Reading: Shirley -- "Men of England!"

"Men of England! look at your poor girls, many of them fading round you, dropping off in consumption or decline; or, what is worse, degenerating to sour old maids, - envious, backbiting, wretched, because life is a desert to them: or, what is worst of all, reduced to strive, by scarce modest coquetry and debasing artifice, to gain that position and consideration by marriage which to celibacy is denied. Fathers! cannot you alter these things? Perhaps not all at once; but consider the matter well when it is brought before you, receive it as a theme worthy of thought: do not dismiss it with an idle jest or an unmanly insult. You would wish to be proud of your daughters and not to blush for them - then seek for them an interest and an occupation which shall raise them above the flirt, the manoeuvrer, the mischief-making tale-bearer. Keep your girls' minds narrow and fettered - they will still be a plague and a care, sometimes a disgrace to you: cultivate them - give them scope and work - they will be your gayest companions in health; your tenderest nurses in sickness; your most faithful prop in age."

I Discover That I Have a Doppleganger

There are two other offices on the same floor as [redacted]. One of them houses Quick Turn Luke (who I haven't seen in a while and who apparently has been replaced by The Evil Professor and Unfortunately Shaped Fat Guy). I also sometimes run into Nicotine Girl and her Maybe Gay Guy Friend.

Nicotine Girl (duh) smokes. A lot. Like, every time I head to the restroom, she and Maybe Gay Guy Friend are waiting at the elevator so she can get her fix. From what I can tell, Maybe Gay Guy Friend doesn't smoke. And now that I think about it, I bet that when they tell the story, she's all, "And then there's the guy on the floor I work on who's, like, always peeing. I think he has a bladder infection." But I totally don't. I just drink lots of water. So whatever, I see them a lot, and there's this weird...vibe between Maybe Gay Guy Friend and me. There's also this they're-totally-talking-about-me-in-the-elevator-on-the-way-down feeling, too. So: hello schizophrenia. But back to the vibe. I don't know if it's flirty or malicious, which is troubling since those are two emotions one would hopefully be able to differentiate; all I know is, there is one.

For a while, I had a Vandyke-ish thing going on with my facial hair, only without the moustache part; so I guess what I really had was an Amish Vandyke, only my pants all have zippers. But we're losing focus here. A couple of weeks ago, in an awkward grooming accident, I found myself sans Vandyke. It's not that I looked great with the Vandyke; however, I look considerably younger and my face more roundish without it.

Today, as I'm coming back from lunch with my friend Nancy and our boss The Ballsy Career Gal, I pass Nicotine Girl and Maybe Gay Guy Friend -- and he's got my facial hair. Which he didn't have before. And what makes the whole thing even weirder is that he and I had run into each other once in the men's room shortly after my facial hair disappeared, and I saw him do the tiniest of double takes.

And now? He's me -- from the past.

So how do I proceed? I mean, I can't necessarily say, "Hey, nice chin pubes," because we never had that relationship before he went all hirsute. But I also feel like there needs to be some acknowledgment of our dopplegangeresque role-reversal. Maybe I'll grow back only the left side of my facial hair, and I'll see what he does with that.

Yeah. That sounds like just the plan...

In which I am an ass, often

It was in the middle of feeling self-righteously angry with Zach that I realized that actually, no, I was the one in the wrong. But I had already committed to the moment -- committed to the moment for the last half hour or so, from the moment I got home from a zoo lecture to when Zach came home from dinner -- and feelings were already hurt and pretty awful things had already been said ("Go ahead and say what you have to say; I'm as angry with you as I can be." -- M. Bevel) and I didn't know what to do.

"I don't get why you're so upset that I didn't stay for the rest of something I wasn't enjoying in the first place."

Yesterday, Clyde Roper, who is Dead to Me, spoke to the invertebrate volunteers at the National Zoo about cephalopods -- octopuses, squids, cuttles. And before we even get to that, I should probably share the quick story about how I had ugly thoughts about a blind woman for Christ's sake. I'm standing on the up-escalator at the Cleveland Park metro, reading Shirley and totally You-Go-Girl!-ing Caroline in my head, when this blind woman comes marching up the escalator with her seeing eye dog in tow. The rules of any and all escalator are (a) Stand to the right; and (b) Walk to the Left. However, because Helen Keller has her pet with her, she's taking up the whole escalator on her quest to reach the top. Which means that now I, too, have to start walking up the escalator. And I now can't read, and I'm at a good part in my book, and I have to climb the escalator which okay, yeah, that's probably good for me but I don't want to be coerced into fitness by the disabled. So I'm clomping up the escalator, muttering things like, "Where the hell does a blind woman have to get in such a hurry?" and "Can't she see I'm reading here?"

Now, Clyde Roper is Dead to Me because maybe three years ago I sent him a fan email. In '99, I think, the Discovery Channel had a program on called "Search for the Giant Squid" that featured Clyde and I made everyone in my house wear a squid hat I made out of brown paper and we ate calamari and watched as the Giant Squid pulled an Al Capone's Vault on us and didn't show. So, the email I sent was sort of a, "Sorry that didn't pan out, but hey, it's 2002 and I think you're fantastic." Also, at the time, there was this cocky young upstart on the Giant Squid scene named Steve O'Shea who was trying to push Clyde out of the way with his fancy new science and his New Zealand accent and I wanted to show Clyde that when the revolution came, I had his back.
Anyway.

I send this email and I don't hear from him and I think, "Well, he was looking pretty old; maybe he died." Only, 'course, he hadn't because there he was, last night, speaking to us. During dinner, before the meeting, I told a fellow volunteer, Sharon, that Roper was Dead to Me and she laughed that sort of protective I'll-pretend-that's-funny-because-it's-actually-weird laugh. Later, though, after the discussion when I was saying goodbye to my friends Suzanne and Scott, Sharon comes up and says, "Mike, you'd better get down there. He's giving out his email address." And I am incensed. "So he can what," I asked her, "not answer them?" She laughed that protective laugh again. I marched down to Clyde.

As I approach, I overhear him say that he's been in correspondence with a "young man from Ohio." "Oh, so now he's everybody's pen pal," I thought. This other, painfully geeky teenaged girl is monopolizing Clyde, telling him that if he gets an email from "starkitty2000@[redacted].com" he'll know it's from her. I toy with the idea of submitting her email to porn websites and sites for Russian Brides because I'm In a Mood, but think better of it. At the first sign of a break in the conversation (Geeky Girl stopped to fish something out of her braces), I stepped up and said, "Clyde Roper? I sent you an email 3 years ago and you never wrote me back." He hemmed and hawed about how he was sorry and he had probably been out of the country and it's tough to keep up with and I stand there, like I'm somehow owed an answer. "Clyde Roper," I said, as I made my departure: "You're Dead to Me." He promised he would respond to the next email I sent.

