Well, we *are* pretty close...

From My Therapist's Dog, by Diana Wells:

Women could once be condemned as witches for having too close a friendship with black dogs, which were associated with the devil....

Ruh-roh.

Just cut it out!

I'm going to have a little rant here; forewarned is forearmed.

I just finished reading Anna Quindlen's novel Rise and Shine. I like her writing, I liked the story, but for the love of all that's holy, why do so many books end with everyone happily coupled, and having children? I'm not ruining anything: this is true of a lot of books written by women and for women. Oh, in this book, everyone also has meaningful work. That's what is meant by "having it all."

Not all of us have it all, or even want it all. There are other paths to happiness and fulfillment. And I'm really pretty satisfied with my life when books like this are not making me feel like a freak and a weirdo.

What is it about the status quo that makes it need such constant bolstering?

Watching eleventy-seven versions of "Pride and Prejudice"

I think every woman in the world agrees that the best "Pride and Prejudice" movie is the BBC series with Colin Firth. Once we saw C. Firth as Mr Darcy, we couldn't get behind anyone else. So I have to wonder why people continue to adapt it. But I suppose classics must be re-adapted from time to time. Each generation seems to need its own version.

The other night, I saw the newest version featuring Keira Knightley as Elizabeth and Matthew McFadyen as Mr Darcy. I did enjoy it and thought that all the actors did a good job interpreting their characters. A 2-hour movie can't do the book justice, but I was surprised by some of the things that were changed. This example may seem small to some, but I assure you it is not: when Mr Darcy is fidgeting around just before proposing to Elizabeth, one expects his first words to be "In vain have I struggled." This is a direct quote from the book. In the newest version, Mr Darcy says "I have struggled in vain." So pedestrian. And when you're expecting a famous line, changing it is not a good idea.

I also found it difficult to tell Kitty and Lydia apart, which annoyed me because I thought I recognized the actress who played Kitty, but the camera never stayed on her face long enough for me to tell. It was in fact the same actress who played Ada Clare in the recent Bleak House done by Masterpiece Theater, but I only knew that by looking on imdb. There was a lot of rushing around in the movie, and that was pretty distracting.

The script also made Elizabeth pretty mouthy. At one point she says something to her mother that was pretty unforgivable, and that no Elizabeth true to the book would have said.

The other thing I didn't like too much was that, while cutting the story ruthlessly, the movie showed long, and I do mean long, contemplative moments and landscapes. It was too much and I was sorry to have them instead of more dialogue -- and I actually do appreciate contemplative moments.

All that being said, the major speeches were all there, and the actors were good. I even liked Mr Darcy. He had the right amount of smoldering good looks and a face that lit up when he finally smiled. One of my favorite scenes, though, was one I acted out for drama class in high school: the scene between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth. Judi Dench was amazing -- the scene was, I think, even better than in the BBC version. And that's saying something.

Naturally, when doing the scene in drama class, I played Lady Catherine. It had a major effect on my personality of course, and to this day I remain haughty, disdainful, presumptuous, and self-important.

Back at work

Somehow I find it comforting to be back at work... but I also found it comforting to be at home. I feel that with Christmas over, the new year has already begun. I know that's not technically true, but I'm taking this new year energy and using it to get organized again. Organization and concentration are two of the first things to go for me when I'm depressed (and anemic, evidently) and now that I'm back to normal, or as normal as I get, I have the means to get organized again.

Nothing makes me feel more organized than a clean desk and all my tasks set in my Palm. So I'm taking time to do that today.

I had a lovely Christmas, very laid back, with Chinese take out with friends on the day itself, followed by an evening of playing carnival games on their Wii. Who knew I would enjoy shooting ducks so much?? In some ways it felt wrong for a vegetarian, but in other ways it felt oh so right.

I took the tree down yesterday, swearing I would never put it up again. It's true that I swear this every year, because it's a pain for one person to wrangle the tree. There was a lot of very profane language and I had to reassure the dogs mightily when it was all over. I think I really might not put up a tree again. I like having my living room back to normal.

