Unpopular Opinion

Okay, I know -- I know -- that Loyal is going to kill me for saying it, and the DD will be none too pleased, and all that. And I am really sorry. But I have to get it off my chest.

I just reread The Golden Compass. And, well. It had all the problems I remembered it having.

To get a few things out of the way -- it's a good book. I've got no qualms with it theologically. I'd still recommend it to people, I certainly don't have anything against people who like it. I just bought the whole trilogy from the Store, because my sister STOLE my copies. (She has stolen so many of my books. Eeeeevil.)

But with all that said, it just doesn't hang together quite as well as Pullman seems to think it does. For one thing, Lyra is just not that sympathetic to me. She's like Hamlet -- she reads like a symbolic figure, not a realistic character. And I know she all ends up being Eve, and prophecy this, and chosen one that, but Harry Potter managed to be all prophesied about and chosen and Christlike and all and still managed to make me care about his family life, which is something I just can't muster up for Lyra. She gets better in the later books, and I like Will okay, but they both necessarily have a mixture of mature world-weariness and childlike cluelessness which I don't find remotely convincing.

And really, I think the whole story kind of has that problem. The daemons, for example, are a really interesting idea, and fun to speculate about and give a lot to the story, and all that. And yet, I still feel like they're there for the express purpose of giving the reader a clear symbol of childhood and adulthood. I feel like the whole idea is there because of that one Bible passage at the end of book one. And certain things about it just aren't adequately explained.

Fundamentally, too, I just disagree with the notion that the only way to become an adult is through some form of sexual initiation. Lyra suffers the horrible guilt of causing a friend's death, she is forced to choose between separating herself from her own soul and betraying her friend yet again, she is betrayed and held captive by her father, her mother, and several others, if memory serves, and yet she doesn't reach spiritual adulthood until she discovers the joys of making out with a twelve-year-old? It seems to me that the device of the daemons and their permanent form is so that the reader has a way of knowing when Pullman thinks Lyra has grown up, because otherwise it really would be completely unclear. To me being an adult has a lot to do with learning to take responsibility for your actions, and the consequences they have on other people, not anything necessarily physical. I realize that some people don't seem to ever hit this milestone -- or give no evidence of having hit it, anyway -- but some people are never sexually initiated, either, or not until they're in their twenties or thirties or forties. The idea just seems shoddy to me in certain ways.

But that's really my problem with the whole thing, the whole book, the whole series. It's so detailed and vivid and well-thought-out, and everything is there, and yet in certain ways it seems written not to tell a story, but to prove a point, to make a statement, and that just annoys me, every time. I don't mind books that say true things about life, obviously -- hi, degree in philosophy. But a book like Pride and Prejudice, a poem like Tintern Abbey, a play like Arcadia -- they tell me different things every time I read them, based on where I am, and what I'm thinking about, and what parts I choose to focus on. With His Dark Materials, there is some of that, but there's also some of the feeling that the only two possible responses are to disagree with Pullman or to agree with him, and in the end, that's not very interesting. Because in some ways I agree, and in some ways I disagree, but I can't do much give and take if the author doesn't allow me any leeway.

Please don't hate me, Loyal. If it makes you feel any better, I have really similar problems with Hamlet, and to some degree even The Chronicles of Narnia. And Squeak forgave me Hamlet, and Jay (from college) forgave me Narnia. And hey, you can always dismiss me as a moron who sometimes has been known to pay good money to watch The O.C. (Soooo shallow. My only excuse is that I had a Christmas present to finish making.)

Questions... Questions That Need Answering

These are my questions today:

1. Who is going to crack me up today? The Christmas season is annoying in certain ways (obviously) but there seem to be higher percentages of customers who ... how can I say this? Who could easily be satirized in a Jane Austen novel, how about that. Like the older couple in last Monday, who appeared so confused that I stopped "shelving" (read: reading) and asked if they needed help. I got them sorted out, and heard the woman tell her husband triumphantly, "You see, Frank? All we had to do was ask!"

2. What does The Guy I Have My Eye On think about me? I know, I know, so shallow. But I haven't gone remotely ga-ga over a boy in almost a year and a half, so I am due. And this guy is cute and sweet and polite, and I can't tell if he has his eye on me back, or if he's just a nice guy. And there is no one I can ask.

