Hwæt! Ic grete þe.1
In my mental life to-do list, learning a language fluently has always been pretty high up on the totem pole. I choose French when I was in undergrad because initially my academic track was going towards becoming an art historian and a romance language of some sort is almost always required in the profession. While Italian would have been a better choice, my undergrad did not offer classes at the time so French it was! I’m still for continuing my French studies at a self-pace, which is practical and useful, but when I started thinking about the types of languages I wanted to learn, I also wanted to learn one that was not practical or useful but simply for the fun of it.
A seed of that idea started before my honeymoon when Justin and I purchased Rosetta Stones’ for French and Dutch with the idea of immersing ourselves into the language before our trip so we didn’t look like the typical traveling aboard Yanks. While the immersion thing does seem to work but since we did not buy the Rosetta Stone versions for travel for our languages, at best we can tell you the cat was white and that the woman was biking. This is, as you know, extremely helpful when attempting to order food or obtaining directions somewhere or reading the Metro signs.2
Another seed of that idea was planted by Lindsay when she came to visit recently and was discussing how she’s teaching herself Irish, which I thought was fantastic (and I also roped in additional help from Alice as she is Irish and could answer quick-ish questions about grammar and what not when Lindsay gets stuck). While Irish isn’t dead, it is unique enough language that learning it would also be a lot of fun to learn. While talking with Alice all about this, it came to be that we were bother interested in learning not only a new language but something from the dead pile. What language would be fun to learn, not particularly useful but incredibly interesting to notate we’re self-studying? OH WE KNOW! Anglo-Saxon! Alice and I are in the beginning stages of our preparatory work. We currently calling ourselves Dead Language Society and are keeping a blog on our progress.
I’ve started researching materials around the web, which are available on delicious. For books, we’re using two: A guide to Old English By Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson and Complete Teach Yourself Old English, which the new editions are coming out this winter. If you’re curious to what Anglo Saxon sounds like, check out the podcast Anglo Saxon Aloud, which is pretty cool. It also helps that Alice’s mum is a Anglo Saxonist (for the lack of the better verbiage) and teaches at Trinity College, Dublin and she’s been helping us out. 🙂
We also know that learning Old English is gateway drug to Middle English. This is also why I have a huge #girlcrush on Alice and her mum. Additionally, I shant forget to mention that my interest in this is not necessarily new. For the last several years I’ve had a story idea running around in my head that is set in the early middle ages and I’ve been collecting books for a bibliography for future research. It’s also interesting to note that my last name, Rabey, is Anglo-Saxon. It stems from “ra” and “by” which means boundary village by the river and that “Rabey” as surname stems back to 544 CE. My interest was also fueled during my undergrad when I took classes on the history of the English language.
Also in the verbiage arena, the other language I’m also getting going to master is PHP (and then by default also mysql). While my PHP experience has been “Oh, it’s broken and I need to figure out how to fix it” kind of mentality, I’m more interested in learning from the ground up on how it all works. Also by mastering PHP, I will be, in effect, strengthening my resume. And also, interestingly, teaching myself PHP is like the gateway to teaching myself LAMP, jQuery, Ruby on Rails and Python (all in the “to be learned” hopper). I’m pretty excited about all of this language learning. 😉 While I’m pretty sure there will probably not be a lot of content on the computer language learnin’, all the verbal language learning will be posted here and over at Dead Language Society.
1. “Listen up! I greet you.” Though currently my favorite OE-ism is “hwæt the swyve” which means, literally, “what the intercourse/copulation” but that we interpret, “what the fuck.” 😉
2. To be fair, I’ve taken several years of college French so we were not completely helpless in France and Belgium. Alice also brought a French phrasebook with her which turned out to be a boon when we were out and aboot.