I had invited Zach to come to the lecture because it was open to the general public because apparently to stay an emeritus at the Smithsonian you have to have so many "I gave a boring talk here" hours under your belt. Zach agreed, which is rare for Zach, and he stayed for an hour, which is par for Zach, and then he left because honestly: the talk was not so much. It's not like I'm some sort of Jacques Cousteau figure in a knitted cap with mournful flute music in the background while I talk about the "bosom of the ocean" and "the sea, in all her majesty." Truth is, I'm a little terrified of the ocean and whales in particular and yeah, go ahead, yuck it up because what could be funnier than someone's legitimate phobia, asshole? Anyway, I'm no marine biologist, but I know a bit from octopuses and I didn't learn anything last night that I didn't already know. And Clyde Roper's supposed to be some sort of Cephalopod Super Genius. So Zach leaves, says he's going to grab a bite to eat, and I'm left alone at this lecture that's not all that great listening to the two teenaged boys behind me make fun of Clyde Roper's New England accent which: hee. But also: knock it off because it stopped being funny 20 minutes into the lecture.

I choose not to meet Zach at the restaurant after the meeting because I'm In a Mood. I make passive-aggressive "I wish you'd stay, but go if you have to, you will anyway" noises when he left; I called him at the restaurant and asked if I should just wait for him at the subway station. I fumed on the way home and worked myself into a Towering Inferno of (Misplaced) Anger and Rage. By the time Zach came home, I had made the entire evening his fault, from the blind woman to the Geeky Girl to Clyde Roper Who is Dead to Me. When Zach started a load of laundry, I pounced.

It was one of those stupid arguments that wasn't at all about what I was riled up about (his leaving the lecture) and was instead about things I had let bottle up inside me (royally fucked up childhood with reprecussions that just don't seem to stop). And when I realized that -- in the middle of being self-righteously pissed like I mentioned up top -- I felt even worse. Here I was, saying awful things to and about the man that I am most certainly madly in love with.

And then I started crying.

And then I cried some more.

And then I got snotty -- not like sassy snotty but gross snotty, the kind that when you were a kid you'd never really wipe so there'd be this clear veneer of snot-crust on your upper lip.

I wasn't entirely mad at Zach. I was mildly irritated. Who I was really hurt by was me -- my own mind ganging up and kicking my own ass. I have this thing where I feel like I'm required to stay in uncomfortable situations because it's polite. Zach, who is healthier in this regard, figures that you give it a college try and then you count your losses on the way out. "I don't think it's healthy that you'd want to stay at a lecture or an event that you hated." And he's right. But rather than dealing with it as a Mike-quirk, I turned it into a Zach-shortcoming. Because I'm Just and Fair. I always feel that my own needs and wants have to come secondary to whoever else might be in the room. It's this really gross way I have of "caring" for other people that's completely toxic and not helpful.

This was a whole lot of personal to lob onto an unsuspecting public (all 12 of you). I think my hope is that by writing it down I'll better recognize it in the future and nip it in the bud before I'm sitting all Glenn Close-like from that one scene in Fatal Attraction where she's vacant and numb on the floor of her kick-ass loft while flicking the lamp next to her on and off as she goes over all the recipes for rabbit stew she has in her repertoire.
Clyde Roper, though, is still Dead to Me.

Still reading: Shirley

Once upon a time there was Sara Moulton and she was afraid of mixers and I loved her. She was calm and soothing, and said reassuring things like, "I'm sure you'll do this better in your own home." There was a brittleness about Sara that was also appealing, like in the episode where they brought in some of her "friends" to liven up the show, though clearly these were people who had only just met each other and Sara in the green room minutes before taping. Sara looks uncomfortable around people. She reminds me of me sometimes.

Today I watched a 12-year-old named Dave Lieberman vibrate his way through 17 different dishes he needed to make in 30 minutes. Dave, who probably hasn't even finished puberty yet, lives in a loft in Manhattan with a huge kitchen and what looks like southern lighting. Because the universe is fair that way. He bounces like he has to pee and has difficulty enunciating words and sentences. He also styles his hair with that weird yeti-peak the gays are so fond of -- though I have no idea if Young Goodman Dave is a homersassy or not. I mean, yeah: girlfriend's Clay Aiken gay; but, like all male Food Network stars, he's oddly sexless (see also: Brown, Alton; Flay, Bobby; Chiarello, Michael and speaking of which, if they force Michael Chiarello to host one. more. poker party where he serves delicately cut finger sandwiches and couscous...). Dave Liberman's pretty, don't get me wrong, especially if NAMBLA's your bag (and really: why not?) and you're pretty good with the Sony Playstation ("We hear the talk, the innuendo/but we're busy upstairs playing his Nintendo." -- Andrea Martin. It's just odd, if not entirely impossible, to imagine Dave Lieberman in any sort of sexual situation. For one thing, the boy has ADHD and would probably grow bored before the sex itself could even start. "Hey! Is that string?"

I watch cooking shows to be soothed. To watch impossible things happen in places called "kitchens." One of my favorite quotes about cooking comes from Rita Rudner: "I read cookbooks like science fiction. I get to the end and think, 'Well, that's never going to happen.'" Anymore, though, the shows are too frantic. With only 30 minutes and 300 ingredients, it's always a race to the end and I'm tense with worry over if the chef is going to make it or not. Gone, it seems, are the days where a chef would walk you through one dish, or maybe a dish and a dessert. Instead, it's some culinary Longest Mile to test the endurance of both the viewer and the personality.

The whole reason you're even reading my thoughts on the Food Network is because I've had this entry in my queue for about a week now, and I just don't have the interest in finishing it. But I did spend some time writing and figured why the heck not?

But anyway. Shirley.

I love this book. A lot. And I feel I owe my girl Shirley an apology for calling her a whore. Shirley? I spoke rashly and in anger. I mean, I think it's a little squicky to be all up in Robert Moore's grill after Caroline told you how much she loves him -- but ultimately it's Robert Moore who's the whore in this book.

Robert Moore is that guy, you know? That guy who you and your friend Shirley both like, and it's kinda weird that you both like him but you have this feeling in your heart that he really likes you a little more and you guys hang out on weekends at the mall and stuff checking out the t-shirts at Hot Topic and sharing a cookie from Mrs. Fields that you paid for (though, really, Robert Moore always seems to get more bites out of the Lemon Cooler cookie than anyone else). And sometimes you think, "Totally. He's totally into me and he's the sweetest guy ever because look how kind he is to Shirley; but when we were sharing a milkshake at a booth in Johnny Rockets -- a milkshake that I had to pay for because Robert was drawing anarchy signs all over his duct-tape-covered wallet and he left it on top of his Dungeon Master's manual in his mom's basement -- he totally touched my foot under the table and then when that song with that Amy chick from that angsty band -- you know, the girl who dresses like a tired ballerina with a habit of secret cutting? When that song came on he so gave me a look and yeah, his breath is kinda stinky 'cause he smokes Kools he steals from his mom's purse (if only the guys at the comic book shop hadn't totally railroaded him out of a job, he'd be able to buy his own cigarettes) but still: we're totally doing it once we ditch Shirley." But then sometimes you think, "No. He did not just touch her earlobe while looking at Shirley's dragon-holding-a-hematite-ball earrings -- earrings I bought her back when we were going to be Best. Friends. Forever. So what, forever's just an ass-slap away? Because I totally saw that."

