I'd tell her to pull herself together.

  But then, there was this: "...and she's somehow become enslaved to her demanding pet pug Sally." A pet pug! Just like mine! Maybe this book will be portentous for the next month before I turn 30, especially since I dress up my pug like this:

  

  If that little face doesn't say "demanding pet pug," I don't know what does.

Turns out I shouldn't have let the mention of a pug sway me. In general, that's actually a pretty good life principle to live by: do not be swayed by pugs.

I didn't make it beyond the first chapter where Ellie meets The Older Man—while, GASP, running an errand in her sweatpants because she had a home-hair coloring disaster! How could she let herself go out in public like that? Oh, such tragedy! Oh, and her pink hair!

I hope you can tell from the number of exclamation points that I had very little sympathy for her. I did have a little for her pug, though.

And from now on, I will stick with Elizabeth Gaskell when I'm in the G section of fiction at the library.

when it turns cold, my thoughts turn to england

When the weather turns cold and damp—just as it's been this week—my thoughts naturally turn to England, and my reading choices soon follow.

My mind associates the wet cold with England because:

• That's what it was like when I lived there. It was a semester abroad—the fall term—and while I'm sure there were sunny days, what I mostly remember is wet leaves, an ineffective umbrella, and slick steps outside the National Portrait Gallery, where I'd go to look at Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee who caused a king to give up his throne. In her portrait, she almost smirks haughtily down at you as if she's in on a joke. {The punchline for that joke may be, “...and then I almost destroyed the monarchy!”}
  
  I was drawn to her portrait time and again, possibly because other wings of the National Portrait Gallery involved many, many oil paintings of people in lace collars who looked like they'd been eating lumpy porridge for every meal for 13 years.
  
  In Wallis' portrait, though, she has a sprig of flowers pinned to her blue shirtdress, and when I looked up at her, she seemed to be saying, “Oh, forget these British people. They're a tricky lot to figure out, so show them some American gumption, just like I did.”
  
  It seems silly to say now, especially after reading more of her story and seeing how she was portrayed in The King's Speech, but when I needed a boost on a foggy day in London-town, I'd go visit Wallis, my fellow American. She made the rain and cold and loneliness seem laughable, like a big joke that we were both in on.
• of that scene in Sense and Sensibility when Marianne and Margaret Dashwood are on a rainy walk through the Devonshire countryside. “Is there a felicity in the world superior to this? Margaret, we will walk here at least two hours,” Marianne enthuses over the little bits of blue sky peeking through, as Jane Austen describes it, “a showery sky.”
  
  Don't say things like that, Marianne—that thing about felicity and walking. You are the personification of flights of fancy in Jane's world, and I think I should let you know: she's using you to teach a lesson about how impulsiveness and unguarded emotions lead to tumbles down rain-slicked hills overlooking the sea. Literally and metaphorically.
  
  Going on and on about blue sky and the animating gales of a southwesterly is not going to end well for you, Marianne, so you may as well come in from the rain and embroider something.
  
  I am so like Elinor. Thank heavens. But that also helps explain why rainy days make me want to stay inside with a book, preferably one set in England.

I went to the library recently with this goal in mind: get something set in England.

Having just re-read Persuasion and wanting to avoid appearing like a one-trick pony {not that I'm concerned about my personal brand, but I do think it should be more than "I am obsessed with Jane Austen"}, I decided to expand beyond Jane; I went for Elizabeth Gaskell.

That's Elizabeth Gaskell of Cranford, Wives and Daughters, and North and South.

The Elizabeth Gaskell who wrote in the mid-1800s and who has been so good to the BBC and its desire to make every book written in the 1800s into a period drama they can cheer the nation with on Sunday nights through the cold, damp England fall and winter.

I pulled Wives and Daughters off the shelf and then glanced to the right at the book right next to it. This is one of great pleasures of the library, by the way: going to a section where you need one book, and then taking a look around to see what else that section has to offer.

If I'm ever in a reading bind—and it does happen, especially when I have no seasonal promptings to read things set in England—I pick a letter and then go to that section of fiction. With my head tilted and my fingers tracing the spines, I don't let myself leave until I find a book or two, maybe even something out of my typical reading likes.

Right next to Wives and Daughters was a book by Whitney Gaskell. 'Maybe she's a great-great granddaughter!' I thought, nerdily excited by this idea of a modern-day Elizabeth Gaskell.

