ink_splotch

I have a truly stupid amount of love for Shadowlands. On one hand, it does deal with many of my favourite themes: English literature, Oxford, repressed longing, Anthony Hopkins being English and repressed1 - it even deals with religion. On the other hand, I don't even like C.S. Lewis that much (okay, lies, I don't want to like C.S.Lewis that much, because of the Susan issue and because, well, I want to think that he and Oxford and Anthony Hopkins are overrated) and it's a Richard Attenborough film2. Also, it seems to imply that to truly love someone, you or they have to die, a theme I normally resent.

And yet, it doesn't even matter what all my other issues are, because that scene where Jack realizes that he loves her and cries in the church makes me cry. I just - I can't even tell you why that scene is so important to me, why it still makes me cry even though I've seen it at least five times now, but it's beautiful. Paired with the marriage scene (oh, my!), it pretty much is all I need in a love story. That, and apparently, middle-aged people.

Which, incidentally, brings me to a question: do you have a preference for a certain age group in your love stories? I'm kind of curious.

[Poll #1391000]

In other news, as of today, I'm 411/7000, and I have a massive friend!crush on Sarah Vowell, and you should too:




1. See also: Remains of the Day (also, read the book!) and 84 Charing Cross (see previous aside)
2. Look, I realize his Oh! What a Lovely War is a good film, but it kind of broke the point of the play (see also: the film version of Regeneration).

In the past three days, I have managed to kill the USB drive that allowed me to get online (I am currently huddled in an over-warm Baresso in mid-Copenhagen), decorate the floor of the room I'm occupying with Tintin comics (in dated order too), start a tally of the world "homoerotic" in books about World War I (currently on "The Great War and Modern Memory"), and watch all 11 episodes of "Planet Earth" (I want to be an otter!).

QUEEN OF PRODUCTIVITY!

(I blame the library being closed due to Easter. And also running out of accessible Discworld novels. I did also see Tess, which was ace; but apart from that, the lack of internet has killed any productive use of my procrastinating energy.)

So, I seem to be reading due South fic and panicking about the future. It's all very 2006 around here.

I am desperately tempted to buy the last season of due South as I lost all my original episodes when my first external harddrive crashes (may I take a moment to note that no one ever warns one that this could happen? Oh, no, it's all "back it up on the external harddrive, in case your computer crashes!" but not word one about what you're supposed to do when your external harddrive dies?). I have neither time nor money to get into it right now, and yet it is desperately tempting, because due South is a lovely, happy place for me and right now I miss it. I do love the fic and the fandom, but occasionally, I crave the episodes. I'm particularly wanting "Mountie on the Bounty" right now, or maybe "Odds", or "Say Amen" or "Call of the Wild". I just... so many of the other shows I watch - I'm thinking specifically of Doctor Who and Being Human - are, for all their humour, kind of Tragic and Deep and Meaningful with intentional caps. Whereas due South is nothing in caps, except mayve Awesome, and it moves me and makes me happy and I miss it.

I also have an irrational urge to write Wilde RPS. This is all entirely the fault of Pat Barker and her stupid Regeneration trilogy and it's stupid queer subtext. By which I mean: I am re-reading the books for my "Great War" module; they are possibly actually better than I remember them. The relationship between Rivers and Sassoon, especially, got to me this time, in a way that it didn't the first time I read through it - particularly in the last scene between them, when Rivers is warning Sassoon about the Black Book. Oh my heart! (As an aside, this also makes me go, Oh my heart!: Sassoon’s description of the doctor in 'Sherston’s Progress', lingering as it does on Rivers’s warm smile and endearing habits- he often sat, spectacles pushed up on forehead, with his hands clasped around one knee- suggests that it was more than liking he felt. And privately he was rather franker, telling Marsh, whom he knew would understand, that he ‘loved [Rivers] at first sight.’ Damn it all, Sassoon, I don't want to like you this much.) But the book in general - there are so few aspects of it that don't hit some fiction kink of mine, it's kind of ridiculous. It's one of the few books that manages to make me laugh and think and get ridiculously angry and morose. And I get to write about it. \o/

How, however, does this equal wanting to write Wilde RPS? Mostly, this is Michael Sheen's fault for being in the Guardian so much in the past week. Paired with Robert Ross's presence in Regeneration (hovering in the background like some sort of spectre of persecution), I've had this huge urge to write about Robbie Ross being haunted by Wilde. Why this does not already exist, I do not know, though I must say I am most disappointed by the internet in this instance. It needs writing, because - as we all know - ghosts are really just figments of our own imagination (except perhaps Bob Fraser...) and Robbie would remember him as he was before Reading, even if it hurt; he'd have the laughing, camp Oscar, and it would be inappropriate - the World War 1 raging outside - but at the same time it would be so needed, and it would allow for those things that hadn't been said yet; the apologies that Oscar owed him and he, maybe, owed Oscar.