Robert Moore is divisive, playing Shirley and Caroline against each other, giving false hopes to both while totally being more into his textile mill than is healthy. To update the novel to modern times, turn the mill into a Chevy Impala and turn Robert Moore into this guy named Josh I once had a crush on but who totally shined me on and you'd have it. Thanks for opening up that wound again, Charlotte.

What makes Shirley such a fascinating character is her fluid gender identity. Once upon a time, Shirley was a man's name and yeah, I know. You'll just have to deal. Anyway, Shirley uses that to her advantage often, slipping casually into the "man's" role when necessary and even identifying and being identified as such. She's in a unique position in the novel; she owns the property that Robert Moore's textile mill sits on and I'm pretty sure it's unentailed, which means Shirley gets to do with it what she pleases. And since she's unmarried, she gets to call all the shots. Shirley is refreshingly bold for a female character from the mid-19th century; this allows us to wallow a bit longer with Caroline, the other female lead. I'm sure more than one college-level thesis has been written on the homoerotic subtext between Shirley and Caroline (which: meh. I mean, I guess if you've got to write a paper you've got to write a paper but I'm sort of over Queer Theory and think it and Camille Paglia need to take a long nap).

Shirley also has some pretty progressive theology going on -- not just for the time, but for any time. When Caroline and Shirley are told that women are lesser than men because of Adam's primacy over Eve (I wanted "primogenitacy" or "-icy" or whatever to be a word), Caroline responds by saying that she's not interested in believing that since she's not sure the translation can be trusted. She even uses the popular "time and place" argument, suggesting that Paul's admonishment to women in the church was directed to a specific church at a specific time in a specific place rather than something applicable through all time. I have a feeling that it would be pretty cool to sit and talk to Caroline about theology while Shirley did things like chopped wood, gave us spending money, and killed bugs.

In "Mike Writes a Book" news -- I haven't been. I wrote what I thought was a first chapter, was told that it was more like a middle chapter, and haven't done much of anything with it since. I'll need to tinkle or get off the potty soon, since we're meeting again this Tuesday.

Reading: Shirley (a dialogue)

Mike: FINALLY.

Zach: What?

Mike: We have achieved Shirley.

Zach: Finally. What's she like?

Mike: So far? Kinda bitchy.

Of course, I've changed my mind a little bit about her now -- and the novel itself. But seriously: 168 pages before the titular character makes an appearance. Mostly, I'm just relieved that she exists.

Mr Helstone and Caroline pay a visit to Shirley, who is apparently Mr Moore's landlord now. She's spritely and energetic, sure. But then, she also spends something like 10 minutes talking about Caroline to Caroline's uncle -- while Caroline is sitting right there. And it's not necessarily kind things either, like how great she looks in a bustle or how hard she's rocking the petticoats. No, Shirley talks to Mr Helstone about how ill Caroline looks. Guys? Caroline's depressed, not deaf.

Caroline's depressed because Mr Moore has made it clear that Caroline won't be changing her last name to Moore any time soon. However, it's looking now like Shirley might be macking on Mr Moore herself. For instance, just now? Shirley received a secret note from Mr Moore. While Caroline was in the room.

That's all I'm saying.

The arrival of Shirley and the novel's concentration on the relationships between Caroline and Mr Moore (and Caroline and Shirley and Shirley and Mr Moore and Shirley and Mr Helstone and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Shirley)has really given a narrative jolt to the story. I feel a deeper sense of engagement with the text than I did when it was just a lot of whining about mill frames and economic ruin. Also, Charlotte Brontë does a fantastic job of selling repressed unrequited love.

I have to get back to the novel now. Shirley and Mr Moore have just been espied by Caroline as they take a secret walk in the woods in the garden at night. Hi, Shirley: You're a whore.

Reading: Shirley (con't some more)

One hundred and fifty pages. Still no sign of Shirley.

The novel has been slow going. Some of that is the novel's fault. It hasn't gripped me in the way both Jane Eyre and Villette (the best book Brontë ever wrote, and yeah, I will challenge you to a thumb war over that one) did. The writing is very good; she's a clear and skilled writer (which I'm sure she's relieved to hear: "Thank god a gay college drop out with periodic acne and the wardrobe of an evacuee thinks I'm a good writer. Now I can stay dead in peace.") unlike, say, Mary Elizabeth Braddon who overwrites and overtells her stories when not belaboring them with plot twists even Helen Keller would see coming from 10 miles off in the fog.

Some of it's my fault, though. I'm still working on this book thing, and the first chapter I wrote, well it turns out that's actually not the first chapter and I'm writing the book too much like a short story and Navin said during our writing group, "Dude, you have, like, 6 flashbacks running in here -- this isn't Memento." So now I have to write a new chapter 1 to replace the old chapter 1, and the figure out how much from what I've already written is going to stay and how much of it needs to be shown the door.

But back to Brontë.

So, what you've got is, you've got your Robert Moore who's just French enough to piss everyone off in the novel even though he's not a true, full-blooded Frenchman. He has grand ambitions of a fully mechanized textile mill; unfortunately, these grand ambitions come at a time when England is suffering some pretty dramatic economic upheavals. Napoleon has been naughty, and the English levy sanctions against the French which really only serve to shoot themselves in the foot. The French are all, "Whatevs, bitches: we're going to Russia."

Caroline Helstone, niece of the sort of frightening and French-intolerant Mr. Helstone, has herself a little bit of a kissing-cousins crush on Robert Moore, only he's told her no. Told her no, of course, while giving her mixed signals which means every three or so pages I mutter, "Shut up, Robert Moore." Rob, turns out, is not in a position to marry; he's too busy trying to keep disgruntled Luddites from breaking apart his textile mill so, okay, I can see how that is important; but maybe you could dial it back to 11 with the Caroline flirting so she's not so confused about things and can make her Jew-baskets. That's right: Jew-baskets. Because the 1800s were a kinder, gentler time for anti-Semitism.

As I've said before, the novel reads a lot like Middlemarch. In the past Charlotte Brontë novels I've read, the narrative focuses on a main protagonist. In Shirley, the narrative is instead looking more at a community, and how they're weathering these early days of change. One of the reasons for Brontë to do this might be because there's still no sign of Shirley. Like, she meant to write all about Shirley, but Shirley kept calling in sick or something.