Category: The Lisa Chronicles
To: Enlighten – Allergies are not for the win edition
Recently it’s been discovered I have what is politely termed as “adult onset allergies,”1 which decided today to go into full force, which means any work I planned on doing today has gotten pushed aside in the “itcy/watery eyes, headachey feeling shoot me WHINE” makes it difficult to concentrate for tasks for too long. HOWEVER! I wanted to get get some updates about posts-in-drafts that were to have been published about some upcoming projects I’m working on.
In no particular order:
- Alice and I have decided to learn a new (dead) language, specifically Anglo-Saxon (Olde English) 2. Details forthcoming (post is currently in draft status), but we’ll be updating Dead Language Society and I’ll be x-posting my entries here.
- Kristin and I have a poster accepted to Michigan Library Association annual conference, taking place in November 2010. Our poster presentation is, Critical Error: The need for Michigan libraries to represent themselves online and it’s the beginnings of a (predicted to be) long-term research project. We’re pretty excited about this and will be posting a lot of our stuff (findings, research interests, etc) over at our joint blog, Librarianation. I will more than likely be x-posting library stuff between the two blogs.
- The next installment of So, You Want to be a Librarian/Archivist? is also in draft status, with the subject matter of being proactive within the field of librarianship/archives. I’ve gotten prods from various people around the internets that I need to keep this series going.
Other updates:
Job hunt: Still unemployed and still interviewing but nothing concrete as of yet. To keep ourselves sane, we house hunt via Zillow in areas that I’m interviewing in as well as areas we’re interested in moving to. I’ve been collecting the links of the homes in these areas we’re interested in on my Delicious feed.
Walk, Don’t Run: Justin and I have been power walking nearly every day our neighborhood for the last two weeks, with the idea that next week we’ll start a “couch to 5k” like program next week. I’m not keen on this idea for numerous reasons, mainly that running feels more invasive to my arthritis than walking. I’m told this is bullarky, but I can only report what my bones feel. Our diet is going more or less okay, but we’re always looking to improve it. And last, but not least, Wednesday the Pug has had her bi-weekly bath. That is ALWAYS important to include.
1. Not sure what I’m allergic TO yet, but it was pointed out to me all of my health issues seemingly came into being after recently getting married.
2. Yes, Olde English is purposely misspelled.
The “To:Be” Project: An Intro
I’m currently ensconced in northern Michigan, in an area known as cherry countr y, prepping for an interview I have tomorrow. This prepping may or may not include spending 15 minutes cursing while I rolled my hair in soft curlers this evening, but alas, there will be no images to support that statement.1 A couple of years ago, in talking with my friend Rakesh, I asked how he got to be involved with so many different hobbies and seemingly master of them all. He said that he picks one new thing a year to learn. Simple, yet brilliant. I personally am far too “in like” with so many things that while it is okay with having these multitude of interests, I’m scatterbrained all over the place. I can talk smack about a lot of shit, but in essence, I’m mistress of none. And this got me thinking.
In the last couple of years, I’ve started cultivating a few hobbies to see what I thought of them – cooking and knitting were but a few. The more I started working on these hobbies, the better I (obviouly) got. It started back in 2006, when attempting to impress TheEx, I made from scratch a Dark Chocolate Flourless Torte. What surprised me the most about this was that for someone whose idea of cooking was take-out and prior baking experience was box cake mix, the torte turned out to be a huge success. There is something about baking that makes me incredibly happy and most of all, a sense of accomplishment, “I MADE THIS!” kind of thing. Last holiday season I gave out baked goods that were also all made from scratch (not a boxed item in sight or KitchenAid mixer in sight!2) to various and sundry people.
But I digress.
I then realise what I wanted to be, really, when I grow up, is a Renaissance woman. A punk rock Martha Stewart who can not only can her own goods, speak several languages, keeps bees, put together and tear apart a car, herd pugs, play a musical instrument (well!) and at the end of the day, can out geek them all. So like Rakesh, I choose one new thing a year, master it and then learn the next new thing and this is how the “To: Be” project was born. These “things” can vary wildly from baking, knitting, learning a new language, writing a novel, or fulfilling a long held desires like taking race car driving lessons and ultimately, race cars.
