Since Mother Eve in the Garden long ago

I was going to try to write, wasn't I? Ugh. Translating is much easier, might be doing that instead. I just don't feel the urge at all.

Hope I didn't make an ass of myself on Tumblr, but it does bother me when someone has clearly gotten pictures from my own blog and doesn't link back to the page. They're not actually mine, and I don't want to be pompously ordering people around by claiming academic cred, but ... it just seems wrong to me. I dunno, I can never evaluate myself well because I've always been a little obsessed with getting the credit I believe I deserve.

I wrote to SewVacDirect through Amazon to see about replacing my dress form - the guy said he'd check with his manager because it's been such a long time, almost a year, but since I haven't hurt it at all I'm hopeful. Although part of me wonders if they didn't just send me a large by mistake, and I don't actually need a small. If they won't replace it, I'm going to try to surgically fix it, because it's doing me no good the way it is now.

There was drama at work today! Someone I used to talk to - but sort of dropped off with because we had gone over all of our similarities and she never brought up any new topics - sat down and told me that we talked about what I'm interested in, but then when she brought up things she was interested in I shut down and gave her "disinterested vibes". I apologized because I know that I have a very flat effect, and unless I'm so excited that I'm animated my presentation tends to be low-energy, but she actually said no, that's not it. Bzuh? Melissa thinks she's somewhat jealous because I am animated with Sean and do a lot with him during the day - but it's silly of her, because the reason I do that is Sean asks me to walk to the cafe, etc. and comes up with all kinds of random conversation topics to distract himself during the day. So weird. And not only did she say all this despite the fact that I'm leaving there in a few weeks, she specifically said that she was telling me because I was leaving.

The whole thing made me really stressed and paranoid the rest of the day, so I'm not planning on adjusting my talking-to-her habits at all.

( more Death Comes to Pemberley )

A few days ago I bought this ebook, Bitch in a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen From the Stiffs, the Snobs, the Simps and the Saps, and my feelings are thus far SUPER, SUPER MIXED. Because on the one hand, there is a strong vibe of "sit down, ladies, and let a MAN tell you how Austen SHOULD be read!" But on the other hand, the actual words that are written on the page (so far) I completely agree with. There's little that's groundbreaking for me in the analysis (and I've heard he's really anti-Fanny Price), but ... it's just refreshing when people talk about Jane Austen as a satirist rather than a romance writer.

No longer must the Darcys be confined to “three or four families in a country village”. This “little bit of ivory” has grown up and gone to London.

- review of 'Second Impressions', a P&P sequel

And there my interest dissipates.

Hm, I might order this from the library based on the NYT review. Specifically:

"But little social credit can be expected from the brutal dispatch of an undistinguished captain of the infantry, without money or breeding to render him interesting."
...
The greatest pleasure of this novel is its unforced, effortless, effective voice. James hasn’t written in florid cod-­Regency whorls, the overblown language other mimics so often employ. Not infrequently, while reading Death Comes to Pemberley, one succumbs to the impression that it is Austen herself at the keyboard. When Lizzy observes her girlhood friend Charlotte Lucas deftly wrangling her pompous, tedious husband, Mr. Collins (whose hand Lizzy had spurned), her admiration for Charlotte’s artfulness could scarcely be improved upon by the woman who dreamed these characters up: "She consistently congratulated him on qualities he did not possess in the hope that, flattered by her praise and approval, he would acquire them."

It just sounds like it has Austen's edge that so many sequels/imitators lack. But at the same time the plot doesn't really grab me. Maybe after I finish the first Lymond book (YES I AM TRYING FOR THE THIRD TIME. I'm already twice as far as I was last time).

Season 2 might have been "Glee's" highest-rated season yet, but showrunner Ryan Murphy has heard a lot of the criticisms about the season -- even from hardcore Gleeks -- and is ready to do something about it.

The creator of the hit Fox show has made his position on Season 3 quite clear: Few guest stars. Less songs.

Who made that criticism? Who was saying, "Oh, Glee is great, the only thing I'd change is take out some of the songs"?

So I put down The Watsons. Skipped to the end, saw that Emma ended up with an OMC, rolled my eyes. (Instead I'm reading When Beauty Tamed the beast, omg, tartanboxers, you were right, so amazing.) So now I will treat you to everything that annoyed me about Aiken's additions.

( My irritation is probably OTT, but even badfic writers tend to stick to canon better )

ETA: Oh! Forgot the most annoying bit. In skimming through the rest of the book, I noticed to my horror that after vol. 1 of Mr. Watson's collected sermons is published (after being prepared by Emma, of course), Aiken totally used the bit from Austen's life with the Prince Regent ~giving permission~ for her to dedicate the next volume to him. And, you know, she did that in Eliza's Daughters, too, with Elinor writing Austen's novels. So much no.