On the Occasion of Jane Austen’s 238th Birthday

janeaustenbankofengland
Jane Austen will be featured on the £10 note beginning in 2016

Dear Internet,
Today is the occasion of Jane Austen’s 238th birthday. I’m slightly embarrassed my post, which was set to publish at 10AM this morning, was published before it was finished. I am even more embarrassed because I was sure that I had set it to post later this afternoon, thus giving me time to get in cleaned up and ready before it was loved by world. Oops.
This year also marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, and regardless of how you feel about Ms. Austen, you’ll be hard pressed to find any author whose work has remained continually in print since its first publication and for as long.
Basildon Park (Netherfield in Pride and Prejudice 2005), England, 2008.
As many of my long time readers know, I am a huge fan of Ms. Austen’s. At one point, I had an Etsy store of my crafts that were wholly devoted to Jane. Every time I am in England, I always attempt to visit a Jane place. In 2008,  I visited Basildon Park, home to Netherfield in P+P2005 as well as took in the sites of Bath. In 2012, I visited her grave at Winchester Cathedral. I’ve always fancied doing an Austen tour of England, but something I come up with on my own time and terms as the idea of Austenland is abhorrent. (Yes, I’ve read the book but not seen the movie. The book was awful, not because of the idea or content but it read like a child’s version of how they interpreted adults should be acting rather than an adult writing, even in a loving mocking form, on a particular fandom. It was very bizarre.)
To celebrate Jane’s birthday, I’ve spent the day watching (and tweeting) some of my favorite Jane Austen and Austen inspired shows. Here is my current schedule:
Jane Austen via Wikipedia
Jane Austen. by her sister Cassendra.  Via Wikipedia

I also have Death Comes to Pemberley lined up on my reading list this holiday break, though reviews have not been favorable. I am, however, BEYOND excited for BBC’s adapataion of the book, which is being shown on December 26th in the UK and coming to the US, via PBS, some unknown date later.
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Other things that happened this year in regards to our dear friend Jane:

Excessively divertedly yours,
x0x0,
Lisa

hot date

Smashing good day everyone. 🙂 BBQ was fun at C+S’s, though we were still perplexed how majority of the people in the group (‘cept for the baby of the group, sara) are in their late 20s/early 30s and we STILL separated into boy/girl groups. How the hell does that work?
HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOO. There was some group herpes action going around too.
So, I’ll talk about the date last night and since it includes some of my feelings, which are pretty consistent with BPD, I’m sticking it under a LJ-CUT
So IG#4 (his name is Sam) and I had been talking about meeting for a bit and finally agreed yesterday was the big date. We were going to meet at the GR Public Museum at 2pm, walk around and hit the planet-airum, do dinner, and then whatever. But plans kept changing because of the weather. So, I caught him online late yesterday morning and asked if he could bring the Whit Stillman movies with him that I didn’t own so that we could (if things went well), watch them later in the evening. Little did I know finding the movies would take several hours and by the time he hit grand rapids, it was already nearing 4:30pm.
We decided to meet at Barnes and Noble, to be “pretentious elitist asshats” (my words) on books. He had told me what he was wearing, and I had seen him walking down the middle of the parking lot as I was turning in. Since I had told him I was somewhat of a crazy driver, I gunned my engine and went tearing down the parking lot with the intent of stopping a few feet from him. He had gotten to the front of the store before I got close to him, but I did end up getting an awesome parking spot. I walked up, we shook hands, and entered the store.
For dress up, I opted to go super casual. I knew if I got “ho-banged up” (sara’s words), “hooched up” (jen”s words) or “tarted up” (my words), I’d be uncomfortable. I opted for my “Reading is Sexy tshirt,” with a pink camisole peeking underneath with my favorite jeans and these adorable cork wedge sandals I just bought that matched the shirt. My hair I left down (because I’m constantly being told people like it down better than up) and makeup was fairly minimal. I carried my clutch bag, which doubles as my bar purse, since I didn’t want to carry my normal everyday bag.
Things went off to a good start, lots of eye contact, body language was pretty groovy, and he got fairly smartassed which caused him to get smacked by my clutch bag at least once and a jokey argument almost lead to a banging of each other with coffee table books.
We were both getting pretty hungry, but he reallllllllllllly wanted to go to Vertigo (the local indie record store), which I resisted since going to Vertigo usually means I drop several hundreds of dollars and I can’t afford that. He promised to make it a quick trip, which I started twitching as I had already picked out a CD from the used bin that I wanted. I put the CD back and he paid for his purchases. We stopped at the video store next door to Vertigo and perused the foreign flicks since we are both fans and then headed off to Mikado for Sushi.
Mikado’s was closed, so I dropped him off at his car, lead him to my house to park his car and we then drove to Bombay for Indian (cos I’m lazy like that). Food was good, conversation was excellent. We split two dinners, lots of naan and samosas. We headed back to my place, I had him meet part of the posse (Jen, Mindy, and Kate). We walked the pugs, got settled in for movies.
We watched Metropolitan and Heathers, and literally spent the majority of the time separated by three pugs who decided to make it their business to lay all over Sam. No major flirting going on, really, our body language was pretty open but no one initiated anything. I was not about to (trying new theory of being less aggressive upon the first approach). But still, I wasn’t sure. During our last two weeks of conversation, I wasn’t sure if he was interested in me in a friend sort of way or in a romantic sort of way, so I asked him outright and he said romantic. But, he didn’t really flirt with me and I was getting highly self-conscious about it.
When the movies ended, we spent another couple of hours talking. We had been talking all night, even through the movies, and it was highly entertaining. He even commented it was a shame that we watched the second movie because he enjoyed talking to me so much and that he lusts after women he can hold conversations with. My library and musical tastes also rated big points with him as I apparently got cooler by the minute.
I wasn’t nervous. Which was weird, it just seemed we clicked on so many levels before with talking being with him just seemed natural.
So about 2:30a or so, it was getting late and we decided to call it a night. He wasn’t sure about seeing me again today (Monday) as he had to be at his parents later in the afternoon and he made plans for earlier in the day. He did say he wanted to spend next weekend with me as he’ll be in Grand Rapids helping a friend move and we are pseudo going to the Festival together. Apparently.
We walked ThePugKids for their nightly constitutional and brought them back in. We tap danced in my dining room for a bit and I could feel the tension getting tighter, the sexual tension. I wasn’t sure if I should just go lay one on him or what, when he did this swoop thing towards me that looked like he was going to kiss me but didn’t. I walked him down the stairs, as I had to lock up the front door, when he leans in like he’s going to kiss me. I step back and look at him, “Are you going to kiss me this time or are you going to do that swoop thing like you did before?” I eyed him suspiciously. He laughed and said no, he was really going to kiss me this time and we conked our heads as we went the same way. Giggled and went in for the kill.
Before I know it, I’m pinned up against the wall, hands above my head with his leg driven up to my crotch. It went from all friendly polite gentlemanly behaviour to BOOM. You could cut the sexual tension with a Ginsu and it would become dull. We’re throwing each other around my foyer like rag dolls and I’m surprised (literally) and didn’t come and see if I was okay we were THAT loud.
Hand, lips, bites, scratches. It was war and we both wanted to win and lose. I snaked my hand up underneath his tshirt and raked my nails down his back. He arched, moaned and said “I didn’t know I’d like that.” At one point, he was trembling, and I kept remembering saying to him was “Sam, sam, it’s okay, it’s okay.” For awhile we stood wrapped in each others arms in the foyer. I had ripped off his button down (good thing it was snap buttons) and his jacket and backpack were scattered on the floor. We were wrapped in each others arms with my head buried on his chest. He mumbled in my ear, “It feels to good to have you in my arms.” I smiled to myself and told him the only thing I wanted was to lay next to him, cuddled, in bed. No sex. He agreed he wanted that too. We tear back up the stairs and once we hit my dining room, bam, I was thrown up against the wall and we were all over each other again.
I stopped at some point and said, I can’t do this. He kept promising to be a gentlemen and I kept telling him, It’s not you, it’s ME! I can’t have a guy in my bed, whom I like and find myself sexually attracted to and NOT WANT TO RIP HIS CLOTHES OFF AND BAT HIM AROUND MY BEDROOM LIKE A RAGDOLL. Ahem. So there was that. He told me he wanted to see me again, and soon as possible.
Then I made the typical fatal mistake:
“Sam, what’s next.”
He kept going over and over about how much he liked me, and he thought i was incredibly groovy and how much he wanted to see me again. Because he works second shift, weekends were the only option. And he promised he’d see me next weekend for Festival.
But he got the deer caught in the headlights look. Things were getting really intense between us really quickly. Not just sexually (who knew?) but intellectually and mentally as well. While I was “into the moment” when we were all over each other, I kept conscious of how far I was “willing” to go. Like some level of me wanted nothing more then to unzip his pants, with the outside door wide open, and blow him until the sun came up. I wanted to just shed skin and crawl inside him. But we remained clothed.