3. When is the guy whose room I took going to move off the couch? He's a nice guy, and I totally understand the legarthy that seizes one at the prospect of moving out, especially packing up one's stuff and moving to another country, but they put the ad in, I only answered it, and it has been a full month since I moved in. Again, I have no objections to him personally, but the house really isn't big enough for four, and he spends forever in the bathroom.

4. Where are all these ants coming from? Look, my friends, the buffet table is CLOSED. I thought I made that perfectly clear when I took all the dirty dishes out of my room and then squirted you all with Windex.

5. How am I going to find time to go to the city and get my nose ring adjusted? Which it needs, sometime before Christmas. In broader terms, how is it that I have loads of time to spend goofing off checking my email and such, and none at all to do the research I am supposed to be doing? How can I make time for dates with old college chums (not date-dates, see above. Just hang-out dates) but not to sit down at the library and do some good old-fashioned research? How does my internal time management even work?

6. Why don't I like any modern playwrights except Stoppard? I saw a play last night, by an award-winning playwright, and it seriously just sounded like Lionel's efforts from season two of Slings & Arrows. I mean, don't get me wrong, the staging was excellent and the story reasonably compelling, but the dialogue just... did nothing for me. Why is that? It's not just this guy, it's pretty much any play that's been written in the last twenty or thirty years, except musicals, Stoppard, and the short plays my friend Tangy used to write when we were teenagers.

Not FAIR

You know what is not fair? Do you know what is playing in London right now? Right this very moment?

-Patrick Stewart is playing Macbeth
-Ian McKellan is playing King Lear
-Ewan McGregor is playing Iago

I mean, shit. AND I AM MISSING IT!!! All of it, I am missing. All that is going on, and I am stuck here where I cannot see a bit of it. SO SAD.

I don't miss Europe, but if I were there right now, I can tell you, I would be in London seeing this stuff. For a long weekend, at the very least. Possibly two or three long weekends so I could see it two or three times. (Shut up, London theater is wicked cheap.) Sometimes I am here and I think about it and jump up and down with frustration.

Of course, if I weren't here, would I be helping the OS cast a show? Not so much. So...

Cast, Cast, Cast, Cast

We are (knock on a lot of wood) basically cast for The Winter Thing. The last round of auditions was today, and everyone feels pretty good about the final part. And yay!

I really like our cast. But even more than I like them, I'm anxious to see them play off each other. If we (by which I mean mostly the OS, of course) can take these people and this script and build it into this really beautiful ensemble show, it will be so far beyond awesome. Ah, the fun of having so much potential and then the headache of having to live up to it! But it is so exciting for me to be working on it. ("Working" in the loosest sense of the word, of course. Mostly I stay quiet, and note things, and think about them.) But it gives me so much to think about, and of course I learn a lot every time I go in there. In a couple weeks I'll get to sit in on a design meeting, which will be really interesting (and informative. I suck at design).

I am of course, the country bumpkin. But I am the country bumpkin who is there, not the one who can't seem to break in anywhere, and that's one of the things I love. As well as the theater itself, of course!

Crisis of American Values

All those reports about how Americans read only like four books a year or whatever, and no one can read anymore? Whoever did those studies needs to spend a week working retail in a bookstore in December. (For God's sake, it's not even December yet. It's bad enough now Thanksgiving is past.) Also all those people who were like, oh, there's a recession, so post-Thanksgiving sales are down, and blah blah blah. They should work retail too.

Because it's all nonsense. The world is full to bursting with people who want books, and aren't sure what books they want, and and are appalled -- appalled, I tell you! -- when we don't have the book they aren't sure they want, and do we have any recommendations for a blind parakeet who hates books and can't read, and why not, don't we call ourselves a bookstore?

Sweet Christ, does no one stay home and watch TV anymore?

The World Makes Sense Again

Is it only me who has this bizarre sense of relaxation when her room is clean? Perhaps my mother scarred me at an early age. But as ways to relax go, it's a relatively simple -- if sadly rare -- one. And last Wednesday I got it in spades, as I unpacked my last box, took out my last trash bag, and threw my back out with my last piece of furniture. So of course I spent Turkey Day hobbling about and getting my small cousin to walk along my spine.