I have a feeling that at the end of this narrative, Robbie dies. Which brings me right back to why I need to get my filthy hands on some episodes of due South.

I love the fact that, as part of my course work, I get to sit and watch Gary Oldman make-out with men for two hours.

In other news, am listening to Danish music non-stop; it is part of my plan to indulge my homesickness for a little while, so it doesn't overwhelm me. It's sort of working. As is - most of the time - plan "distract self with work". Even if that is mostly making me want to curl up with the entire Graham Greene canon.

Do I really need a degree? I mean, really?

I have turned in all my work, done my exam and caught up on sleep and I feel fabulous. The kind of fabulous that you really should be able to bottle so you can always remember feeling this way even when you're bogged down with papers, applications and exams.

Today, I plan to continue the relaxation I started yesterday and take my best girl out for coffee and cake, while dressed in a very spiffy dress (the dress is important. It is adding to my general fabulousness, you see), after which we shall head to mine for reading. Reading is emphasized because it is the kind of reading that is not in the least bit related to my degree programme. This is very exciting, you see.

(Hee, Gemma just looked over my shoulder and went, "You are not allowed to use the expression 'best girl' in real life. Ever.")

Anyway, during yesterday's relaxation-a-thon, I finished People of the Book, which people insist on comparing to the Da Vinci Code. Which I suppose it is a bit like. You know, if Dan Brown had done research, taking a creative writing course, had an editor, and decided to write a historical novel about book conservation instead of a thriller about religious theories everyone already knew about. Which is to say it is nothing like The Da Vinci Code and reveiwers need to shut up and stop using comparisons in their reviews.

( People of the Book: Review )

Now, however, I am really craving a book about inter-faith relationships. Nothing dramatic - no Romeo-and-Juliet retellings, or books that feature insane religious families (I stumbled over the latter particularly often, and while I understand that they're sometimes realistic, they're also way too common) - but just a book where two people deal with the fact that they have different traditions and rituals and how they compromise and get through this. Hmmm.

However, I think I'll end up reading Michael Chabon's Summerland next, and then probably Lillian Faderman's Naked in the Promised Land. I have missed this SO MUCH, you guys.

I'm very seriously considering begging off a party one of my friends' girlfriend is hosting tomorrow, so I'll be awake to go to church. It's a little silly, because HI I don't see my friends that often, and HI, student. Drinking with friends is kind of a thing you know? But I didn't get to church last Sunday because of travel, and I miss it, and I miss England, and I'd rather be awake and go to church and then go home and get some work done.

(Also, this place is ridiculously pretty and zen and parties are not. On the whole.)

On a completely unrelated note, look at the Gender & Sexuality MA at Manchester. It's looks an awful lot like a course with pratical application, and seems to have a lot of cross-over between cultural studies and sociology and it is so my second choice now. Seriously, it looks ridiculously good.

(Newcastle, of course, remains my top priority, but still. I would not be unhappy at Manchester.)

I should go to bed. It's really rather unlikely that I will be able to write anything sensible on my dissertation when I'm about to face plant into the keyboard.

One of the things I love about going for an ultrasound is the other people. All of whom stare at you as if you've just wandered in from the street wearing next-to-nothing, on your way from one man to another. Without fail. It's hilarious.

Also in the hilarity column, I was watching Ice Blues in the livingroom while doing dishes with Bean. Housemate C wondered in, and watch a couple of the action scenes with us, and was like: wow, guns, knifes, hand-to-hand combat, this has everything!

Bean and I: *do not say "And gay sex!"*

C: You probably like it for the right reasons, like character development and plot and interactions.

Bean and I: *giggle madly and do not say "And gay sex!"*

Good times, man.

So, what else is new? The SU is threatening to cut me off if I don't send them documents which I've already sent. Twice. I'm not sure what's going on there, but I figure call them Thursday and sort this out. They're nice people right? I mean. For a Danish government agency.

My dissertation presentation is next Thursday; it currently has a powerpoint and will possibly actually have a speech to go with it by Thursday. It's just that I still don't actually know what I'm doing. There's part of me that's very (very) tempted to go full on cultural studies and just talk about the representation of the struggle for a working family model in my texts, but that seems too easy and also more like I'm doing a sociology degree than an English degree - not that I'm not tempted at this point. Particularly because I've been reading a lot of Stephanie Coontz, who makes family theory seem fun and useful, and compounds her damage by also being really useful in relation to my dissertation.