I stood on my tippy-toes to pull the book down and saw there was no way in heck I was checking this book out.

That is, until I read the back cover.

-----

I'll tell you why soon, I promise.

you pierce my soul: a jane austen letter

I read an entire book to get to one letter. It was 234 pages in Persuasion before I got to—

Miss A.E—

I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. —Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes?—I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others. —Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating in

F.W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening, or never.

Emphasis mine, all mine. And were this letter mine.

There is something so rewarding in getting to this letter from Captain Wentworth in Persuasion. I can't believe I'm about to say this about Jane Austen, but there are some clunky, mediocre sections of this book, but I push through those because I know this letter is at the end.

Yeah, I totally just critiqued Jane. To atone for that {someone with Jane Austen in her blog name, digging into her beloved idol!}, I'm going to offer this praise and hope I don't get kicked out of the I Heart Jane Austen Society {that I don't actually belong to}: No one else can so exquisitely create insufferable relations like Jane Austen, and she showcases that in Persuasion.

With a completely quiet and straightforward delivery, she gives us characters so laughable that we can't help but thank our lucky genealogy that they aren't in our family. I think her genius lies in never allowing Anne Elliot, our lovely heroine, to mock her father or her sister, no matter how much they warrant an eye roll or a derisive snort.

Jane does the same thing in Pride and Prejudice: Elizabeth knows how ridiculous her mother and most of her sisters are, but we see that she knows how to deal with their emotions and dramatics and self-centered drivel. In Elizabeth's position and given her verbal prowess, most of us would take every opportunity to cut and dice and remind her mother that the world does not revolve around her and her hypochondriac histrionics.

But Elizabeth doesn't do that; instead, she guides her silly sisters and sets a good example and tries to cover their social gaffes.

In Anne Elliot and Elizabeth Bennet {and Elinor Dashwood; I can't leave her out of this list}, we have examples of how we ought to act, and just reading about them makes you feel like a better person, like someone who can handle tricky co-workers and meddling mothers {not talking about you, Mama!} and people who are more concerned with the latest fashion than with what's happening in the big world.

Thank heavens for Anne Elliot's example and ability to manage her preening, egotistical, out-of-touch father: that and the letter from Captain Wentworth at the end of the book are what keep me reading Persuasion, even as I roll my eyes at some sections.

{I may have read Jane Austen's books repeatedly, but I have yet to learn her heroines' ability to not roll their eyes at silliness.}

Take the big drama section when Louisa Musgrove takes a tumble on a pier at Lyme. It's written in a "this happened and then this happened and then this happened and after that, there was this" style that doesn't lend itself to getting emotionally caught up in the moment—as clearly all the characters are.

I mean, it must be shocking to see someone smack her head against a stone walkway, but when I read this section, I mostly think, 'Was it really that bad? Or are these people overreacting? This is the time when they believed that if you had a cold, you should be kept in bed for three weeks. And they believed in using leeches to suck your blood to make you better. They clearly were not health authorities; maybe Louisa just needs some smelling salts and then the story can move on.'

By the end of the scene, though, you realize that this is a pivot point in the story—from this moment, something changes in Anne and Captain Wentworth's relationship—and you find yourself needing to re-read the last few pages to try to get into the drama.

Or at least I do. But the second reading leaves me cold still and I blame it all on Jane's prosaic, practically bullet-pointed presentation of the drama.

Eh, I think. At least there's that letter at the end of the book to redeem this.

After spending 234 pages with insufferable relations, self-centered people, and blase descriptions of action, when you get to this written declaration of love, you stop breathing, just as, I'm sure, Anne Elliot did when she read this letter for the first time.

And that is why I keep reading Persuasion: to get to the point where I don't breathe.

more things i said in vegas

The last time I was in Las Vegas, I made a list of things I said there, all of them saturated in a "I don't think Las Vegas is for me" tone.

This time was no different.

• If I had to imagine hell, it would be the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace. Some co-workers and I wandered over there after dinner one night because, as they told me, I just had to see it—it perfectly exemplifies Vegas. And they were right: it's this mall built to look like ancient Rome, except it smells better {I would assume} and there's indoor plumbing {which helps it smell better}.
  
  Also, ancient Rome probably didn't have an H&M that looked more like a nightclub than a store. I'm pretty sure I saw a mannequin posed as if she were doing a pole dance.
  