Other than that, Turkey Day was great fun. Good food, family, chess. I teamed up with a couple of family members against my uncle, who is actually good at chess. He gave us a bishop to even it up a little, and between that and coaching from my stepdad (what I actually mean by "coaching" is that every time my hand moved toward a piece, he would raise his eyebrows and inquire, "Are you sure you want to do that?") I actually made it in to a fairly even endgame. then my brain failed and I went off to play with more relaxing family members.

But now I am back home and have the benefit of the clean room and cookies from my grandma, and it is all very wholesome and relaxing. Plus, I got a holiday bonus today, which, double yay! Just when I was starting to use up my credit! So all is peaceful and happy, except that there was another round of callbacks today (which I sadly could not attend) and now I really want to know how the OS cast the show. I'm not antsy, like I would be if I were somehow up for a part or something, but I still really want to know. It's the same kind of overpowering academic interest that leads me to buy so many books.

That's what I mean about my life making sense, you know?

Little House Near the Train Tracks

I'm moved! I've moved! It's so exciting.

I'm still unpacking, of course, and I need a few more things before I'll be truly settled, but I've made great strides and I am loving the new place. My own room! Sleeping on a bed again! having most of my books out so I can read them at will! All in all, I am extremely pleased.

Of course, I still need a dresser, and groceries are expensive, and I can no longer walk to work. But the good far outweighs the bad.

Maybe I Should Just Cut and Paste That Last Entry and Use it as a Default

For this week, at least. What do I like? Theater. What do I hate? Packing. What is just there? Work.

And... that was yesterday. First work, which mostly went well, although by the end I was tired and hungry and therefore over-sensitive. Then dinner with dad, which was good. I tried to explain about casting and how we only get a total of two AEA people, one of whom has been cast, and why that made it difficult. I'm not sure how much Dad appreciated the explanation, but heh.

Then I got home, and forayed into the basement. Sigh. On the plus side, I accomplished some good stuff; I found lots of stuff I was pleased to see again, and many things were sorted. ("Trash or Sell", "Storage", "Taking With Unless There's No Room In Which Case Storage," "Definitely Take With," "Um, Where in God's Name Did I Pick That Up?") On the minus side, I have butt-ton of crap, most of which is now dirty and/or bent out of shape from its life below stairs. Anyway, I burned out on that, came back upstairs, and tried to stretch my back back into shape (of course my back picks the weekend that I'm moving to throw itself out. Of course).

And then got on a long phone call with the OS about callbacks, namely how we are scheduling them, how we absolutely don't have enough time for them AT ALL, which sides we are making the actors read, where those sides should begin and end, is that one side too long, but if it is, how do we cut it down, because it's got great transitions and it's all important, and God, Shaw, why can't you make this guy shut up occasionally, etc., etc., etc. It sounds crazy but it was great fun. Eventually we just had to read the sides aloud and time them.

The fact that I love conversations like that is another tick in the "director" column. After auditions on Sunday it was lunch with the OS and her friend, an actor who read opposite the auditioning people, and we were talking about whom to call back. More than once he was like, I'm glad it's you two making the decisions and not me. And I sort of see what he means, because I'm glad that the OS has the final say and I don't, because I trust her judgment a lot more than I trust mine. But that doesn't stop me from having actual really clear and defined opinions about people, and casting, and seeing people opposite and all that. And looking at how a bunch of disparate things work together and enjoying trying to make them make sense.

(I like ticks in the director column, even as they make me a little uncomfortable. They make me feel like I'm being myself, which is nice; but it's odd to think about it as something I'm good at, because I still feel like everyone in the world could do it better than me if they just put their mind to it, so I end up feeling presumptuous. ADing for the OS is a really good middle ground between those feelings, what with the her listening to me and then making her own decisions.)

Ah, the ramblings of the post-collegiate. Someone needs to smack me.

Today, I have lunch with the DD. Lunch with the DD and the OS in the same week! So happy. I swear to God, one day I am going to introduce them to each other and then just... stand back. It will be great. And I will feel awkward because I am actually taller than both of them, which just feels so wrong.

Anyway. Yes, lunch with the DD. Who says she has made me a birthday cake, possibly because she is one of the sweetest people ever. And we will talk about how she is really for reals restarting PRs, and how that is some of the best news ever. (She's starting with the perfect combo, too.)