Thus, a trend you may have noticed here as of late is that there has been loads of posts that have been popping up with titles like “To: Travel” or “To: Consume” or “To: Something.” These posts serve to not only chart my progress on these things that figure largely in my landscape but also to show off my accomplishments and also my failures. I mention this as in the last few weeks there has been a influx of new readers to The Lisa Chronicles, much stemming from search engines, mailing list discussions, and link backs to posts on the So, You Want to be a Librarian/Archivist?. While I have several posts in drafts format that need to be posted on that very topic, The Lisa Chronicles, is not just about the librarianship/archives world. There are many fine blogs and websites out there whose sole purpose is to cover just the librarianating/archiving world, I’m just not one of them.
I am stressing this point because I’ve received a number of emails from lovely readers who keep asking when I’m writing more on the So, You Want to be a Librarian/Archivist? topic, which I am and will be, but that is not the main focus of this site. All posts chronicling The To: Be Project will be sorted out from the main herd and available in the header at the top of the page for easier access. And now that I’m out of tea, I bid you a good night.
1. Seriously, my hair isn’t even THAT long (a titch past shoulders) but it is thick. I swear to Nigel that these hair curler maker people think the average woman has 10 hairs on her head. Tomorrow should have interesting results.
2. Justin and I currently live in 600 sqft apartment and our kitchen is galley style, 6′ long and 3′ wide. So, no KitchenAid mixer until we move and yes, I used every available desk/table space during the 2-3 day bought of baking.
To: Consume – Shark Cake!
Our friends/pub quiz masters Eric + Lauren are moving from the Detroit area back to their hometown at the end of the month, so Kristin and I wanted to do something special for them before they left but we were not quite sure what that something would be. In the end, she and I decided to make & present them with a Shark Cake! from a recipe we found on Parenting.com due to their, specifically Lauren’s, love of sharks. A few hours, some sugar and candy, food coloring and a simple pound cake and viola! A beast that borders on more on Domo Kun rather than scary, blood ripping terror of the high seas, but it’s the thought that counts.
We presented the cake to them last night at Pub Quiz, with the quiz master cum dj played “Don’t Stop Belivin’” as Kristin and I’s procession and presentin’ music. We haven’t heard from either Lauren or Eric today, so let’s hope it’s because they are overcome in a sugar coma and our baking skillz didn’t accidentally kill them.
More food porn is located here.
Everyone should have a god and Byron is mine: new blog headers
Just a short note that I’ve changed the headers on the blog, which are rotating by the way, to images from my international travels. So far I’ve jumped the pond to Spain/France (2004), Rome (2005), Edinburgh/Highlands (2006), Reading/London/SW England (2008), Paris/Brussels/Amsterdam (2010). Flipping through the images always makes me long for the nights and beer in Scotland, the warmth and food in Italy and the people watching in Barcelona.
In serious, non-pretentious fucktwattery what does actually occur in my brain is how badly I need to learn how to use my cameras. Many of the pics from Rome (2005) are almost worthless for anything except for viewing on the web as the pixelation is so poor, printing and extensive editing are out. Our honeymoon pictures (Paris/Brussels/Amsterdam (2010)) are an interesting case study because we’ve got plenty of room for fudging about since we shot the images in raw format but not having trained on our beast of a camera before leaving leaves some pretty poor images as well. But that will soon be rectified as I’ve been learning how to use the damned camera, though several months too late. It also doesn’t help that we found out, after we came back, that the OEM lens is pretty poor. The goal right now is to get a better handle on using our camera.
I finally found the images from my Spain/France (2004) trip and will be working on those along with my honeymoon photos at some point in the near future. I just recently uploaded the last of the photos my UK (2008) trip, so I’m obviously not in a huge hurry.