  There are fountains and statues and the facades of the buildings look like stone in the Forum Shops. Look like stone, yes: as with many things in Vegas, where nothing is that old, the Forum Shops are trying to look old when really they're made out of, I'm relatively sure, drywall and creative painting.
  
  The Forum Shops are in my version of hell because there are about 3 million people crammed into the fake cobblestone walkway {Did they even have cobblestone in ancient Rome? Why is it here? Shouldn't this be dirt?}.
  
  And all 3 million of those people are not watching where they're going because they're distracted by the biggest copy of the David they've ever seen. Or they're distracted by how the ceiling is painted to look like a dusky sky. Or they're distracted by the pole dancing in H&M. They're just distracted and aimlessly wandering, and I don't like dodging 3 million people while on fake cobblestone streets. Or real ones, for that matter.
• Vegas makes me cranky. I said this to a co-worker, and she did not disagree with me. She's true and honest like that. And it's hard to miss how cranky I get around too much noise and bright lights.
• Last night, I took a bath and read Persuasion. To which my co-worker said, "You do realize you're in Vegas, right?" Immediately after she said that, I realized that I'd become a stereotype of myself.
• Tub does not stop filling automatically. I read the sign above the bathtub in my room aloud. {But no, I did not read Persuasion aloud while in the bathtub, and certainly didn't do that using a fake British accent.} Back to the sign: You know that when there's a sign, that means that someone has done it before, surprising as that may be.
  
  Someone—WHO has such a smart bathtub at home that it stops filling when it's reached the perfect level?!?!—started the bath and walked away. And then an entire floor of the Paris Hotel flooded. Or maybe just their bathroom flooded. Regardless, there was a flood, and now there must be a small sign above the bathtub warning you to not expect too much from the bath equipment.
• This room also doesn't have a coffee maker. My room at the Cosmopolitan didn't have a coffee maker, either, which leads me to believe that they're illegal in Vegas. You can drink on the street and smoke indoors, but you cannot—on penalty of being sent to the Forum Shops at Caesar's—make your own coffee here.
  
  Perhaps I should start bringing one of my own coffee makers to Vegas; I have four, after all.

And the most indicative quote from my Vegas trip: I think Vegas and I should break up. We just weren't made for each other.

jane austen, i disagree with you

A quote from Jane Austen: "Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation."

More correctly, it's a quote from Emma, my least favorite Jane Austen book because I can't work up much sympathy to someone who meddles so much in other people's lives.

So Jane Austen via Emma, I disagree with you.

I realize this is an atypical thing for me to say. Me, the girl who proclaims to have learned lots of things from Jane Austen. Me, the girl who takes it as the highest compliment possible to be told that I'm like Elizabeth Bennet. {Other high compliments include Audrey Hepburn and, of course, Mary Tyler Moore.}

But Jane Austen—in this quote—is not teaching me about planning ahead and careful organization, and I'm a little disappointed in her because of it.

I want to say to her: Why not spread out the pleasure over a long planning period? How often is happiness increased by preparation, glorious preparation.

But maybe that's just me and my attachment to my planner speaking.

Maybe I'll schedule in some journalling time to work through that attachment. And to work through how I'm disappointed in a dead woman and wanting to argue with a fictional character.

I'll schedule it for a long time from now so that I have much happiness and pleasure to look forward to.

how target made my life complete

When I made it out of Target on Saturday afternoon, I had successfully:

• bought presents for two friends
• decided that all wedding cards are over-the-top and ridiculous. I do not want to make my friends read bad poetry, nor am I into gushing sentiments about how their rings are circles because the circle is never ending...just like their love. If I were them, I would be scanning all the cards, just looking for who signed it and if they wrote a personal note. Any script-y font would immediately be shunned.
• {on a related note} decided to just write my own dang wedding card, one that didn't involve poetry, bad or otherwise. I didn't buy a 50-pack of brightly-colored cards at Hobby Lobby to just have them sit in my card closet. {What? You don't have a card closet?}
• bought Double Stuf Oreos on sale for $2.50.
• resisted the urge to buy:
  
  • several packs of Oreos
  • a dress that I didn't really need but was on the sale rack
  • the DVD set of Downton Abbey {You have it coming on Netflix. You have it coming on Netflix. This I kept repeating when my heart kept whispering, 'Period piece. You know how much you love period pieces.' Shut up, heart. You already paid for Netflix, so you better take full advantage.}

My heart pretty quickly got over the Downton downer when it saw—on the shelf right next to Downton—this:

And it was only $8.99.