Okay, now I'm really just putting off packing and working and moving. HAAAAAAAAATE. I could ramble on about this stuff all day if it meant I didn't have to pack, but alas. I do have to pack. I have to pack and do laundry, all the livelong day. And cough until I choke on my own mucous. It is extremely irritating.

The Sort the World is Mostly Made of, I Should Think

So the good is, auditions put me in a great mood. Working with the OS, getting introduced as "the AD," (which totally gives me chills -- shut up, I'm young yet), listening to the readers' and stage manager's opinions of the actors, sorting headshots, not having to do any auditioning myself, just sitting there with notes and opinions... so much fun. Plus, eye candy in the form of the totally hot house manager, with whom I bonded over the having of a yucky cold. The OS said thank you a time or two and I was like, "um, you're welcome, for doing my most favorite thing ever," (no, seriously, I actually said that), and that pretty much sums it up. I still want the play to start tomorrow, but I'm going to use the intervening time well, in researching and thinking and all that good stuff. I still have to reread the play like sixty more times. (Ah, for the halcyon days of college, when the first time I would read a play I was directing was at the first cast readthrough. Heh. Bad plan, guys. Don't do that. Incidentally, what exactly is a halcyon, and why is it used to describe days?) (I piqued my own curiosity. Apparently I'm not using it incorrectly, which is a relief.)
The bad, of course, is that I am moving in two, count 'em, two days, and I have not packed. Because I have been too sick, and also because I loathe packing with every fiber of my being. Hate it. Cannot stand it. There are not enough negative words in English to describe how I feel about the necessity of packing. Everything good I feel about theater is canceled out by everything bad I feel about packing, and I assure you that that is quite a feat. I am excited to be moved in, but I am completely un-excited about packing. Even unpacking is better than actually packing. With unpacking you can organize and make a home for yourself. Packing, it's just realizing how much crap you have. Haaaate.

And that pretty much sums up my state of mind. Plus some vague worries about work scheduling, annoyance at still having the sniffles, and a sense of fun 'cause I finally joined my local alumni chapter, and will have the chance to meet up with some college friends soon. Whom I can face now that I will no longer be living with my parents. Whee!

Sick Day

Under orders from my manager, I took the day off work today. (No, I haven't changed at all since college.) Yesterday I had such bad laryngitis that I couldn't speak at all, and my coworkers were sympathetic and/or teasing, depending on their temperaments. But when my manager found out, she called me at home and said for God sakes, if I'm not feeling well, stay home. So, today I did.

I was actually feeling better than yesterday, but since I've been coughing up mucous like I just got saved from drowning, so I figured that wasn't a good sign. So I started a new mystery novel (even though I haven't finished Clouds of Witness yet -- I am so fickle, but I can't help it, I missed Mary Russell) and watched like four hours of Veronica Mars, and dosed myself with cough syrup regularly, and felt pretty useless. But I was determined to stay home and suck it up, because tomorrow I have a double day and I am going to both if it kills me.

Tomorrow morning are auditions for The Winter Thing, which I am going to as "an extra pair of eyes," and I've missed so much work this week that if I don't go there tomorrow afternoon I will be eaten up with guilt. The supportive people I surround myself with are so great -- my Manager, and the OS would both say to stay home, in a heartbeat, and not to push myself, etc., etc. Which it's great to have, don't get me wrong -- it's for sure an influence on myself that I need, as anyone who knew me in college would attest (loudly and prolifically). Because my tendency is absolutely the other way -- the cold will go away sooner or later, I think, so I might as well work through it. (Isn't this the attitude that ended up giving me two or three potentially very serious illnesses and several nervous breakdowns while in school? Why, yes. Yes, it is. Have I learned anything? No. No, I have not.)

But if I missed tomorrow I would have to throw something very heavy, possibly at my own head, and then no one would benefit. Well, someone might, but not me. So I rested today that I may work my ass off tomorrow, which may be considered progress by some. What, like I'm going to miss auditions for this thing.

Play! Yay!

I could SAY that all DAY. Hurray!

Shut up, no one asked your opinion of my poetry.

The Winter Thing is started! I can stop crossing my fingers (I hope. I'm going to leave them crossed for now.)!