New Year's Resolutions

I know, I'm a week early, but I'm minimizing Christmas (other than a wonderful celebration with M and her family on the day itself) and maximizing the new year. Some years I don't make resolutions but this year I decided to make one to improve myself and another to make myself more happy (which would also be improving myself, but it's not as hard).

The self-improvement one has something to do with forgiveness. I'm still trying to hammer out what that means, how to reconcile the decision to forgive with one's irrational feelings, etc etc. Meanwhile, I'm practicing on road rage. Instead of cursing or calling people (from within my car, I don't yell it out the window or anything) "stupid," I'm trying to think of them as simply making a mistake, or having some reason for driving so slowly at rush hour with 87 cars behind them, or needing to get to the hospital as they speed by me on the interstate. I'm working on it. For one thing, I don't think it's right to judge people as stupid or not stupid. Yes, I know that intelligence exists at higher levels in some than others. I just don't think someone not being as smart as someone else is a good reason to be dismissive of them, and I want to stop doing it (although I really only do it in the context of driving).

Whew. Now for the fun resolution, which is to do something creative every week. I've decided to exclude blog posts, even though they are creative (or can be), in order to get myself to do something more visual. I have decided to share my efforts on the blog, at least partially to show people that you don't have to be good to be creative and to get a great deal of pleasure out of creating. I think too many people have the creativity beaten out of them in their school years. I sure did. But as an adult I've learned how to play more with art supplies, and what fun it is to do so. I often don't carve out the time to do it, though, thus the resolution.

And here is today's excursion in watercolors:



Two extreme close-ups:



PS Yes, I'm feeling better. Yesterday was a sad day because of a funeral. But I was sad, not depressed. I had an iron infusion on Friday. Evidently the restless legs (no, it's not a joke diagnosis) was mucking with my sleep enough to exhaust me. Plus the new meds have possibly kicked in.

A sad day

Today is the anniversary of my mother's sudden death six years ago. Although of course with time the pain has eased, the anniversary never passes by unnoticed. The date is especially memorable given its proximity to Christmas.

I'm afraid I marked the day this year with excessive irritation at everything around me. It wasn't until the evening that I realized I was being so intolerant and impatient. Of course, this mostly involved muttering to myself and no real harm was done to anyone else, but it's an interesting reaction to sadness. It's hard to feel real sadness during the work day, when one is out and about in the world. So I guess it gets transmuted into anger or frustration.

And with that, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow will be better.

But the most amazing thing to me is...

...I get paid for doin' this (with apologies to Steve Martin). It's actually one of those "I went to college for this???" days, which I think occur in most jobs.

Today I have typed dictated letters, printed out holiday cards, folded holiday cards, stuffed holiday cards into envelopes... evidently, being a design goddess wasn't enough -- you design it, you fold, stuff, and mail it! That's ok, though, this time of year is so hectic that it was nice to sit down and do some mindless work while listening to one of my Pandora radio stations, "Insensitive." It's not truly insensitive -- with Pandora, you start with one song and then the station builds from there, and I chose "Insensitive" by Jann Arden. The biggest problem with the station is weeding out the whiny boys. Somehow the whiny girls don't bother me (and of course not all the boys are whiny).

Last night I was thinking about forgiveness -- I think something or someone reminded me of it, because I suddenly thought "what if I just forgave everybody for everything?" I have been thinking on and off of what that would mean and how I would go about it. I think I've tried so hard in my life to understand behavior, to figure out what motivates everyone, that sometimes I get stuck on behavior that I can't understand, or I make the fundamental attribution error and conclude that it has something to do with me, that it's personal, when it probably usually isn't. I mean, I don't know. These are preliminary thoughts.

Also, it's impossible for me to think about forgiveness with getting Don Henley's song, The Heart of the Matter, stuck in my head.