If you hold down shift + reload, the header should rotate through seven different header images: Two from Paris, one from Rome, three from Scotland and one ‘henged image. If you’re interested in what I have uploaded from my trips thus far, you can find all of my (and our) trips on Flickr.
Lisa Marie Rabey: Founder, CEO, President of Evil Temptresse’s INC.
In the spring of 2008, upon breakup with TheEx, I moved back home with my ‘rents1 for the first time since my early 20s. This was to be a temporary arrangement, a stop gap until I moved to Detroit in January of 2009 to finish library school. All of my belongings, consisting mainly of books/journals but excluding furniture which I had given away, were boxed up in the bottom of their basement. Somewhere to the tune of 40 boxes, almost 2/3rds of which were stuffed with paper goods (re: books/journals).
For those of you who can recall, the winter of 2008/09 was one of the worst in recent memory. Upon packing for my move to Royal Oak in January, 2009, I discovered that 18-20 boxes, mainly said paper goods, were destroyed in some fashion whether by being waterlogged, dampened or mildewed. The boxes were all stacked along the north wall in the basement with almost all of the bottom boxes and several second and third row boxes damaged. Because it was not a case of pipes bursting or water heater exploding or an Act of God2, insurance would not cover the damage either on my policy or my brother’s.
What had happened was that due to all the rain in the fall and blizzards and snowstorms nearer to winter, the snow/rain seeped ground and eventually into the “waterproof” basement, along that northern wall in which my entire life sat. I lost A LOT of books.*
But this is not about the loss of dear friends, but rather, about the finding of old ones. My brother recently dropped off the remaining boxes that were still sitting in his basement, 18 months after I moved. What remained were stuffed animals and storage boxes crammed with treasures3 I had not seen in a very long time. These items were affected, minimally, by the mildew and dampness so I was not in a big hurry to worry about preservation upon their initial discovery. Which is probably why, after being moved to a safer spot in the basement, they stayed there for the last 18 months. Or I was just too goddamned lazy to get them to Royal Oak, you choose.
These boxes have been sitting in our living room for the last month or two, waiting to be organized. We decided that since we are more then likely moving before winter4, now would be a good time to get this stuff sorted: keep what I can, recycle what I can and toss out what is neither keepable or recyclable. We know that there are a large number of items5 not making the trek with us to our new home, no matter where that home may be. Instead of, as before, waiting to the last minute to pack and sort, my idea is to gradually do it over time so when we figure out WHERE we are moving to, the big move will be a lot less cluttered and a lot less of a pain in the ass.
Also, I’m unemployed thus I like to give myself projects. Many of the items in the boxes were beyond repair or preservation of some sort and those got sadly tossed into the garbage. What I could save, I did and re-boxed those items up. In one of the boxes was a decorative storage box containing letters and paper items I’ve kept since high school like MY PROM ANNOUNCEMENT FROM 19886 that remained unscathed from water damage. Other papery examples included love letters from old boyfriends (back when writing on paper was still the thing to do), post cards from friends all over the world and a series a post-marked letters from “Bob Smith,” of which one of them I conveniently scanned for you at the beginning of this post.
The back story to this letter, more then likely, is that from 1995-2000s I ran a mailing list of friends and acquaintances that I met on IRC/BBSes/mailing lists that I consolidated into one general list. I think the idea I had at the time was that so many of us were cc’ing the same people, why not create a mailing list to keep it simple. I am going to assume, by the date, I may have mentioned my birthday (June 12) was upcoming and I’m also going to assume that many people asked for my home address.
Another possibility is that I owned a domain at that time and he WHOIS my domain information to get my home address. I don’t think I ever found out WHO “Bob Smith” is/was but I did receive a number of letter from him for quite some time (which are now re-boxed up) as I found a few of them while flipping through the decorative boxes content. That decorative box contains a lot of memories of high school and my early 20s, much of which I haven’t thought about probably since that time but that I swore to NEVER FORGET!!!!!7
Flipping through some of the material last night broke my heart in some places – there were people, times and events that for reasons I seemingly can only understand, should never be forgotten but unfortunately were.