There's a scene I just read where Char is giving us a glimpse into the Yorke family, where she sort of telescopes the lives of some of the children. It's a very affective (effective?) moment in the novel, especially when Brontë reveals that one of these characters dies young:

"Mr. Yorke, if a magic mirror were now held before you, and if therein were shown you your two daughters as they will be twenty years from this night, what would you think? The magic mirror is here: you shall learn their destinies - and first that of your little life, Jessy.

Do you know this place? No, you never saw it; but you recognise the nature of these trees, this foliage - the cypress, the willow, the yew. Stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you, nor are these dim garlands of everlasting flowers. Here is the place - green sod and a gray marble headstone. Jessy sleeps below. She lived through an April day; much loved was she, much loving. She often, in her brief life, shed tears, she had frequent sorrows; she smiled between, gladdening whatever saw her. Her death was tranquil and happy in Rose's guardian arms, for Rose had been her stay and defence through many trials. The dying and the watching English girls were at that hour alone in a foreign country, and the soil of that country gave Jessy a grave."

Reading: Shirley (con't)

Apparently Shirley is Shirley's best kept secret. One hundred pages in and still no sign of her.

Scenes from a Relationship: Passover

Zach: I don't think I can go to the Unitarian Passover Seder.

Mike: Because?

Zach: There's going to be singing.

Mike: At a seder?

Zach: "Terry Winkler's Littlest Choir."

Mike: That's certainly answers why this night is different from all the other nights.

Reading: Shirley

Zach giggles every time he sees the title. "Shirley," he'll say. "How absurd." One of the guys at work tried to make an Airplane! joke (which is right up there with Monty Python as far as my humor tolerance goes and just a reminder: I hate Monty Python). And the novel is 600 tiny-fonted pages long.

I'm not sure why I'm continuing to read it.

Shirley comes pretty soon after Jane Eyre, but rather than focusing on the life of one character, Brontë is anticipating George Eliot's Middlemarch. The time is at the beginning of the 19th century, and there's some mishigas between the French and the English (Napoleon's being naughty and the English figure that hurting themselves economically will teach those dirty Frenchies a lesson). This also coincides with England's industrial revolution, so skilled laborers are finding themselves replaced by machines and floundering in an economy that's no where near prepared to deal with this level of unemployment.

That's the first four or so chapters. Like I said, the book's written in a microscopic font size, and clocks in at a dense 600 pages -- and I haven't even met the titular Shirley yet. Part of the problem is that I just read those two Mary Elizabeth Braddons in pretty quick succession -- and they were both fairly action-packed sensation novels (well, "action packed" for a Victorian novel). This is something slower-paced, and it's a bit of a mental redirect. I'm a hundred pages in, and no one has been poisoned, accused of being someone dead, come back as a man named Raymond, or married to her own brother. However, nothing much else has happened, either. Some frames were destroyed that would have helped a character build his textile mill. There's quite a bit of general unrest and unease. But that's pretty much all I've got.

There was this, though:

"You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a scorpion. Show no consternation; close your fingers firmly upon the gift; let it sting through your palm. Never mind; in time, after your hand and arm have swelled and quivered long with torture, the squeezed scorpion will die, and you will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a sob. For the whole remnant of your life, if you survive the test - some, it is said, die under it - you will be stronger, wiser, less sensitive. This you are not aware of, perhaps, at the time, and so cannot borrow courage of that hope. Nature, however, as has been intimated, is an excellent friend in such cases, sealing the lips, interdicting utterance, commanding a placid dissimulation - a dissimulation often wearing an easy and gay mien at first, settling down to sorrow and paleness in time, then passing away, and leaving a convenient stoicism, not the less fortifying because it is half-bitter."

V for Vendetta

It's the best movie ever made. If you live in the Washington DC Metropolitan area, and you're looking to see it, but you have no one to go with because all of your friends have been burned by Natalie Portman too many times before (see also: Brothers, Wachowski): call me. Or, if you don't have my phone number, email me. I will see it with you. I'll see it with you twice, sneaking from one theater to another. I will go every day this week. And next week.

My first time out was with the delightful Uncle Cliffy at the Chinatown Regal Theatre and even the weird, out of place clapping at not particularly key moments insisted upon by that one woman a couple rows down from us didn't pull me out of the movie at all. I had sent Uncle Cliffy an email earlier that day saying, "I should get this out in the open now: I'm a movie chatterer." But the movie had me so completely rapt-ed up that it never even really occurred to me to say anything at all to my movie date. Well, except towards the end, when Natalie Portman shows up in an ill-advised skirt/blouse combo. Just because you're living in a distopian future doesn't mean you have to clothe yourself in bad ideas from the past.

Anyway.

I won't say anything at all about the plot; I will say that the movie is the most beautiful love letter to readers ever. There are blatant shout-outs to The Count of Monte Cristo. There are also hints of The Phantom of the Opera, The Secret Agent, 1984 -- as well as a generous smattering of Shakespeare and Goethe's Faust.

I truly can't remember the last time I was this worked up about a movie. So, let's go. You and I. Now.

Jury Duty: The Whole Story

One of the first things you'll do as a potential juror (after taking the Metro and after not finding any coffee and after waiting in the security line behind this woman with not one, not two, but three switchblades and a mace gun and after the security guy makes you turn on your CD walkman and then makes a face at you because apparently your Will Taylor and Strings Attached CD isn't hardcore enough) is watch a video about jury duty hosted by your old friends Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer. Ed Bradley will tell you about the days where they used to drown people for justice. Diane Sawyer has a lot of hair.

Then you'll wait.

And wait.

And while you're already waiting, you might as well try waiting because once you've got that down? You'll wait some more.

Before you wait, though, you get to watch the parade of folks who are trying to get out of duty. These are Very Important People in suits and women with children who need changing and the two meth addicts who, for some reason, chose today to follow the rules. To get out of jury duty you have to stand in a line and explain to the permanently irritable woman why you need out of jury duty. And she will ask you why you waited a month to realize that you need out of jury duty. "Were you waiting to see if Europe was going to go somewhere?" she asked this one woman who had made inconvenient vacation plans. "Ma'am, you've had a month. I'll see what I can do, but maybe you'd best spend lunch at the library looking at picture books of the countries you're probably going to miss seeing. NEXT!" But the best of all was this Korean man who tried to explain that he didn't understand English well enough to be a juror.

I had no intention of missing jury duty. Besides at least one guilt-free day away from the office (the Permanently Irritable Woman told the tiniest Latino ever that, "If your employer even thinks about firing you for jury duty he'll have to deal with me and I am not a pleasant woman to deal with when you break the rules. NEXT!"), I was a little excited about participating in this process and watching our legal system in action. While I have no intention of serving my country in the military, I do take every opportunity to vote and figured this, too, counted as helping to make my country run.