That's actually so exciting that it deserves shouting: AND IT WAS ONLY $8.99.

Pride and Prejudice, the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice was being sold for less than $9.00. Considering it's something like six hours long, that's an incredible bargain for entertainment.

I mean, that is such a good deal that I half expected a TV infomercial spokesman—spokesperson, since I should be PC—to pop up in the DVD section of Target and say, "But wait! There's more! When you buy Pride and Prejudice now, we'll throw in—absolutely free—a Special Edition DVD of Downton Abbey. It includes never-before-seen-here-in-America footage with a guest appearance by Colin Firth himself. That's right, you're getting all your dreams to come true in an explosion of period pieces...for only one easy payment of $8.99."

{And then in a really fast "we have to tell you these legal details" voice, the guy would say, "Yeah, we were totally lying about Colin Firth in Downton Abbey thing. We just said it because it appears that he can sell anything, just by appearing in a cravat, or in that particularly famous scene from P&P, in a wet shirt. Sorry for lying. Just pretend we're a nasty relation from a Jane Austen novel, the kind that you never expected to do anything good."}

I picked up Pride and Prejudice.

I looked around.

No spokesperson appeared.

But I bought Pride and Prejudice anyway.

This will, I'm sure, come as a surprise to you, but until Saturday, I didn't own the movie. I've asked for it for Christmas and my birthday for years, but it has never appeared under either the Christmas tree or the birthday tree.

{My birthday is in December, so until my birthday is over, I call my Christmas tree my birthday tree. These are the kinds of things you have to resort to when your birthday is the same month as Christmas and you still want your birthday to be special.}

It was time to take matters and Colin Firth into my own hands: that's what Elizabeth would've done, I think.

So I bought it and emerged from Target—into a summer rain in Illinois—thinking about tea and living in a time when you got to dress for dinner.

And on a related note, I'm going to be really busy for the next few nights. Doing very important things like swooning and learning how to do those English country dances.

Call if you need anything, but I'm warning you: I'll probably answer the phone with a fake British accent.

two things. not related.

I have had two things in my head all day.

{No, I've had many things in my head all day, starting with: Why, oh why, is it 81 degrees at 5:30 in the morning? With a heat index of I don't want to know? I was not born for seasons like this in the Midwest.}

One Thing in My Head. I watched the leaves fall on a bright summer day.

That line came to me as I sat outside the Hotel de Ville in Aix-en-Provence. There were, in fact, leaves falling from the plane trees above me, just as if it were fall, and the whole idea seemed quite poetic to me.

Ephemeral summer. Change. How you can't predict even one detail of one day {that the leaves will stay on the trees in the summer}.

So perhaps a poem will come from that.

Second Thing in My Head. Jane Austen died on this day in...oh, I can't remember the year, and I only know this fact because of Twitter. Twitter teaches me random things like this all the time, which is one of the main benefits I can find in Twitter: it fills me with dinner party trivia.

So Jane died ages ago on this day, and now I'm thinking of a quote from Persuasion: It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at 29 than she was 10 years before.

I am not saying I'm handsomer now than I was at 19, but it's a good quote and now I want to re-read Persuasion.

These two thoughts: they are pretty all right thoughts to have with you throughout a hot summer's day.

in honor of jane austen's birthday: be the elinor

Jane Austen is 235 today, and judging from her author portrait on the dust jacket of Sense and Sensibility, she's looking good for her age. I can only hope to look that good, should I ever decide to wear a bonnet like that.

Seeing as Jane Austen is in my blog title, I feel like I should be doing something more monumental. I mean, if I thought I should throw a birthday party for LM Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott a few weeks ago—my gosh, for Jane Austen, my witty inspiration, I should've embroidered something or arranged a piano-forte concert or adopted a British accent for the day.

But I didn't.

People might think I was, I don't know, slightly confused about the line between truth and fiction if I made such ado about Jane.

Instead I will honor her in a small, more appropriate way—which is, I have to say, something I learned from Jane Austen. Small actions can be significant.

Elinor Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility is the one who taught me that. A friend and I used to have a saying: Be the Elinor.

I think you'll readily see why in this Jane excerpt {see, this is me honoring her with a little excerpt}:

Elinor, this eldest daughter whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother [...]. She had an excellent heart; her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong: but she knew how to govern them.