So who is Bob Smith? I don’t think I ever found out and if I did, I don’t remember who he was or what happened after the letters stopped. But now, 14 years later, I do have to wonder: Did he end up becoming a 34 year old douchebag or did he grow a pair and become a flaming liberal?
I remarked to a few people recently that the digital divide is not so much about digital literacy but in reality about those who have moved their lives almost entirely online versus those who have not. These days we’re doing so much checking in, status updating, tweeting and so-called communicating we’ve STOPPED relating. Hypocrite that I am, I can be just as bad if not worse as the aforementioned, but it’s becoming painful to go out with people now to spend the entire event watching the back of their smart phone. If I had wanted to have have conversations with you via Twitter/Facebook/IM/Texting, I would have stayed home in my jammies and done so instead of slapping on war paint and dragging my ass out of the house.
We’ve stopped personalizing our experiences with each other unless it includes a badge, RT, pin, sticker or a like. This bothers and depresses me at the same time. In 1996, Bob Smith’s letters probably elicited simultaneous freaking out and giggles and now, I would probably still dismiss it as nothing. I think that right in and of itself says a lot on how drastically our culture has changed within the last 14 years and me along with it. So Bob Smith, here’s to you and wherever you may be and thanks for the memories.
1. ‘Rents comprised of my brother and Mumsy, as they live together. Explanation warranted since my father has been dead for a decade, thus saying “‘rents” might confuse people.
2. Seriously?
*. I have a list of books that I lost of which one day I’ll eventually publish as many people were too kind to tell me they would help me replace them.
3. Read: crap.
4. More foreshadowing that was started here.
5. Justin moved in with me with only a carload of stuff and much of my furniture has been shuffled from apartment to apartment over the last 10 or so years and needs to be replaced. A number of electronics, like our TV, is on the verge of dying so those items will be given or recycled upon move day.
6. I was 15 going on 16. Sadly, the hair has not changed much in the last 22 years.
7. Just imagine a drunken Lisa swaying to “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS, with a lighter in my hand trying to light a cigarette but in reality, singeing my hair.
To: Consume: Recipe – The Throbbing’s Granola Mix
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I had not realized finding a granola recipe that we liked would be that difficult – it’s oats, nuts, dried fruits and whatever else is thrown in the mix. How fucking hard can finding a decent recipe be? Apparently, damned difficult: Finding a recipe that doesn’t depend on granulated sugars, preservatives or some form of artificial sweetening (even from the supposed “all natural” recipes) to sweeten it up proved to be a tricky task. Also, the timing for baking it was also odd as many recipes had super high temps for long periods, instead of a more moderate temp. The super high suggestions nearly ended up near scorching the oats and nuts.
The following is the cobbled mixture with the base nod to Alton Brown’s Granola recipe plus experimentation. We totally love this version and it’s become a staple over these last few weeks. We hope you enjoy it too.
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The Throbbing’s1 Granola Mix
Ingredients
3 cups of rolled oats
1 cup of slivered almonds
1 cup of sunflower seeds
1 cup of sweetened coconut
1/4 cup molasses (You can use maple syrup or double the honey instead.)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup of oil (I flip between vegetable or sunflower)
Cinnamon (to taste)
1 cup of chopped dried dates
1 cup of chopped dried apricots
1 cup of golden raisins
1 cup of raisins
Directions
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
In a large bowl, mix together oats, nuts, seeds and coconut. In a smaller bowl, mix together molasses, honey and oil. Combine the liquid mixture with the dry mixture, making sure the dry mixture is evenly coated. Spread, evenly, onto sheet pans. Sprinkle cinnamon liberally on the mixture.