My dissertation is, at the moment, for those following this saga, currently titled: Real and Imagined Communities in Coming of Age Literature. Which is a pretentious way of saying: Families, real and created. It is actually quite interesting - I'm certainly more excited about this than I've been about any title for a while, but it just all seems like so much stress, you know? Like, I've been doing this for six months now, how is it not done?

Oh, life, why so crazy?

I'm off to dance around to the Scissor Sisters some more. Because I wouldn't want to be productive or anything.

1.I can do victory arms on my new computer! See: \o/

YAY!

1a. Though currently I can't play my West Wing episodes on this computer. Dammit, I want to watch In the Shadow of Two Gunmen

2. I think I may be a little bit in love with everyone in my house after Monday evening. This is mostly good - just being at home makes me happy and calm and like maybe I'm not failing at life - and I do occiasonally need reminding of this - but it's also triggering a little bit of ending-related melancholy. I won't be here next year and that's just weird. And more than a little bit sad.

2a. Also, it makes me think about my Masters and how I don't even know who to get references from. Urgh.

2b. Tomorrow, for Halloween, I am going as Wendy, Gemma is going as Peter Pan, and housemate J is going as Hook.

HEE!

3.


You know, I've always like Obama, but I never really got the hype - he's a good guy, but he's hardly the saviour of America. And then I watched this tonight. He's still not the saviour of America, but he is lovely. *draws hearts*

4. Fade to Black - proving, once again, that Hot Fuzz fic makes the world substantially better.

5. ♥!

5a. Because y'all are awesome, have Simon Amstell and Stephen Fry flirting. And also Josie Long being adorable.

Yesterday, Gem and I trekked to the Borders on the outskirts of Leicester. And while I feel my book-buying alliciancy for the most part belongs to independent bookstores and Waterstones - glee! The store was a proper, epic, American-style store, with shelves and shelves of books, a huge magazine section, a proper Starbucks upstairs and an amazing children's book section. I was a little bit in heaven (so much so that I kind of forgot all about sensible budgeting and accidentally spent more than I should have, oops?), particularly because it was just so - familiar, I guess? Don't get me wrong, I love bookbrowsing in Waterstones, but this was so *big*, like you could browse for days and still not find everything, or discover some shelf category you hadn't seen before (seriously, it had all these hide-away shelves where it made *no sense*, which would have been annoying if I was looking for something specific, but was awesome since I wasn't).

Also, I found the last Anne of Green Gables book that I needed, so I now have the complete set. This makes me far happier than it should. I also picked up Olivia by Dorothy Strachey, which came with a pretty vintage cover (the plan is to read it aloud to Gemma, which should be interesting); The Waves by Virigina Woolf, which I'm looking forward to kind of disproportionately; Days of Reading by Marcel Proust (also equipped with a beautiful cover,) and a book on analysis and writing for academic purposes. Which made me think of my dissertation which is currently ever so slightly stalled. Hurrah?

Speaking of my dissertation - or rather, academic life - I've been thinking about post-graduate study far too much lately for my own sanity. I even managed to majorly depress B while she was here, which was quite impressive. It's just - the future, you know? And it's RIGHT THERE, just "around the next bend in the road", as Anne might say, and what if I'm not ready? What if I'm not good enough? What if I don't want this enough? What if I choose the wrong school, the wrong place and break my passion for English permanently? Particularly I'm worried because my academic interests aren't particularly coherent, and so I'm not completely sure what I want to do, and I'm desperately afraid that if I commit to something, I'll discover that I've lost something else - if I choose women and gender, will I end up at university that doesn't teach American literature - but then if I choose American literature, can I be sure I'll get critical theory and cultural criticism?

I'd say I'm tempted to take a year out, but frankly that's a lie. I'm far more scared of the real world than anything in academia.

But, in happy-making news, I got an email from the teaching co-ordinator for English saying that I may be able to transfer from Ibsen to Containment & Resistance for my special subject in semester one. So I may get to do American Studies after all, which means that next year is looking up even more - impressive, considering I've even been feeling upbeat about the Romantics.

Also, recently I have been watching insane amounts of Star Trek: Voyager and so much love, you guys. But that's for a different post. I need to go grocery shopping.

I have a bottle of coke.

I have a bumper-bag of toffee popcorn.

I have the house all to myself.

I have Shaun of the Dead.

YAY!

I may also have rented Aristocats, so when I'm too scared to go bed because the zombies will eat me, I can at least spend my insomnia with French jazz cats. Whoo!