I had a meeting with Omnipotent Softy today, to talk scheduling and interpretation and stuff. And we only just scratched the surface, but that's okay, there will be plenty of time for in-depth stuff before and during rehearsals. And I love, love, love talking play-stuff. I got on the BART train home and wrote two pages in my notebook about one of the main characters, based on the conversation. (Now I have to do it for the other five.) And we talked procedure and some stuff I was worried about was sorted out. I am so excited about this. Directing always makes me feel so much me, like my education and thoughts and perspective are all coming together like they're supposed to.

I also like the way the OS listens to me when I talk. It's a really simple thing, but it's energizing, like being back in college, to talk to someone who knows their stuff and yet listens to me as if I knew mine. This is very good for me, as it helps me stop being self-deprecating every third sentence. The Divine Dictator has been doing it for years, only with books, so I barely notice anymore, but I haven't know the OS for nearly as long, and I'm much less sure of myself with theater than with books. But she listens so definitively and responds before I remember to equivocate. It saves a lot of time when I just say what I think and don't finish every sentence with "of course, I don't really know, I'm not a real director." OS does not put up with that sort of nonsense, so I don't say it, to the benefit of the conversation.

Anyway, so we got caught up on The Winter Thing, her telling me her basic thoughts about concept and us just discussing each character in turn, scratching the surface. There are so many weird things in this play, besides even the challenge of making all the characters real people instead of mouthpieces for opinions. I would never have taken it on in college, but I am so, so excited now. Working on plays that are a little too hard for me is the best ever; I always learn so much about everything.

So now I can't stop thinking about it and wanting to talk about it more more more. It's lucky December and January are such busy months at The Store, such that there would be absolutely No Way I could attend rehearsals of anything at all, let alone a full-length Real Show. Otherwise I would be wicked upset that it doesn't get going for reals right this very minute. My attention span is roughly that of a gnat when it comes to theater.

In other news, I have lost my voice. Sigh. Croak.

You'd Think I'd Be Sick of Books

What with having to organize and shelve them all day and then reading them all night.

Okay, I am a little out of patience with certain books, and am becoming pickier by the day. The newest restraint is that I have sworn off all books with a picture of the author on the front cover. I don't want to see anyone's ugly mug, smiling or not, on the cover of a book, ever again. If you want the world to admire your face, be a movie star.

But I'm still reading, doggedly paring down my list. (It's at an honest-to-God manageable five now. Still overloaded with non-fiction, though. Nonfiction is good but often takes longer to finish than fiction does. But my weekend is here, and enough of it shall be spent on public transportation that I should be able to knock some stuff off there.)

Soon I Will Be Invincible had its good and bad bits, but the end was so good that it made up for the rest. I didn't like the whole first-person present tense point of view thing. Was not a fan. And, you know, Grossman could have given us more answers, that would have been okay. But there was so much cleverness in the world he created, particularly in Doctor Impossible. Doctor Impossible was pretty much perfect. I love Doctor Impossible. Anyway. So parts of it were disappointing, but it was clever enough that I forgave them.

In other news, I'm in theater withdrawal, and if I didn't have The Winter Thing to look forward to, I might be in danger of killing my sister, who is overloaded on theater at the moment. Or at least tying her up and taking her place in certain situations. But I do have The Winter Thing, and it starts this week. Unofficially starts this week. Theoretically. It's all I can do not to cross my fingers every time I think about The Winter Thing. Theater withdrawal means I am much more dramatic in my everyday life, and begin to hyperventilate when I think about theater stuff I will soon be doing.

Birthday Part Deux: The Haul

I did, I did, I did get a little piece of metal jammed into my nose. It hurt like hell for a few seconds -- I actually got light-headed -- but now I love it. My piercer was really sweet. For the record, ladies and gentlemen -- Body Manipulations, in San Francisco. Highly recommended. My stepdad said it looks like gold-plated acne, but he is just jealous. Actually, it is very cute.

Among the rest of the haul: I found a leather jacket at the Crossroads on Fillmore St. for under thirty bucks. Mine, mine! I thought, and so it was. So in about four hours I upped my badass quotient by a factor of ten. It was a wicked good deal.

And then I got home, and was presented with a) yummy yummy dinner of many favorite things, b) birthday cake -- chocolate with raspberries, c) a book about the philosophy of Shakespeare (YAY) and d) Slings & Arrows, all three seasons. Sigh. I win, I think.

Happy Birthday To Me

I live in a tree...

Wait, that's not right.