Cook for 30 minutes,stir and add more cinnamon as needed. Rotate pans in the oven and then cook for an additional 30 minutes. Total cooking time is 1 hr. After cooking, let granola cool for a few minutes before transferring into big bowl, then add dried fruits and additional nuts. Mix until evenly distributed.
Notes:
1. Our oven is electric as well as crappy. 250F for an hour seemed to be perfect – anything longer (or at a higher heat) and the whole mix just started getting scrochy.
2. I’ve had same luck with pre-treating the pans with a spray oil as I have not pre-treating the pans before distributing the mixture: stickiness to the pans abounds. Mileage may vary.
3. All the ingredients are organic or local or preservative free or a combination of the above. Dried fruits do not have additional sugar added to them. The molasses used was organic, though arguments about “natural” could ensue.
4. To: Experiment: Swap out the nuts and dried fruits with whatever you’d like as the base of oils/oats is excellent to work from. It’s sweet but not overly sugary. Add 1/2 – 3/4 Tsp of salt to the mix if you want to make it a little more sweet’n’salty.
5. Update 09/02/10: After more experimentation, discovered that cinnamon liberally sprinkled on the mix and baking the cinnamon in adds a wonderful flavor to the granola. Recipe has been updated.
1. Throbbings is our last name nom de plume, as discussed here.
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To: Make: Knitting – iTardis, an iPod cozy (v1.0)
Roughly about 18 months ago, Lindsay sent me a link to an Etsy page of a seller showcasing their knitted Tardis iPod/iPhone cozy. Lindsay, in her infinite cuteness, said, ” Make me this!”
The design and concept of the Etsy version was pretty poor: The person essentially knitted (with acrylic yarn no less) a tube, unseamed, and then cross-stitched Xs in for the white/shadow on the doors. I was more appalled that the seller wanted $20 for the thing, even though essentially it was wrist cuff, just slightly longer. I knew I could do a lot better version that would also be much cheaper.
When Lindsay came to visit a few weeks later, I had constructed the pattern (more or less) and all we just needed to get needles and yarn. I also guessed, based upon my knitting speed, it shouldn\’t take more than a few hours to turn out. Since Lindsay was going to be in town for a few days, I figured we could leisurely get this going and have it done at a later time.
Little did I know that it would be fits/starts spanning 18 fucking months, not a few hours as intended. The design, implementation,needles, yarn weight and colors: Everything was frogged and ignored by me for months only to beredone and then frogged again!
With all that being said, here is the iTardis (FINALLY), HUGE thanks to Krazy Kate, this really only took me a few hours from start to finish as I had predicted all those months ago. Krazy Kate showed me the path of how to streamline and design the cozy, and yet there are improvements to the design and construction to already be made and thus, this is a prototype. Lindsay was so excited about this being finished before she left today, that she left with the prototype on her iPod. This version fits my iPhone (seen above) better than the classic iPod above (it’s slightly longer).
If someone can give me measurements to their iPad, I would adore that as I want to knit up a prototype for it.
Whomever helps me out with the iPad version, will get the prototype for free when I’m done (shipping will also be on me).
Leave contact information via comments or the usual locations.
Pattern for all versions, with tweaks, coming soon-ish. Image above, however, will take you to the Flickr set showing the entire thing in-progress.
Reviews: Books: Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict #everythingausten
[Cross-posted to GoodReads and LibraryThing. The entry chronicling my #everythingausten list, has also been updated.]
Several years ago, while working at $corporate_bookstore, I came across Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler which promised a fresh perspective in the Jane Austen paraliterature canon. I had been burned before by authors who use Austenmania as the foundation for their work, usually bogging themselves down by trying too hard to emulate Austen instead of just using her or her work as inspiration. What I really adored about Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict was that it didn’t seem to fall into the same tangles and missteps as other Austen inspired novels: the writing was contemporary and not fake-Georgian/Regency era, story was well paced, background was well researched, the comedic errors were indeed funny and above all else, I really liked the heroine Courtney Stone.
