My Weekend

My weekend was spent reading. Re-reading to be more exact.

I re-read "Wuthering Heights." I re-read "Little Women." I re-read "Mansfield Park." I started to re-read "Northanger Abbey" but stopped to look up something in "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew" and saw "Jane Eyre" mentioned and decided to re-read that instead. But when I pulled out "Jane Eyre" to re-read, I noticed it had mold growing on it. Well, what could be mold. I spilled something on a corner of it, and on that dark spot it looks like there's white mold growing. I'm concerned. I'd rather just buy a new copy. Plus I need a new copy of "Wuthering Heights" anyway, because I broke it. Not the spine, the actual back leaf.

Part of me thinks I'm wasting time re-reading these books when I have Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and "Confederacy of Dunces" waiting for me on the bookshelf, but whatever. Why not do what I want since I have no one else telling me otherwise?

I also watched movies. Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters II. 3:10 to Yuma. The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. and oh my god, The Monster Squad. And I went shopping and bought Christmas presents, which I will not list because the people for whom they were purchased read this blog.

So, all in all, it was a great weekend.

Louisa May Alcott got it wrong.

As you can see from this picture, Little Women is one of my favorite books. Sure, its a little preachy, but still, its a good book.

As long as you ignore the fact that LOUISA MAY ALCOTT GOT IT WRONG!!!

Laurie was never supposed to end up with Amy. Amy is the spoiled little brat who doesn't deserve him, and could have married any number of other rich guys. Jo, however, did deserve him, and they would have been happy together, regardless of what she thinks.

Every time I read it, I try to stop at a point before Jo ends up with the professor and before Amy and Laurie get married, but I always keep going and ruin it for myself. If you just read Part I, you can tell at the end that she clearly intends for the two of them to get together. I don't know what happened in between writing Part I and Part II that killed the relationship for her, but I wish it hadn't happened. If I were at all a writer, I would write the correct version, just for myself.

I always mean to buy myself a good, hard cover copy of Little Women to replace this one. But every time I go to read it I can't bear to part with this copy. I got it when I was about 8 I think, after my mother discovered the copy I had been reading was an abridged version. I had made a comment about how weird it was that they don't really talk about what happened to Beth after a certain point. My mom and my sister both thought it was odd that I hadn't gotten that Beth died. The book just said, "Beth went to a better place." and I thought they'd sent her to the beach to live, for health reasons. And I thought they'd at least go visit her or bring her home for big events. In my defense, they did take Beth to the beach earlier in the book for her health. Its not like I just came up with the beach being the "a better place." And I was not raised in a religious household, so how was I supposed to know that "better place" meant heaven? Anyway- this is the unabridged copy that was purchased for me, and I've read it I don't know how many times.

I always feel guilty over the fact that I re-read books many, many times. I should be reading something new and finding something else I like. But then I think- Its not like I only read books I've read before, and if I enjoy it, why not?

My letter to Santa's elves.

As a kid we always put our Christmas letters to Santa out at Thanksgiving, hanging them on the lamps flanking the garage door with a piece of bread, and Santa's elves would come collect them. And take a bite out of the bread. (they would get hungry you know, going around the world collecting all of the kids' Christmas lists.)

Of course little did I know that we were the only family that does this! I thought it was a normal tradition. I didn't realize til college that this was not the norm.

So this is my letter to Santa...

The NEW 13" macbook
http://www.apple.com/macbook/
I went to visit it in the store the other day, and the genius taught me more of its features, and its AMAZING. I would have hugged it but there were too many people around.

Twilight

I started reading the "Twilight" books 3 weeks ago. And became obsessed with them in, oh, 1 minute. To the point where I picked reading over sleep and read the first one straight through, with only one break to drive to Barnes and Noble to buy the second one. A co-worker lent me the last two, and so I still need to buy those (in hard back- in case anyone is reading and wants an idea for my Christmas present. hint-hint to my mom, dad or sister.)

They're not actually great books. And they're written for teenagers, but there's something in them that sucks you in. I felt vindicated when I came home from work to find Leslie on the couch reading, and having her admit she had been sucked in too.