I've never served on a jury before. I think I received a summons once when I lived in Portland, and if I did, then I'm positive that I didn't show up for it which makes me a Bad Citizen and you should take the previous paragraph where I mention "participating in this process" and "watching our legal system in action" and "I do take every opportunity to vote" with a grain of salt or, maybe, rather: a salt lick. Most of my insight into the "legal machine" as it were is like most everyone else's -- from television. And, because television has fucked us rawly in the ass again: it's nothing like that. First off, no Dylan McDermott (or is it Dermot Mulroney? I just call them Dermot McDermott, but most importantly: yes and please); secondly, no witness stand histrionics where someone leaps up and say, "Yeah, okay, I did it! It was me, not Johnny!"; and thirdly: motherfuck it was long.

We were on that jury for 19 years. Some of us died on that jury. (Or at least, some of us smelled like we died on that jury, and here's what I want to say about that: Hi, juror 12A? Nevermind. I don't even have words. But you, sir, are disgusting.) I mean, sure: at first we were all about being on the jury and we took copious notes but then by the second day we were pretty much just yadda-yadda-yadda-ing our way through most of the defense's case.

The case itself? A civil trial between a woman on a bicycle and a very, very old German guy. What was frustrating is that both sides spent an inordinate amount of time going over medical things like her ankle and her shoulder and when we all finally made it to the deliberation room, it only took us 8 minutes to reach a verdict because the first question on the juror's worksheet was, "Was the defendant negligent?" And since no, turns out, he wasn't (she was coming the wrong way and on the wrong side of the street, and he really did all he was capable of as a driver) -- we could have finished this puppy up on Monday. After we had reached our verdict, we hung out for another 10 minutes because we didn't want to look like premature adjudicators or anything. I learned a lot about one of my juror's love for Oprah. "And her production company? Harpo? That's O-p-r-a-h backwards and it's also the name of her husband in The Color Purple. But not really, because that was only a movie."

Surely this woman is Wisdom. And she is Good. And she is on a jury.

That's the issue, I guess, that I have with the jury system. And while yeah, it's funny, hearing stories about stupid girls loving Oprah -- these are the same people who get to decide everything from civil trials to important, life-or-death criminal proceedings. And because of network television and all those court procedurals, these are people who think it's going to be as easy as that. That the evidence will be incredibly cut and dry because of DNA and all of that. Or because of some dramatic courtroom finish. Honestly, the smelly guy (Juror 12A) said, "I really thought she would admit that her case was kinda flimsy after the defense poked all those holes." Like it works that way.

And finally, some last words on Juror 12A:

So, there's Juror 2 -- he's the first person and also the foreman. Then there's me (Juror 7), Juror 9, and then some other jurors I don't remember. And then, right behind me, is Juror 12A. And, as has been said a number of times, Juror 12A smelled like parboiled ass. Soaked in urine. Doused in beer. I'm not the only one who notices this, by the way. Juror 9 next to me -- the one who loves Oprah ("She's just so, you know. She's. I don't even know how to say how great she is because she's just so, you know, great." Exact. Fucking. Quote.) -- she keeps sniffing periodically. Sniffing and looking my way. So I try to show that I smell it too, and that it's not me. I end up sniffing so much that Juror 2 offers me a Kleenex. Finally, after the lunch break I took Juror 9 aside and said, "Dude, it's totally not me." And she said, "Thank God." And then we both spent the remainder of the trail perched precariously on the edge of our seats. We were the most attentive jurors ever. Or at least, that's how we looked.

Jury Duty, Day 2

I probably can't say much of anything about the trial yet, except to mention that it's a civil case rather than a criminal case; that we're supposed to be done today, but we could be there through tomorrow; that one of my fellow jurors smells like a urine-soaked brewery; and that if it were possible, the council for the defense would make sweet, sweet love to everyone one of us to ensure a "Not Guilty" verdict for his client.

In the meantime, I finished The Trail of the Serpent and...meh. But better "meh" than Lady Audley's Secret. This one is just as ridiculously filled with improbably circumstances (for one of Jabez-disguised-as-Raymond's fiendish plots to succeed, he needs a mimic. It just so happens, the World's Greatest Mimic happens to be in Paris at the nearby opera house. This mimic also just happens to be the same size and shape as the person Jabez-disguised-as-Raymond wants the mimic to mimic), and there are long stretches of the novel that totally feel like padding to increase the word-count (towards the end there were a couple two-three paragraphs that I skimmed more than read because out of nowhere, what Braddon thought the plot needed was a lot of exposition in the middle of an action sequence) -- but this story is much more engaging while reading it. Lady Audley's Secret, on the other hand, is only interest when the novel's done, and you approach it from a 21st-century perspective.

Up next on the docket is either Shirley or The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Following my "Alphabetically We Read" plan, Brontë should be next. However, April's book for my Bethesda Book Group is McCullers. I read the first chapter of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter last night and didn't think much of it. (So, I thought, they're mutes. I get it. They're silent, yet their silence means so much. Can we go now?) Since I have until the second week of April to read The Heart..., maybe I'll just put it off and read Shirley -- mostly because the title makes Zach giggle every time he sees it. ">snerk<, Shirley," he'll say. "How improbable."

Jury Duty

I had hoped that scrawling Pick Me! Pick Me! on the jury form I received several months back would keep them from, you know picking me. But I've been summoned.

I've never served on a jury before. My dad served on one at the same time Charles Manson was on trial. When I was older, he'd tell stories of walking by Squeaky Frome and Co., sitting outside the courthouse, swastikas carved in their foreheads. My mom carries a pistol around in her purse all the time ("Really?" Zach had asked once. "Even when I was there? Your mom was packing heat?"), so I imagine if she ever got called to serve she'd either (a) have problems at the metal detector; or (b) find herself in the position of having to serve swift justice on someone she felt got away too easily.

And don't think she wouldn't. She's firm, but fair.

Anyway, I'm taking The Trail of the Serpent to finish (they've busted Daredevil Dick out of the asylum; he wears wigs now) and a notebook to make sure I get any lunacy down on paper.

(Truth be told, I'm a little excited.)

Scenes from a Relationship: The Trail of the Serpent Edition

Mike: Great.

Zach: Hm?

Mike: Well, it looks like the illegitimate child of Jabez North (now disguised as Raymond) is going to serve as some kind of nurses aide to Daredevil Dick, who thinks he's Napoleon or is at least acting like he thinks he's Napoleon, in the asylum he's been sent to after being unfairly found guilty of the murder of his wealthy uncle. We all know that it was actually Jabez North before he disguised himself as Raymond who murdered Dick's uncle -- only now, Jabez North disguised as Raymond has tricked Valerie into poisoning her secret husband, the opera singer. But I'm pretty sure that Valerie's husband isn't really dead, he's being kept hidden in the psychic/chemist's flat.

Zach: ...I--

Mike: I mean, the kid's only 8 years old now. What kind of help can he be? Sure, he's been raised by the mute police detective and the tomboyish Kuppins -- but does that mean he's ready for this kind of assignment? And will the mute marry Kuppins? Because that would be weird.

Zach: Do you talk to other people like this? Or is it just me?