By the grace of God, I have made it out of that terrible year of twenty-two, and can now join the rest of the world, heaving a huge sigh of relief and relaxation. Twenty-three is BOUND to be better. It can't HELP but be better. I am so excited about twenty-three. Twenty-three is young enough to still be hip and ignorant, and old enough that I don't look like a misplaced college student. Twenty-three is old enough to do everything fun without being all self-conscious about being old enough to do everything fun. Twenty-three is going to be awesome.

It's already getting off to a much better start than twenty-two (knock on wood). I've found an apartment. "The winter thing" worked out, and soon I start work on a play -- with Omnipotent Softy, which is really exciting. I have a good job. I am working on my issues. I am making friends. I'm going to be fine, this year. Thank God.

And I am celebrating it with new clothes, a trip to the city, and possibly a piece of metal jammed into my nose.

Books Books Lots of Books

In today's (okay, yesterday's) Very Exciting News, I got a book signed by Nick Hornby. One more benefit of working at The Store. (I didn't meet him, but he inscribed a [used] copy of The Polysyllabic Spree to me, me, me, which makes me really happy. Especially because it's the book of his I'd been wanting to read forever, it came through used, and now it is inscribed to me. Sigh. Contentment.)

Anyway. I also found out the date I will be moving (in about two weeks); I bought a big fat Nazi book new from The Store -- I can always justify buying new books to myself, because I pay a used price for them. (For used books, I pay bargain basement prices.) So that is exciting right now. But when you put those two pieces of information together, and realize that I will have to get all my books into boxes and moved out of my parents' basement in scant two weeks, then suddenly it becomes rather more ominous.

A Place, It is Found

IT has concluded, and I have an apartment!

Actually, I have a bedroom in an apartment. But it is not too far from The Store, it is near public transportation, it seems to have nice people living in it currently, and it is eminently affordable, which is the best part.

So yes, that is Very Happy, and now I get to call and cancel all the other apartments I was planning on seeing, which is exciting.

Ah, Escapism

Which doesn't really work if you're not escaping. That can actually be read two ways.

1. It is time to overhaul my reading list a little bit. The three books I decided to focus on a week or two ago are doing nothing for me. Which is sad, because it's not like I don't like them or anything; they somehow just don't complement each other very well, and I'm losing all my momentum. So. I am switching my nonfiction book (I'm sorry, Victoria Finlay, I fully intend to finish your lovely book, but I can't right now) and my trashy fiction and regular fiction are getting switched into a different trashy fiction. (I'm sorry, Mark Haddon, but so far your second book is just not as interesting as your first. And no one loved Curious Incident more than I did, but... this one is just not hitting right, at least not yet. And I've given you a hundred pages already, so pick it up, dude! It's hitting too close to home to be entertaining, and not close enough to be touching. Sorry, man.) (I am not sorry to you, Laurie King, because I am either switching a Kate Martinelli book for a Mary Russell book -- both of which are written by you, and you have publicly admitted to agreeing with me that the Russells are more interesting -- or I am taking a break from you altogether to read some Dorothy Sayers, which I think you would also wholeheartedly approve of, given how much you love Sayers yourself.) Anyway. So, book switching time.

2. Seeing King Lear was much more fun than I expected, but not really the escapism I was expecting. A shout-out to my RKs, I am continually impressed with you guys. When I was in high school, I can't remember ever complaining that the people I was doing theater with weren't dedicated enough. Hot shit, you guys. At the same time, the show made me realize all over again how much I am itching and aching to direct something. I know I can't shut up about it, either in person or online, but its ferocity keeps taking me by surprise. God I am praying that this winter thing works out.

Three Reasons to Love My Job

1. Today a complete genealogy of the characters of Greek mythology came through The Store. Through like with a laxative, because it is going to be sold to me. I love the people I work with, who go out of their way to show me things I might like.

2. I am leaving my shift an hour early today, to go see King Lear with the other RKs. My manager barely batted an eyelash.

3. This is the only place I can think of working where I like coming to work on a rainy day. I mean, back me up here, bookstores are seriously some of the best places to be on a rainy day, no? I've no doubt I'll get sick of it eventually, but I still feel... cozy, here, when it rains. Compare and contrast to France, where I was miserable every day it rained (so basically... every day) because I hated slogging through the mud or biking through the puddles. Just walking to the bookstore has a whole different feel.

