I’m not ready to be old and stationary

This time last year I was cutting my losses and packing my life into anal-retentively marked boxes. Now, for the first time since 2005, I’ll be keeping an address for over a year. It feels weird. And I don’t think I like it.

In a world where I send Valentines

Hating on February, I dislike Valentine’s Day by default. This, I am certain, surprises no one: I am not girly, romantic, and I’m almost never in a relationship to reap the benefits, anyway.

However. If I did send Valentines, this is what you’d likely get.

The Man I Followed to Texas

CharlesDickens

Today, February 7th, 2012, is his 200th birthday. London is ablaze with celebrations: Charles and Camilla are visiting the Dickens Museum, Professor Klimaszewski is at his Westminster grave, The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company is performing Dickens in the streets, there’s a world-wide 24-hour read-a-thon of his works, and Cityread London will use Oliver Twist to continue the party into the Spring. And it’s no small feat that Dickens Journals Online released a digitized version of his publications [I helped! All The Year Round Vol. II, New Series No. 50] for the special day.

What do you know about the man behind the face of Victorian literature?

That many of his works were published serially?
He wrote under the pseudonym Boz?
He was pals with someone known as Phiz?
His wife had 10 kids?
He ran off with an actress?
He had an extra hole in his butt?
The Wire named an episode after him
(“The Dickensian Aspect”) and Ludacris is his bro
(“I only hang with chicks that got more twist than Oliver”)?

There’s nothing (well, almost nothing) that I can tell you that you can’t find on any of the thousands of websites spouting Dickens knowledge in honor of this blessed Bicentennial. But besides being an interesting man (how can you write the phrase “gong donkey” and not be interesting), you just have to read his works. That’s really what this hullabaloo is all about: his literature.

Reading Dickens is an experience. Not the lame one you had reading Tale of Two Cities or Great Expectations in high school. It’s astounding what you learn, and how intelligent you feel, if you take the time to understand the social and political climates of Victorian England. Dickens, like Austen if you appreciate her works, wrote remarkable social commentary that reached the masses. His publication history  (periodicals, novels) is a study itself. So use this 200th birthday year as motivation to take the time to read a book–I don’t care if it’s A Christmas Carol (that’s the shortest)–and encounter Dickens and the worlds he simultaneously lived in and created.

To mark this splendid occasion, I will leave you with three things: My favorite Dickens (no, I have not read them all), a totally awesome quiz, and a very simple yet powerful observation.

My top three favorite books by Charles Dickens are Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and Our Mutual Friend. I highly suggest reading them all, but I will admit that Great Expectations can be very dull without the guidance of a classroom and higher education. Our Mutual Friend is fucking brilliant: Dickens at his best–engulfing, crazy characters, and biting social commentary. Oliver Twist is what prompted me to go to grad school–I wrote a paper about it and it’s reincarnation in the neo-Victorian Fingersmith. Now, let’s be real here folks, there’s only one man who could have gotten me to move to Lubbock: I chose Raider Rash over Boston, all for one Charles J. H. Dickens.

Which Dickens Character Are You? Find out here!
(I’m Sidney Carton. How depressing!)

to love is human
“…the most interesting and pardonable of human weaknesses— love.”
-From the Pickwick Papers

Paul’s the Best

I think my favorite part of any Super Bowl (or Iowa football game) is the requisite post-game phone call from my dad:

“Oh boy! What’d you think of that game?”

I respond with some combination of good/great/boring and a critique like, “But seriously, he couldn’t catch that?”

My dad: “[Insert some fact about the winning team's season here] Yep. Okay. Love you, bye.”

::Click::

60 seconds of pure love.

have fun

Never take it seriously. If you never take it seriously, you never get hurt. And if you never get hurt, you always have fun.

-Penny Lane, Almost Famous

Oh shit, OSHA

I can now maintain my balance in all kinds of positions that you would not believe naturally happen during the course of a normal day, like balancing on one foot with your other leg and both arms stretched out in odd directions.

Unless you work the part-time job I do, where your foot is actually anchored to the “do not sit or stand” part of an 8-foot ladder and your arms and leg are desperately trying to help you reach some 20%-off botanical.

Yoga.

Making OSHA violations safer one Vrksasana and Ardha Chandrasana at a time.

Maybe I should just let it be

I was soaking up the 60 degree sun at the sculpture park with friends today, and while staring February in the face, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe it won’t be the bitter old hag I’m used to. Hey January – thanks for the amicable breakup.

Waiting for The Miracle

But at some point I had to choose happiness. I had to make it a priority.

I am really liking this fifth season of Californication. I had my doubts after season four dragged. It was stale. But this–this is nice. It’s a little bit more dramedy, a little less sexmedy. Don’t get me wrong, the shock value is still there, the strange is definitely still there, and Hank’s wiener is still feeling weird. But it’s a good change of pace. Everyone is growing up, or at least trying to. It doesn’t feel like a game anymore. The end of the third episode reminded me of so much of what I loved in the first season. This season itself has breached some interesting topics: overexposure to porn and sex toys. Now, it’s dealt with in a comic manner, but some people I know would have you believe it’s a legitimate issue. In this latest episode, four, Hank got downright put in his place. In front of all his happy friends. And although I think they gave Crazy a little too much self-righteousness, it was refreshing to see it happen.

It’s just… At the end, when Hank’s talking to Karen, I totally feel them both. And being the good little narcissistic blogger that I am, I can’t help but wonder between the two, where I really am now (I know which I tell myself), or where I’m going to be. The miracle is that I’ll get there someday.

What if this is it for me? What if I’m just destined to sit around and wait for the band to get back together.

I feel like this today

I walked to lunch. In the snow. I bought my lunch and ate it. Outside. On a park bench. Without gloves.

If only I had been wearing flannel and eating jerky from a buck I killed.
With my bare hands. Fuckin’ rugged. 

Trying to find the words….

Every time I watch Pride & Prejudice, I see Mary

I look like that when I cry, too.

and think, “She’s this woman?” Daaaaaaaaaaaamn girl.

UK Esquire.

Pirate Radio breakouts

Looking good for something or other

Also: I get freaked out by Georgiana Darcy – Tamzin Merchant plays a huge slut in The Tudors.

She's cute.

She dies.