Literature

Literature is born when something 
in life goes slightly adrift.

Simone de Beauvoir

in Park Honan's Jane Austen: Her Life

2903

Fair well to an old and dear friend.

Where's a girl to go home to now?

Lifestyle choices?

I'm a pretty healthy eater and doer, but I have always found those super obnoxious folks with vegan-healthiness-environmental-agendas to be a bit silly. And, as I have always believed, our bodies are still turning out the same; it seems healthy-rhetoric can only get you so far-

"The first is a chemical engineer who works directly in the synthesis of compounds added to plastics to give them desired properties such as flexibility and hardness. By some analyses, this person has taken on voluntary risks related to the workplace; furthermore, this person is protected by federal and state regulations governing chemical exposure and worker safety.

The second is a vegan environmentalist who works in a natural foods store and enjoys hiking in national parks. This person makes lifestyle choices to avoid exposure to synthetic chemicals and reasonably assumes that federal laws regulating the introduction of new chemicals ensure safety under normal conditions.

Yet when their blood is tested, they have similar levels- measured at parts per billion- of compounds known to cause harm as much higher doses. How should they interpret this finding?"

Source: Arthur Daemmrich, "Forum: Risk Frameworks and Biomonitoring: Distributed Regulation of Synthetic Chemicals in Humans," in Environmental History

Continue to treat your bodies well, but switch your rhetoric that asks not where your chickens are being raised, but instead about the nation that is raising them, the industries that create your iphones, cars, wars, and builds your homes. Think bigger.

French Press

my baby french press

makes coffee so much nicer

War

"War is merely the continuation of policy by other means."

Carl von Clausewitz

in The Dominion of War, Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton

seal it

I like to melt a wax seal onto my letters.

It seems to please my sense of history and romance.

logistics

If I let them,

the logistics of life

might swallow me entire.

to be Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride,
In the sepulcher there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

look at that sun

Look at the sun sinkin’ like a ship
Ain’t that just like my heart, babe

Jane Austen

This last year I read the complete novels of Jane Austen

(in order of date published):

Sense and Sensibility

Pride and Prejudice

Mansfield Park

Emma

Northanger Abbey

Persuasion

Lady Susan

I never read romance or popular novels, and so in a sense Jane Austen's books became my Sue Grafton or J.K. Rowling. Although her language is advanced and sometimes difficult, Austen consistently wrote about society, romance, and marriage (and sex, for that matter). If you think about it, Austen grew up when England was going through some seriously uncertain times, with the American and French Revolutions, to just name a couple of events. That fact that her novels never incorporate death, politics, poverty, or anything serious of the sort, you can begin to see Austen as an extremely talented writer who obsessed over marriage. And yet, despite her choice of themes, her characters have more depth than most writers could ever dream of creating.

I feel a bit remiss without any more Austen to read. I really came to rely on them. I suppose I just move on, and consider re-reading them some years down the road. Pride and Prejudice was really her best, if you only have time to read one of her works. But, I found Persuasion a close second.

Cheers, Miss Austen.

perfect

perfect 70 something day

oh, giggle

James Boswell, in 1763

"Next day, Sunday, July 31, I told [Samuel Johnson] I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called the Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. JOHNSON. 'Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at all.'"

Quote in Equiano, the African by Vincent Carretta

Coffee Shop Niche

find your place to be.

I am, &c. &c.,

sending/receiving mail, a darling of mine. the conclusion, the fair-well and signature, being of upmost interest in each letter. below are some I've received, and/or use myself.

yours ever,

adieu,

yours, &c.,

all my best,

respectfully,

with pride and love for you,

sincerely,

with best love, etc.,

cordially,

faithfully yours,

regards,

I am etc.,

love,

write someone a letter.

Dance

Welcome to you,

Monday Morning.

New Bicycle

I call her Elsabet.

El for short.

Miss Austen

on Poetry, and those who enjoy it.

"It [is] the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it sparingly."

Jane Austen, Persuasion

Baby Blueberry Crumble

Summer is

Summer is list:

Blueberry eating

Wet hair house leaving

New Yorker reading

Boy kissing

Dog Park stalking

Red Nail Polish wearing

Margarita drinking

Lawrence dancing

Bangs cutting

Good bye saying