Open Mic Night

Crazy Cat Lady? Briefly mentioned in the Barnes & Goebbels story?

So, I'm telling the "Barnes & Goebbels" story (which is an awesome story to tell; I mean, I enjoyed putting it in writing, but it's got that straw-up-the-nose quality that just makes it more awesome told. Remind me to tell it to you if I ever see you) at work and my boss Patrick is almost crying and I get to the part about how the book group had had some previous experience, what with the woman and her bag of stuffed kitties ("You're not exaggerating, right?" Zach had asked me later. "You know, sometimes you...embellish") and a co-worker, Anne, comes out of her office and says, "Stuffed kitties? Oh my god, I know that woman!"

Turns out, Crazy Cat Lady had infiltrated Anne's Toastmasters group. Where one of her kitties tried to give a speech. "She was a little disruptive," Anne said.

But we're not done with Crazy Cat Lady. Oh, no.

In an effort to get more comfortable with my writing, I decided to try reading something at the Bethesda Writer's Center's Open Mic Night last night. While I do okay speaking in front of fairly large crowds at the Invertebrate Exhibit, I'm not as confident reading in front of other people. Especially my own stuff in front of other people. What if I don't look up enough? What if I look up too much and lose my place? What if I speed-read like I normally do when reading aloud?

Anyway, we'll get to how I did in a second. The main point of this is that, while sitting with my friends Anne from work, Debra from book group, and Radio Bill (Anne's boyfriend), guess who walks in? With a bag full of stuffed kitties? It was awesome.

Turns out, Crazy Cat Lady is a regular at the Bethesda Writer's Center's Open Mic Night. When we came back from the intermission (I read during the first part of the evening), it was Crazy Cat Lady's turn. And...it was...she...

Let me break it down for you:

So, the room is set up with about five or so rows of chairs, 8 chairs to a row. There's also a couch and a table with some wine. Crazy Cat Lady sprawls out on the couch and has her serial killer-looking manservant (who spoke not a word, but went straight to his work) bring her several glasses of wine throughout the evening. The cats don't really make an appearance this evening, but you can totally see several tails sticking out of the bag.

Crazy Cat Lady has some sort of upper respiratory infection, so she coughs. A lot. And then hocks up loogies that she lady-likely makes a big display of swallowing. It's never clear throughout the night if Crazy Cat Lady really knows where she is, or why people keep standing up to go to the podium to read. Mostly, she just sits, drinks her wine, and gestures to her serial killer manservant.

During the intermission, Crazy Cat Lady mingles with the others, who ask her how she's doing ("Fine, though I've got this tickle in my throat") and what has she been up to ("I was supposed to go visit a Buddhist temple, but I couldn't find anyone to watch my kitties"). So meanwhile, while this is going on, these two women, a white woman and a black woman, are having an argument about Ntozake Shange. "I love her books," the black woman said. "They're plays," the white woman countered; "and her best is For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf." "Not Enuf," the black woman says. "I'm sorry?" "It's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Not Enuf," the black woman tries to correct. "No, no, no: you're wrong." "But I've read the book," the black woman says. "It's not a book," the white woman gruffs; "it's a play." "But I read it in a book," the black woman says, complete with neck action; "and that book was called For Colored Women Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Not Enuf. 'When the Rainbow is Enuf'? That doesn't make any sense."

I'd had to pee ever since I had gone up to read, so I had to leave those two ladies to their Shange Roundtable. In the bathroom, the MC of the evening, a tall Amish-looking man (who, as I was to learn later in the evening, translates Czech poetry), says to me -- while I'm peeing -- "Your piece was very good. I think I probably wouldn't have liked it as much on the page as I did you reading it." Which: whatever. I'm holding my penis in front of a man who looks like he'd be more comfortable at a barn raising and he's critiquing my writing and all I want to do is pee, you know? Maybe we could do this mini-workshop somewhere without a urinal cake?

So, intermission is over, I can't tell if the white woman or the black woman (who loudly announced after her reading that she has a book soon to come out. Just as soon as she could find a publisher) have come to any sort of truce or agreement about the "Enuf/not Enuf" summit, and then I hear the MC call out Crazy Cat Lady's name. And I realize that this evening could not possibly get any better, unless it was to reveal that Crazy Cat Lady and Barnes & Goebbels guy were going to sing duets made popular by pop superstars like Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Kenny Rogers, and Lionel Richie.

"Oh, dear," Crazy Cat Lady says. She reaches into her bag of stuffed kitties and pulls out a manila folder stuffed with many pages of crazy. She takes a gulp of wine, and then says, "I don't normally read the tabloids--" and already I'm wondering why she feels the need to lie to us "--but I'm pretty fascinated by the Biblical prophecies of Nostradamus. But I'll start with Isaac Newton." And she just sort of...spoke. For, like, 10 minutes (we were told we had a 6 minute time limit) on the Bible, Nostradamus, Isaac Newton, beheadings, church politics of the 1500, the current political situation in Iraq, and none of it made any sense.

I mean, duh, right? But I've got to tell you: I kept hoping that she'd be brilliant. That her extemporaneous crazy talk would actually be filled with insightful things from her past life as a college professor before drink and frontal lobe insanity turned her to shopping bags full of stuffed kitties. But nay nay my friends. That was not to be. She just spoke and spoke and spoke. And then she said, "Thank you." And she was done.

I leaned over to the guy sitting next to me and asked, "Is she here a lot?" He nodded. "Is she always like that?" He leaned closer to me: "Sometimes she's less coherent."

Anyway -- I did fine. I did better than I thought I would -- but I could have done much better. I looked up once or twice during a section I didn't know as well, so I had to sort of make stuff up to get me back to the right sentence. I read "Haircuts and Therapy," a piece I took down awhile back, along with some others, because the hope is they can live happily in a book of essays. It was a very odd experience, reading something I had written and hearing people genuinely laugh. It's also an incredibly energizing experience. I only read the one piece, but I wanted to stand up there and read all the pieces I had brought. And maybe if I had shown up with my own bag of nuttiness, they might have let me.

______________________________
PS: The second weirdest performance of the evening was this woman who read her one-act, 6-character "playlet" to us. She tried to read all 6 characters. It really didn't work. The play itself, too, was incomprehensible: something about weather patterns and periodically she would stop and chortle, like this: "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Which may have been part of the play, but going by the rest of evening -- I'm really not sure.

Barnes & Goebbels

"I was very close friends with Andy Warhol."

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So last night, my book group met to discuss John Steinbeck's East of Eden (because it doesn't count as shameless fawning if we wait a year before following in Oprah's footsteps) at the Barnes & Noble in Bethesda. We meet there the 2nd Wednesday of each month and while we sometimes have a tough time staying on topic (for instance, last night I had a lot to share about Katie Holmes's "pregnancy" and Sarah Jessica Parker's gay husband) -- it's a great group of people. Especially once we said goodbye to Creepy Lionel and Very Important Stephanie.