I could relate, which is hugely important when writing chick-lit, to the heroine’s experiences and I could also identify with her. This is really where Rigler excelled: she wrote chick-lit without making the heroine vacuous or implausible and she stayed (more or less) true to Austenesque style, which is where 90% of Austen regenerators fail.
One of the advantages of working in a bookstore is that you usually have your finger on what is going in the world of books and publishing much sooner than the general public, which was fantastic for me since I could keep atop on my Austen paraliterature better than the Austen blogging world. Having not worked at $corporate_bookstore since January of 2009, I’ve not been as diligent at finding new authors and books. Thus when finding out Rigler had written a parallel novel, Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, to tell Jane Fairfax’s side of the story, I was intrigued and hopeful. If Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict was fabulous, how much more awesome would be Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict?
The answer is: Not so much.
If you haven’t read Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, here is a quick recap: Courtney Stone, 21st century Angeleno, finds out her fiance is cheating on her and breaks up with him. Stone’s passion is everything Austen (natch) and after days of obsessive reading/watching/listening, she smacks her head while drunk in a pool and wakes up in Georgian era England (Austen’s period) in the body of Jane Fairfax. Courtney has her own personality/memories, she also must contend with the memories of Jane Fairfax. Hilarity, anachronisms, misunderstandings and love ensues (obvs).
While Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict concentrated on 21st Courtney’s story, Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict would tell of 19th century Jane Fairfax in the wilds of L.A. The premise then, is that while Courtney fixes Jane’s “life,” Jane too must fix Courtney’s “life.” Supposed hilarity, anachronisms, missteps and love ensues. Everyone goes home happy.
While I liked the idea and the concept, the execution was not as well done as Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict. Rigler tries too hard to bridge the misunderstandings of a 19th century girl in a 21st century world, but the whole thing fell apart for me. I thought Rigler could have had a lot of fun with this, but the situations and problems she throws Jane in seem to be too conceptualized and trite. (Jane stumbling about as she learns about modern living for EVERYTHING LITTLE THING was stifling at best.) What I wanted, and what the premise of the book foreshadowed, was a young woman who had been oppressed for years, finds her own voice and freedom. Instead, she falls into the same trap as every other damn heroine in chick-lit.
In the end, SHE MARRIES THE FUCKING MAN! What would have worked is having Jane/Courtney come into her own, find her own footing, become a 21st century woman, make her passion (drawing) into a career. She doesn’t. Instead, she flounders for a few weeks, has everything taken care of for her by a man (just as in her past “life”) and learns nothing about freedom or independence. Wasn’t the point for Jane to fix Courtney’s life, thus by ensuring “Courtney’s” ability to stand on her own two feet and becoming her own person?
I was also confused as to what moral message Rigler was attempting to give here, surely if she is attempting to project that Jane/Courtney understands that things are different in the 21st century (as such Courtney/Jane discovers about 19th century in the first book), so are the mores of women. However, Rigler doesn’t do that, instead she just throws in some proto-feminist crap, makes weak argument about the sexual life of today’s woman and then drops it.
What the hell?
I adored Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict because of all the reasons I stated at the beginning of this review, but the Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict was nothing more than a huge mess. Rigler could have a had a lot of fun with this book by using Jane/Courtney to give a fresh perspective of 21st century life via a 19th century set of eyes. Instead, the text is a muddled piece of vacuousness with unbelievable and creepy characters1.
Also, the leading man? Wes? Man has no balls or spine but he DOES come from money, so obviously this fixes everything. If you want fun, read Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict and forget that the second book exists. I think Rigler has a lot of talent, I’m hoping Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict is not indicative of her future works. If so, well, she needs to find another shtick because this 21st century girl won’t be buying.