Books- Mortal falls in love with a Vampire- and vice versa. She's 17. He's 17 plus 90 years. A little creepy when you think about it really. He sneaks in to her room to watch her sleep without her knowing about it, for months. Creepy. But since vampires don't sleep (at least in this vampire world) I guess they have to fill their time somehow. The thing is, you don't realize how creepy any of this is while you're reading because you're just thinking, "well they're in love." Its not until you step back and go, "wait a minute- he shouldn't be doing that" that it dawns on you.

The pacing of the books is weird too. 400 pages of exposition, lots of low level plot, then for about 50 pages you get intense, real, action plot, and then another 50 pages of wrap up. This formula holds true for the first 3. Then the pacing of 4 is even more messed up. BUT YOU DON'T CARE. You're too obsessed to care.

Movie- I went last night and it was one of the funniest experiences ever. The excitement level was about the same as Harry Potter opening nights. Maybe a little bit more- because it was the first one. But you throw in that everyone is in LOVE with Cedward. (Robert Pattison or Pattinson- I'm not sure- I just call him Cedward- Cedric Diggory + Edward Cullen.) The age range was probably 10-50? Definitely more on the 13 side. People wearing t-shirts with quotes from the movie. "Your scent is like a drug." I was in line next to a 31 year old teacher who had started reading the books to at least figure out what her kids were obsessed with, and she got sucked in too.

Anyway, girls screamed through the entire movie. Shrieked is more like it. Every time Jacob came on the screen the audience would scream. Edward's first appearance- more screaming. Eric- screaming. Mike Newton- more screaming. Emmett, screaming. Jasper- more screaming. The bad guy James- even more screaming. For anyone who isn't going to laugh it off- I would definitely recommend waiting a little while before seeing the movie. My friend who came with me and I just laughed it off. I'm sure if I were 13, I probably would have been one of the ones screaming.

The movie fixed the problems I had with the pacing. But I didn't agree with all of the casting. Bella and Edward were perfect. Her friends at school were all made different ethnicities- which I don't remember from the book. Jacob was perfect (I just wanted to give him a haircut.) Carlisle was off looking- it could have been the makeup. Esme was perfect. Rosalie was not nearly pretty enough. (She's supposed to be absolutely gorgeous in the books- this girl was not.) Emmett was perfect. Jasper needed to do something different with his hair, but otherwise was okay. And Alice- I hope they tweak her look a little before the next movie.

Which brings me to a problem they're going to have. They said if this one makes $150 million (and it totally will.) They'll make the next one. Problem- the 9 vampires aren't supposed to age. And the books take place over a period of 2 years, so Bella isn't really supposed to age either. They better make them fast.

So, In conclusion...

Books are good for what they are. And if you're even slightly interested- give them a shot- but be prepared to devote a couple days to them.

Movie- quality is better than the book I think- and again- if you're interested- give it a shot. It won't be two hours of your life you wish you could have back. And- you can follow even if you haven't read the books. One of my friends got to go to the premiere Monday night- and she liked it, not even having read the books.

Just one of the reasons

I can't wait to get a laptop.

"How am I supposed to write for a guy who doesn't have a head?"

Anthony Edwards is coming back to ER. His character died many many seasons ago from brain cancer. I would like someone to explain how this is going to work to me.

I just keep thinking of Soapdish where they tell Whoopie Goldberg she needs to bring Kevin Kline's character back to life, but he had been killed off by decapitation.

I think E.R. is so desperate to get people to watch in this final season that they are really trying every thing in the book. "Hey, maybe people will be curious about how we brought Mark Greene back?" I know I won't be watching because I loved his character so much. I'll just want to hear their methodology for raising the dead.

Hope

Here's my post-election hope: that this will be, for the rest of my life, the most important election I will ever vote in.

Yesterday we elected the right man for the job, at a time when we needed it most. My hope is that we are never again in such dire straits as a country that the election is as vital as this year's. That never again will we be at war, in economic ruin, and so divided as a country. That never again will the rest of the world look down on us as the bad guys. That never again will a president have to come in and fix as big a mess as this administration is leaving behind.

Yes, its historic. We elected a black man. But shame on us that its taken this long to get away from white male politics. Let's instead focus on the fact that Obama is smart, capable, and I believe truly wants to make this country great again.