Anyway, we're in our Circle of Sharing, and we're finishing up our "How've you been since last month?" conversations, and there's this guy in a fedora, a trench-like jacket, and a suitcase on wheels. Because why not? He gets the attention of our facilitator, Ben, and asks, "Is this a fiction book group?" And my spidey senses are already tingling because I don't trust people with suitcases on wheels. So Ben says, "Yeah." And the guy's all, "What do you do?" And Ben explains that we meet once a month to discuss a book. Then the guys asks, "But then what do you do?" Like we've missed some important step. And it was then that I realized we were in for some bad news from this guy.

It was also then that my friend Annemarie meowed.

Once upon a time, a woman with a basket full of stuffed cats joined our book group for the evening. Throughout the discussion, she would periodically meow for one of the cats in the bag and then would ask, in a very concerned voice, if we truly liked her kitties. Annemarie's meow, she said later, was an early warning system we all failed to heed.

Poor, socially inappropriate Ben then invites Crazy Suitcase Guy to join us. Several of us in the group gave short, terse headshakes that Ben either missed or completely ignored. "I don't know if I should," CSG says; "you see, I'm a published author. Maybe I would be too critical for this group." I can hear my friend Debra's eyes roll from across the circle.

Ben continues to (Goddammit, Ben, why? Why did you continue to?) encourage the guy to sit in with us, and he joins our circle. Oh, and he's picked up this honking huge book of Andy Warhol's photography.

"What, you want something to read if our discussion bores you?" Debra asks. A word or two about my friend Debra: she gets into fights with cabbies. She's also on the threshold of that time in one's life where one has more liberty to "let it all hang out." She's fearless in sometimes uncomfortable ways. And because I had already pegged this guy as looneytunes from way back (even without the help of Annemarie's meow) -- I didn't see this going anywhere good.

"I just feel the need for some protection from Andy Warhol," CSG says. We all kind of chuckle, thinking he's trying to make a joke. Nay nay, my friends. "You know, I was very close friends with Andy Warhol."

Yeah. I know.

"So what book are we discussing this evening?" he asked, holding Andy Warhol firmly on his crazy lap.

"East of Eden," Ben said.

"Ah, Steinbeck," CSG mused.

"Did you know him?" I asked? I shouldn't have asked. It was provocative to ask. Really, I couldn't help myself, though.

"No," CSG says, in that dismissive tone like all of a sudden I'm the crazy one. "Why would I?" He then launches into this whole birth narrative, and how he was 4 years old when Steinbeck died, so how could he possibly even know who Steinbeck is. I mean, yeah, he knows of him because CSG is a Very Important Published Author -- but it's not like he and John were BFF. Not like CSG and Andy Warhol. "I was very close friends with Andy Warhol," CSG repeated.

"Yeah, right," Debra muttered audibly. Debra mutters everything audibly. Once we went to see The Life Aquatic and she almost got in a fistfight with a guy in a cowboy hat. "Are you kidding me? You can't wear that in here!" Later, when Debra realized how much she hated the film, she said, "Maybe I could ask that guy to put his hat back on."

Anyway, Debra's muttered "Yeah, right" sets the guy off. "Why did she say that?" he wants to know. "Why would she say that?" Debra, no longer wanting to be in this guy's line of site (she was sitting right across from him), gets up and says, "Oh, Mike: here's that thing." And I say, loudly, "This is what she meant by, 'Yeah, right'" as I wave what appears to be a dry cleaning ticket because I hope that our little one-act will defuse the situation because CSG is really worked up about this.

So meanwhile, during our dumb show, CSG guy turns to this guy Tom and says, "She can say 'yeah, right' all she wants, but have you seen this!" And he flings open the Warhol book and shoves it onto Tom's lap. The picture? Isaac Asimov. The reason?

Yeah. I got nothing, too.

So things settle down a little. Debra returns to her seat, I feel like our clever ruse worked, and we're about to get back to discussing the book when CSG takes his cell phone from his wheeled suitcase and begins talking into it.

Loudly.

In German.

No one actually heard the phone ring. I didn't see him dial any numbers. And later, a quick check of all of our cell phones proved that reception on the bottom floor of the Bethesda Barnes & Noble is pretty much bupkes. He's chatting away in German (or "German" as Noah later suggested) and Ben taps him on the knee and gestures away from our circle, communicating to CSG that he should take his cell phone conversation away from the discussion. CSG makes a dismissive kinda-agreeing gesture with his hand, like, "I know, I know" -- but remains seated and talking very animatedly into the phone. Ben tries a second and third time, with no success. Finally, CSG shuts the phone and Ben says, "Next time, please take your cell phone conversation away from the group so that we can continue our discussion."

"But you weren't discussing anything," he said. "You were all laughing at me for knowing Andy Warhol." And then he went on and on about how he was going to tell Barnes & Noble about how we were using their space to be exclusionary and the crazy's really almost at eyeball level now and Debra tries to explain that actually, no, Barnes & Noble hosts us here, and that it's a Barnes & Noble book group and then the guy erupts in an orgasmic fountain of incoherent rage and yells:

"BARNES AND NOBLE? MORE LIKE BARNES & GOEBBELS!"

Yeah.

Yeah.

I KNOW.

He then begins to yell at us, telling us that we're all anti-Semites (roughly half the group is Jewish or Jew-friendly) and that he's very important and that he has to take these very important phone calls and we don't understand and that if we think we can just invade Iraq we'd better rethink that because a whole lot of vengence is going to rain down on us and actually, no, No, NO: He won't leave because we're Jew-haters and on and on and on and I'm actually pissed that I didn't have some kind of voice recorder at the ready because it was operatic in it's diagnoticness.

This guy? Definitely receiving services somewhere at some time.

Finally, he grabs his suitcase on wheels and storms away from us, clumping his suitcase up the escalator stairs and out of the store.

When it stopped being fucking terrifying, the whole thing was really about 17 different kinds of awesome. Seriously.

"What set him off, do you think?" Tom asked.

"Well, asking him to wear that yellow star was a big mistake," I said.

"The next time someone new tries to join us," Annemarie said, "and I meow? Listen to me next time!"

I gotta say, though: Barnes & Goebbels? That was kinda perfect.

READING: Lady Audley's Secret

For those who would like to remain unspoiled concerning the intricacies of Lady Audley's Secret, you should probably save this entry for another day.

After the first two chapters, I turned to Zach and said, "I totally know what her secret is." It's like Braddon wasn't even trying. A couple more chapters after that, though, and I was back to being not so sure about her secret. "What's the look for?" Zach asked me. "Well, it's this secret."

Lady Audley's Secret isn't a good book. I purchased it, and another book by Braddon, The Trail of the Serpent, because of how much I loved Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, The Moonstone, and No Name. Braddon rode the wave of Collins's popularity to literary and financial success. But she's just not in his league. (Truth be told, though, Collins himself is sometimes not in his own league. The man wrote something like eleventy million novels and not all of them are winners.)

