The Austen Marathon (in which D expounds on the ups and downs of being 'Lost in Austen')

I like a challenge. I like a twist. I'm a fan of the gimmick, when it suits me. And I really like allusions to stuff I know in my cultural consumption (i.e. pop culture references in movies and books and songs). It's part of the thrill for me of things like High Fidelity, Gilmore Girls, Love Walked In, a lot of hip-hop, etc. If I don't get the reference (but yet know enough even to recognize that there IS a reference), I hie me directly to Ye Olde Wikipaedia to "improve my mind".

Recently I picked up Karen Fowler's The Jane Austen Book Club in the library. Movie notwithstanding (I don't remember thinking it was anything to shake a stick at), the concept seemed to me to promise a pretty good book, so I checked it out.

Now, in spite of my love of allusion, I have this problem with book club-style references -- see, my short-term memory for factoids, trivia, quotes and the like is, well, poor. I have trouble remembering anything beyond "It was awesome!" or "There was that girl, you know, the one with the... hair... and... you know, the dude, whatshisname..."

I thought this deficit might dampen some of the joy of reading a good book about life's comparability, in plot and character, to other good books I've read in the moderately distant past. A reference to "that bit where [Willoughby] confesses to Elinor" in Sense and Sensibility would leave me mostly lost, which would be annoying, and might or might not affect my better understanding of the book itself.

So what did I do? I checked six Jane Austen novels out of the library, and began rereading them in tandem with The Jane Austen Book Club, in the order in which they're addressed in its chapters. Obviously.

(aside: And I wonder why my clutter's toppling over...)

I've only read one and a half so far (finished Emma, started Mansfield Park), and consequently, my pace through Book Club is sloooow. But not as slow as it could be, since I convinced myself to cheat a little by skipping Sense and Sensibilty, which I've read within the last couple years AND own the movie version of. I plan to do this with Pride and Prejudice as well, though I still have both books handy.

So far my little Austen Marathon is going well. I feel like it's not only helped me enjoy the direct references in the book-discussion parts of the book (which are interspersed with parts dealing with the lives of the characters themselves), and the more indirect yet more important comparisons between the characters' lives and personalities and those of Austen's own characters. It's also really nice to reread Austen's books, and for a purpose (so as not to feel humdrum and boring about rereading six books in a row without venturing into anything new!) and get something new out of them through Fowler's characters' very different takes. It never occurred to me that Marianne might not have been perfectly happy marrying Brandon... but now that I think about it, love may have had little to do with it.

Though the women in the book are appalled by his unconventional spins, I'm really enjoying the character Grigg's ideas -- Austen's characters would totally work in sitcoms! "The Elinor Show". Or Everybody Loves Raymond.

Anyway, perhaps more on this later -- or perhaps something new!

Wearing my worry on my sleeve

I seem to have developed a disturbingly persistent Bejeweled Blitz habit.

I'm not sure what exactly is behind it. I mean I like puzzle games, like Tetris, Puzzlequest, Bejeweled and such, stuff that requires a good eye and good processing skills but little strategy, so it's a natural enough thing for me to use as a frequent pastime. But I feel like it's gotten ridiculous! I mean... there's no thought involved, and not a whole lot in terms of progress to be made (currently I'm trying to see if I can give the coin counter a meltdown by acquiring enough coins to increase the digit count by one, but it failed to break when I hit 100,000, so I'm not betting on success).

Mostly these days, it's a tool for occupying my restless hands and numbing my restless mind. I'm bored. Bored and kind of lonely, really. It's a problem I'm not sure at this point how to solve, since despite being rather timid and reserved in strange company, I've discovered I'm almost wholly a creature of social pleasures, and my social net is kind of strained thin lately for various reasons. Still, it's good to be able to know it and say it.

I recently started taking medication to alleviate anxiety and depression, and as of now, one promising effect has been to relieve me of a lot of the spiralling-out-of-proportion thought compulsions I was used to being embroiled in much of the time. The realization that I probably should find a minute in the next week or so to cut my toenails no longer sends me into a morass of panicky thoughts about how I just will never be able to find the time to do all the things I need to do over and over again just to keep myself fit for polite society for the rest of my life!

However, on the other side of this coin, the disconcerting nakedness I feel without my constant stream of worry leaves me uneasy. Not only that, but sometimes I feel decidedly apathetic about things I'm not sure it's appropriate to feel apathetic about, especially if you're me. Which I am. I haven't had an "okay, it's time to get rid of the clutter before it topples over on you" moment in quite some time, and my clutter, as a consequence, is now threatening to topple over on me in a way it hasn't been allowed to do in quite some time. Even though I know I'm starving for connection, unsought opportunities go untaken, messages unanswered -- and I feel like it's more than my usual scatteredness. Apathy isn't like me -- at least I don't think it is.


Nonetheless, it's really, really nice to experience what it's like to float on an even keel for a while. For that, I'm definitely willing to continue giving the current chemistry a chance to work itself out.

Design what?

First-off, let me make clear that if you're searching for a web-savvy designer who's looking to get her name out or test out some innovative visual concepts and you've landed here, you'll probably want to try your search again. Don't get me wrong -- I love visitors. However, in spite of the title, this is far from being a blog about design, and I am far from being a designer.

The phrase "my own design", from John Mayer's "Something's Missing", has a three-fold meaning here.

• Firstly, the meaning implied by the song itself, that we can sometimes create our own states of mind, our own sadness, our own lack, our own loneliness, without realizing it. I believe that I do this, but I also know that much of it is beyond my sole control, and I am taking steps (more on this later, most likely) to acquire whatever assistance I need to start getting out of my own way.
• Secondly, I am both exploring and constructing the answers to the question "Who am I?" What's behind D, how is she put together, what makes her work, or not work as the case may be -- in other words, what is my own design?
• Thirdly, since I began to be more aware of myself and the things I and the world can do to get in my way, I have been conscious of the fact that there are ways to do what needs to be done in ways better or worse for me, and that these ways only sometimes conform to the ways that are adopted as normal or acceptable. Sometimes I need a little trial and error and a little self-awareness to recognize the best way for me to go about something, but once I do recognize it, I adopt it -- by design.

This blog isn't necessarily about anything, other than whatever I have to say when I say it here. However, I have in mind, as a possible theme of the moment, a loose documentation of my path to increased self-awareness, self-care, inter- and intrapersonal well-being, and (I ultimately hope) happiness. We shall see how things move forward.