Be the Elinor simply meant: Control your emotions. You do have them, of course—we all have them, but some of us choose to let them govern us. Marianne Dashwood, I'm looking directly at you.

Be the Elinor doesn't mean be an emotional android. Elinor felt strongly and deeply; it was only her reactions to situations and other people that she measured out with moderation.

And there's a good deal of sense in that.

Happy birthday, Jane!

statistical insights

I have a confession.

I am obsessed with stats.

This may make my parents the accountants overjoyed, this passion for numbers and data, but actually, I'm pretty sure they already knew that obsession of mine.

Plus, I think they're overjoyed to have a writer in the family; it rounds out the family line-up, which is heavily weighted towards the sciences.

But here are the stats I'm obsessed with: the ones that tell me how many people visit my blog, how they got here, and what they look at.

Yes, I'm obsessed with you. And your statistical significance in relation to me. I am obsessed with your p-value.

{That's one of the only terms I remember from my actual stats class in college, so I could be misusing it. Thought I'd throw it out there anyway, in case in makes me sound smarter.}

Right now, I'm most fascinated with the search terms that people used to get to my blog. Those are like little insights into the soul of a searcher.

Who, for example, sat down recently and searched "slice ornament Christmas mistletoe"? And what were they hoping to find? Perhaps instructions on making a Christmas ornament from orange slices and mistletoe?

But why would you want to do that? I mean, the oranges would, over the course of the Christmas season, shrivel up and most likely start to smell non-citrus-y.

Also, it's my belief that mistletoe shouldn't be combined with anything else. It's a statement piece {the statement: "Kiss me now"}, and if you muddle it with oranges, the statement could become muddled. People could start to think you're just supposed to wave at each other. Or shake hands.

And no one would naturally end up under the mistletoe if it were hanging as an ornament on the tree. Well, maybe your Christmas is a lot different than mine, but I see very little reason for two people to be lying down under the tree during a holiday party. And the whole point of mistletoe—based on my real-life experience with it via Hallmark Christmas movies—is to give two people who won't admit that they like each other an excuse to awkwardly kiss; the whole plot hinges on the mistletoe placement.

But enough on my mistletoe and orange ideas. {I didn't realize I felt so strongly about mistletoe.}

Another question this "slice ornament Christmas mistletoe" search brings up is: How did Google decide that this ornament mistletoe searcher should come to my little ode to my friend Lauren—in which I very briefly mention Christmas ornaments but do not mention a slice ornament?

And what did they think when they got here?

Of course, my Google stats can't tell me that, the details of what was going through someone's brain when they found themselves mired in a blog with Jane Austen in the title but that isn't about Jane Austen at all and is even less about Christmas ornaments. If Google could tell me that, this particular post would have a different tone to it. That being: stop thinking, everyone. Google knows. And they know that I just warned you, so really, I'm in more trouble than you are.

Three other interesting things to point out on my search terms:

• Many people get to my blog my searching on a variation of the title: Jane Austen didn't prepare, Jane Austen never taught me that, Jane Austen lessons. I'm guessing that these are people who know me, and I have casually mentioned my blog to them. However, because I still feel a bit stilted in self-promoting, I must not have told them the actual address. I must've said something like, "Yeah, I blog a little. Um, it's called Jane Austen Didn't [mumble mumble mumble]. Yeah, so...how are you? Let's talk about you."
  
  To all those people, I say: thank you for your persistence in Google stalking me. I wanted you to read my stuff, but my Midwestern shyness got in the way.
• More than one person has gotten here when searching for my sister. I am sorry, [insert sister's name here]. I'm now scared to mention you by name in case I'm helping any freaky stalker find you.
  
  I would, however, like to point out that our parents did us no favors in giving us such distinctive names. We are incredibly easy to find on the Interwebs, even if you don't know our last names. I'm going to start calling you Sarah, even in real life. See you at Thanksgiving, Sarah!
• Several people have searched for "horse tattoo" or "galloping horse tattoo" or even "how to get a horse to gallop." They ended up here because I wrote awhile back about my mother's tattoo—a blue horse galloping across her upper thigh. If you've read that piece, you know, then, that I freaked out when my mother got a tattoo; that other people are searching for the same type of tattoo is actually somewhat reassuring to me.
  
