Becoming Jane

Okay, I need to find a well-written biography of Jane Austen, no matter how thin it appears to be. All I seem to know is that not much is known about her, and I feel the urge to expand that knowledge.

My Jane Austen kicks come and go in spurts, but it is consistent that once a spurt ends, it will always come again. This surge is due to the enjoyable movie "Becoming Jane" which released into theaters this weekend. It was nice to see a fairly good crowd at both showings I attended (suuuch a geek), and I hope the movie does well. Anne Hathaway was very charming, and this is definately my favorite role for her yet. She presented the intelligence, irony, and inner beauty which good readers easily find in Jane's works.

And thus my craving appears again. The good news is this will undoubtedly happen to other readers, and we should see a larger smattering of Austen-related products and information on the market over the next few months. I think I'll hit the bookstore after a few errands in town this evening.

And it just occurred to me: while I generally love novelizations of screenplays, if they turn this into a book I may have to strangle them with the irony.

Nothing interesting to say, unless it's to ruminate on the complexities of my current boyfriend, and this doesn't seem an appropriate medium for that. Of course, I don't really spend much time in other mediums, but it's the principle of the thing, right?

So what does one say, then? Something clever and witty, or analytical and sharp (or both, if you're very, very good). Or, in my case, whatever dribble flows down your mind and pops out the fingertips.

I've been doing a fair amount of movie watching recently. Transformers was excellent, by the way, and for a fifth in a series (criminy, it's hard to believe it's been that big a series) Harry Potter was excellent. Actually, HP has done really well, with quality only taking a big drop from 1 to 2, and just staying consistently at about B movie status since then. Fantasy movies seem to be on the upswing, judging by the previews. None of them look very good though, which is a shame. Actually, I think I'm craving something more along the lines of Shooter these days, and Live Free or Die Hard, while fun, was not quite it. Maybe another fun movie with The Rock in it (and yes, I will be seeing his nanny movie when it comes out).

*sigh* well, I've wasted enough time that I can now get off work without taking a hit to my paycheck, so it looks like I wont be blogging long enough to get the creative juices flowing. Shucks :(

Feeling a bit bleary

"Look on the bright side -- at least it won't be Monday tomorrow."

"drive me about town, do a little of that dancing thing I like so much, and hope that he's a stud and can ...." damn if I've forgotten just how that part was phrased. Satisfy me all the way? Basic implication, but not actual words. Which is too bad, because the whole thing is just so funny. Not just because this relationship is all of only two weeks old, and has an approximate three month cap on it (must continue to remember that), but also because it's my boss telling me to "have a good time" for goodness sakes (or one of them, at least).

Quotes

"Love can make a summer fly, or a night seem like a lifetime." Andrew Lloyd Webber

"Love your neighbor as yourself, but don't take down the fence". Carl Sandburg

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

"A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears". Leo Tolstoy

"The way to love anything is to realize it may be lost." G.K. Chesterton

"A fastidious person in the throes of love is a rich source of mirth." Martha Duffy

Starting Over?

I've traveled in and out of the blogger world numerous times now, flitting across multiple providers and posting in floods (usually followed by long droughts). I was recently reading over my old blog from way-back-when, and was distressed to find that I no longer considered it "presentable." Not that there was any objectionable content, but that I was a ashamed of my past views and the potential ramifications of exposing them to my current compatriots. As a credit to my conceit, I'm still rather pleased with my writing style from back then (although I've had to accept that I will probably never learn how NOT to end a sentence with a preposition), but I know that my attempts at... intelligence, if you will... would probably only bring frustration and ridicule from the people I would rather like to impress at the moment. This makes me very sad, since I still treasure those reflections of my past. In a perfect world, I would willingly just start up that blog again, continuing in the tradition of monthly (years) between posts and misrepresented snapshots of my life. But the shame doesn't go away, and so here I am, again, trying to create anew rather than build off the old.

And another thing. Blogging is typically done for other people, although many of us try to fool ourselves into thinking otherwise (myself included). I'm torn between the desire for a journal, where all thoughts are free game, and the desire for an expressive outlet to friends, where all thoughts are potentially-hurt-feelings and complex-relationship-challenges. And, from experience, there is no such thing as a happy medium. Hmmm... Oh well.