1. Deepa creeped me out — I didn’t find her to be “helpful” or “guiding” Jane towards the answers, for surely, that is what she was supposed to have been doing. Again, another character whose life was made simpler by a divorce from a man with money – how fitting. Rigler seems to be saying here, then, that the only way to true happiness is to marry a man with money. Because obviously, our sister suffragettes struggle for over 200 years means shit.
To: Consume: Craft THIS!, Martha
Last night I was busy making farls and finishing up a hat I was knitting, all while whilst wearing an apron.
The prior night, it was me prancing around the kitchen making homemade granola and hummus. While wearing an apron. And nearly every night it has been the same image: Me in the kitchen brewing up some witchy potion while wearing an apron.
I’ll let that image settle for a bit because if you know me and the above image seems fucking ridiculous to you because Lisa without coffee, cigarettes, and some processed food living in the fridge, you would typically be correct. I’ve run into the bathroom numerous times in the last few days to make sure my ears didn’t suddenly sprout pearl earrings and my tattoos were still in place. My hair was still twisted up in Lisa-poofs and my piercings were all present. I am slowly turning into Martha Stewart’s bastard punk rock daughter.
But to be fair, this isn’t a new development – it’s been going on for quite some time.
In the fall of 2006, I was having problems with digesting food – meaning that regardless of what I was eating, hardly anything was coming back out (to put it politely). For example, I was physically ill in the sense that eating pizza really heavy on the sauce meant I was up later in the night throwing up or having rot gut. If the pizza was light sauce, I had terrible heart burn. I used to have a cast iron stomach! Why was this happening? In the late summer of 2006, after numerous days of no bowel movement, I took myself over to the ER to find out what the hell was going on. They couldn’t find anything wrong with me, gave me a extra strong laxative and recommended a local nutritionist who diagnosed that I had some sensitivity to nearly 100 different types of food.
In the last four years, I’ve alternated between being really good and being really bad with my food. That whole discussion is worthy of several blog posts in themselves, but it’s been awful for the last few months after we came back from our honeymoon. Not only have I been randomly sick (again) but the weight is not coming off, rather, it’s packing back on. Justin was also gaining weight and feeling overall of crap. Deserts from Pronto! and Astoria tastes FANTASTIC going down, but later? Not so much. In fact, most restaurant/processed food gives me issues in some form or another, not always immediate it eventually does happen. Based upon Justin’s prior experience when he was training for half-marathons and my food issues, we decided to implement the following as of last week:
- No sugar (including raw, brown, white, and fake sugars). Honey/Stevia/Agave/etc are allowed.
- As little gluten as possible.
- No foods listing HFC as an ingredient.
- No pasta, no store bought bread.
- Little to no meat.
- Heavy on fruits, nuts, whole grains, veggies, cheeses.
- If I want to eat something, I have to find a lisa-happy version. Bread, for instance, has been replaced with Spelt farls which I can tolerate amazingly well.
I’ve been taking photos all week of the food we’ve been eating and uploading them to Flickr. And nearly every single thing we’ve had to eat this week has been made from scratch, with fresh goods (organic if available) with my own little hands. While what we’re eating is pretty simple, it’s amazing how much of our appetites have dropped since we’re not eating (as much) crap as we used to. We’ve also started doing mat Pilates every morning for 30 minutes into our daily routine. While we don’t think of this as weight loss or diet gimmick, but as a 180 lifestyle change, we’re still keeping track of our weight, making adjustments as needed.
The first week weigh-in, I lost 7.5lbs while Justin lost nearly 3. Where as it was pretty common for me to have some kind of “issue,” ranging in varying degrees of bloating/nausea/heartburn, this is the first week in a long time I haven’t had that. And I’m not terribly concerned about the huge weight loss either, because it’ll adjust itself in the next week or two.
It’s not so awful to be Martha Stewart’s punk rock daughter – as long as the only pearl necklaces are the ones given to me by my husband1, I’ll think I’ll be just fine.
1. I don’t have to explain this one to you, do I?