  And Mama, perhaps we should consider putting a picture of your tattoo on here so that all those people looking for tattoo inspiration can find it here. {Also, that person who searched "how to get a horse to gallop" must not really be into horses all that much. Even I, someone who just tolerates horses, knows that you get them to gallop by wearing spurs, kicking them, and saying, "Giddy up!"}

All this discussion of how these people got to me has me curious: how did you get here?

jane austen couldn't spell this

Jane Austen didn't prepare me for this.

I have another thing to add to my list, my list of things in my life that Jane Austen {with her witty prose and her strong-willed women and her challenging men} did not prepare me for.

Or more precisely, could not have prepared me for. Jane Austen could not have prepared me for a spelling bee.

There's a professor at Oxford who analyzed Jane Austen's manuscripts and then created a tsunami in the English major world: she said that Jane Austen was heavily edited. By a man, most likely.

This author we've put on a podium—the one who excelled in a man's world by so clearly taking us into the mind of a woman—this woman's words were seriously changed by a man.

But Jane had to be heavily edited because she couldn't spell and grammar was low on her priority list. Who needs to think about subject-verb agreement when you're trying to create Elizabeth Bennet?

Aha, someone will say, aha! What if Jane Austen didn't really create Elizabeth Bennet as we know her today?

What if, at the end of the original draft of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth did not say:

"We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening. The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable; but since then, we have both, I hope, improved in civility."

Nor did she say:

"But think no more of the letter. The feelings of the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance attending it, ought to be forgotten. You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure."

Instead, she said {and as you read these, feel free to pretend there are spelling errors and grammar errors; I can't bring myself to write quite that lax}:

"Um, let's not fight about what happened that one time. I was wrong; you were wrong. Everyone was wrong. But I think we're nice now."

Or she said:

"Ok, get over your letter, your crazy letter that you wrote a long time ago. You've changed; I've changed. Move on, buddy. Move on. I mean, just be like me: I think about stuff only if it makes me happy."

Is Elizabeth Bennet still Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet?

I bet she is. I read in the Telegraph that the Oxford professor would describe Jane Austen's style as close to Virginia Woolf's. Stream of consciousness, jumbling together of dialog so that the reader is kept on their toes {wait, who's talking?}, a lot of internal thoughts going on as external action is described.

One main idea from this Virginia Woolf comparison tells me that Elizabeth Bennet, regardless of Jane's ability to keep track of the "i before e, except after c" rule, would still essentially be the same from first draft to the well-read copy on my bookshelf: stream of consciousness.

Stream of consciousness gets your ideas out on paper—quickly. It's messy, but I often find it to be the most revealing kind of writing, this trying to write without lifting your pen and certainly without stopping to judge what you've said. I've found in my own writing that allowing myself the freedom to write without constantly self-editing {self-judging, self-condemning, self-revising} has made me write more to the heart of what I want to say.

Stream of consciousness in literature—as in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway—is when you're given access to a character's inner thoughts, streaming along as they go about their day. You know, kind of like how you go about your day, driving to work but not really thinking about driving—instead, you're thinking about last night's conversation or what you'll have for lunch or the book you're reading.

Most likely, you're thinking about all of those things {and more} at once, so stream of consciousness aims to get you into a character's head so that you better understand them and their motivations.

{End English major discussion.}

I'm not saying that Jane wrote her books in one sitting, or that Pride and Prejudice is nothing more than an extended journal where she was simply getting down her thoughts without self-judgment. {Stream of consciousness, as a side note, works wonders for journalling when you're perturbed by something and need to get to the root of it}.

What I'm saying is:

Even if Jane Austen's original drafts were dashed together messes and even if her editor had to do some major work to get the books ready for print {and ready to be read by a public not quite ready for Virginia Woolf}...even if all that, I bet Elizabeth Bennet is still Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet.

I don't think the essence of Jane's characters were created by her editor as he put in commas and paragraph breaks. I'm an editor and a writer, and I know that you can only work with what you've been given: I bet Elizabeth came to the editor as the sharp-tongued girl we all love, contained there in the heart of messy scribblings and an inability to spell tomato correctly.

I'm going to keep Jane Austen on her podium in my mind. I might even raise the podium a bit, knowing that she was, perhaps, ahead of her time in terms of literary style.

Actually, yes, I'll definitely raise the podium, simply because I like Virginia Woolf and I like the idea of Jane Austen being compared to her.

Also, I think tomorrow I'll do some stream of consciousness writing in honor of Jane and Virginia.

{You should try it, too, and let me know how it goes.}