UGGHHHH

IT has begun.

IT is the Great Apartment Search of 2007. I swore up and down to myself I'd be seriously looking by the time my birthday rolled around (and it's in two weeks, so I'm sticking to that deadline anyway) and moved in by Christmas. But oh, my God, is IT ever a pain in the ass. I hate IT already and I only started IT today. And I can tell I'm going to be talking about nothing else for the next month, or however long it takes me to find someplace. WAAAAHHH. In France I had people doing this FOR me. (Because I couldn't speak the language, not because I'm incompetent.) But now I want someone to do IT for me HERE. Whine whine whine WHINE.

I've called two places (set up an appointment at one of them) and emailed like, three or four more, so that gets me started. But yuck, anyway. Yuck yuck yuck. I hate IT. I am trying to be responsible, but IT is just an all out pain in the butt. Maybe if I had someone to blame, IT would be easier, but as IT is...

Okay, I will be positive. I have nothing specific to complain about (except for how I can't find a frigging apartment in BERKELEY because they are all psycho-eco-friendly and want you to swear you'll never use shampoo that might have murdered a rodent).

Anyway, I'll keep you updated. Probably grumpily.

New Obsession

Well, it's not really new; it just has a new form.

Those acquainted with me for longer lengths of time will remember my obsession with all things Robin Hood. Oh, admittedly it was at its height when I was about nine, back when I owned my own quiver full of arrows and unstrung longbow, back when I took archery classes, back when I'd read everything the public library had on the subject, back when he was only my second-ever book crush.

But I never entirely got over it; when I did my "Book Tour" of England with Elfcat, we stopped at Sherwood Forest (which IS a real place, just like Ithaca is a real place, which I've known since I was a little kid and which may explain a lot about my persistent inability to entirely separate truth and fiction). I've calmed down some, but I still have my favorite variations of the legend, and my own opinions, and I still sort of am drawn to any new ones I haven't run across yet.

Which is why I was so thrilled when I found out the BBC made a television series of Robin Hood, called, wait for it, Robin Hood. I found this out last spring, read some very good reviews of it, wanted it, and was traveling and forgot about it. But now! Now I have remembered, I put it on Netflix (God bless Netflix!) and I am on episode five.

And it's... kind of hilarious. It's absolutely impossible to take it seriously, at any rate. Netflix describes it as having a "modern sensibility" which I think translates to "a total and complete lack of subtlety and a willingness to disregard the rules of historical accuracy whenever they become inconvenient." The Sheriff of Nottingham -- who is this delightfully fey, scenery chomping type and whom I adore -- talks about "winning hearts and minds" away from Robin Hood. A delightfully non-anorexic Maid Marian tells our friend Guy of Gisbourne, who is all broody and square-jawed, that it's barbaric to suspend rights at home simply because there is a war going on in the Holy Land. She also seems to attend the meeting of nobles (where Sir Guy and the Sheriff browbeat the other men into helping with their evil plots) regularly, although in a nod to the complete improbability of this, she is not allowed to sit down and must strike her verbal blows for justice standing behind her father's chair.

And yet... I am loving it. I used to be so picky about my Robin Hood that I couldn't even stomach Men In Tights as a child, and was known to reject whole novels based on Robin not meeting Little John in the proper context. But I seem to have mellowed, because this show is cracking me up and keeping me completely entertained. It makes no logical sense at all (Robin seems to waste arrows as often as breathing, for example) and yet I cannot look away. He and his men are like the Cute and Stupid Brigade. They are always in the throes of cute schemes which they execute stupidly, or stupid schemes which they execute cutely, and the overall effect is adorable, like a child smashing toy trains together. It helps, I guess, that Robin is played by the toothsome Jonas Armstrong, but that's not all of it.

It's one of the TV shows I don't really want to share with my family. Which is odd for me, because normally my sister and I trade TV shows like -- I don't know, what do kids trade nowadays? Pokemon cards? When I was little, it was Pogs, but I think that's only good for telling you exactly how old I am -- anyway, we normally trade all the time, and spend all our time recommending them back and forth, and she's less discriminating than I am. (Short Stuff made it all the way through Angel, for example.) But in this case, it's kind of just dorky and mine. And I am having so much fun with it.