Lady Audley's Secret is a "sensation novel" -- and they were totally the rage in the 1860s. Usually crazily and intricately plotted, in a sensation novel someone was going to end up in an asylum against her (usually her more so than his) will. There was usually a murder or two, and captivating villains, and late night crazyfast carriage rides through the moors or something. Elements of the supernatural might be found, but they weren't really the focus of the story. The sensation novel helped give rise to both the mystery novel and the thriller.

A bit more history, and then back to the book. When Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White appeared in 1860 (and PS: Collins and Dickens were totally BFF, often comparing notes on how to keep one's mistress happy), London went fucking nuts over it. There were Woman in White tea cozies and wall hangings. One could find Woman in White soaps and perfumes. Entire lines of clothing were based on what the women in the novel were wearing. The Woman in White was turned into a stage play several times over and pretty much gripped most of the English-speaking world during it's tenure. I love the idea of people wandering around, smelling of Laura Fairlie as they wear poor Anne Catherick's tattered white dress all over the damn place. It's a thought that brings me comfort.

Back to Lady Audley and her (not very interesting) secret.

So, turns out, Lady Audley isn't really who she says she is. Once upon a time Lady Audley had been a woman named Lucy Graham. And Lucy Graham had one time been a woman named Helen Talboys. And Helen Talboys? Started out life as Helen Maldon.

Helen Maldon marries a guy named George Talboys. She marries him because she's kinda not so much with the provincial life, and she'd like to get out of her father's home, and she'd like to have a fairly comfortable life. And while on one hand, sure: not so much with the romance there, Lucy -- the thing is, she's living in 1860. Romance is like a unicorn almost unless you're lucky enough to get a bit in a Jane Austen novel. Marriage -- for women, anyway -- was mostly about financial security. It was tough for property to be passed on to daughters (though that was starting to change) and if you wanted a comfortable life, you had to find a man who could make that happen.

Helen Maldon thinks George Talboys will be that man.

And he is, for a bit. And then the money runs out, and things aren't as fun as they had been, and Helen, pretty rightly I think, starts asking George what his plans are to rectify this cash flow situation. George's plan, then, is to abandon Helen, go to Australia, strike it big, and then come back for her. Only he doesn't tell Helen this; instead, one night, he tells her father that he's going out for a smoke -- and that's the last anyone ever sees of him.

Men: pulling the same shit since always.

Helen, once she gets over the hurt of being abandoned (with a baby; I forgot to mention the baby), realizes that the disappearance of her husband means she's got a second chance. She leaves her baby with her father and her old life at the door, assuming the name "Lucy Graham" and striking out for greener pastures. Those greener pastures end up being the wealthy grounds of Lord Audley's estate. She bewitches him as the governess of a doctor's family, and he asks for, and receives, Lucy Graham's hand in marriage. Lady Audley née Lucy Graham née Helen Talboys née Helen Maldon finally finds the life she wants to have, with the level of financial security and excess she's been looking for.

And for a time, Helen-Helen-Lucy-Lady is happy. She's won.

On one hand, yeah, I'm not thrilled with her choices. But from a 21st-century reader's perspective, I can see why she did what she did -- and knowing what I know about women's suffrage and the options out there for women in general in the 1800s: Go on with your bad self, I want to tell her. It's not like she left her baby on the moors somewhere. And, as far as Helen-Helen-Lucy-Lady knows, George isn't coming back. Why sit stewing in a bad situation?

When the novel opens, George is on a steamer back from Australia. He's made good on his idea of raking in the dough and wants to rejoin the family he left behind. Left behind, I might add, with no news of himself at all for several years. Like, not even a "G'day, mate! Wish you were here!" postcard. George expects that Lucy'll be waiting for him with open arms and his beautiful son. He says as much to one of the passengers on the boat. And because Mary Elizabeth Braddon is skilled with the subtle foreshadowing, George says something like, "If I find that anything has happened to my wife or son, I shall fall upon the ground dead."

Best get to falling, George.

George gets into town and runs into his friend Robert Audley -- of the same Audleys whom Helen-Helen-Lucy-Lady has married into. Robert is the nephew of Lord Audley, and he and George were friends from way back. And actually, the way that Braddon writes them, they seemed more like friends (wink-wink-nudge-nudge) from way back more than just, you know, school chums. 'Course, that's not what her stated intent is; she just needs there to be a connection between George and Robert so that Robert can investigate George's second disappearance. But guys, seriously: they're fucking homos humping the butt sex like there's no tomorrow. Trust me on this.

While hanging out with Robert, George discovers that his wife has died. The woman he abandoned and then thought, "I bet she's still hanging out for me several years later." The woman to whom he lied earlier, saying, "Back in a minute, hon. Just going out for a smoke." George falls into a funk, and Robert Audley prances around like he's wearing a Mary Poppins frock as he tries to two-spoons-of-sugar George out of his depression.

I have no sympathy for George. I get why he left, and I agree that he had to. But I don't think slinking off into the night to make one's fortune is the way one should handle that situation. I don't know that Helen-Helen-Lucy-Lady would have acted any differently if he had told her he was heading out to Australia for a spell -- but if he had left a note or something, I'd have more respect for him now. Now, I just can't stop laughing at him, especially after his "I'll die over any bad news!" drama queening on the boat. Yet again: George lied.

Robert takes George to Audley Court for a change of scenery. There, a secret is revealed and again George goes missing. This throws Robert Audley into a funk, as he mopes about thinking over how much he misses his friend. During all of this, his cousin Alicia practically throws herself at him repeatedly to get him to notice and fall in love with her. However, Rob's totally Brokeback over the missing George, so he never notices her. (Again, that Brokeback stuff: totally subtext. But not really.)

Robert then deerstalkers his way around London and the surrounding areas, trying to learn Lady Audley's secret as well as the whereabouts of George. When all is finally revealed, it's pretty disappointing. Plus, Braddon wants us to feel one way -- but the fact that I am a 21st-century reader makes that difficult.

Helen-Helen-Lucy-Lady is responsible for George's second disappearance. She bonks him on the head with a pipe and sends him down a well. And yeah, I know: illegal. Whatever. She's moved on with her life after being abandoned by her husband (because again, he didn't leave a note so what the hell's she supposed to think?) and now, said husband shows up all, "I'm totally going to tell on you." For a woman in the 1800s? This could be lethal. All a woman has is her reputation, and George Talboys is threatening to ruin that for Helen-Helen-Lucy-Lady. Fair? Not so much. So while I don't necessarily want to encourage a lot of pipe/well problem solving, I totally dig why she did it.

Braddon wants Helen-Helen-Lucy-Lady to be evil, though. She's the villain, and her evil must be stopped. But I just can't find my way to seeing Helen-Helen-Lucy-Lady to be all that rotten. She's deeply uninteresting, since all she wants to do is wear furs and shop; but she's not a monster. There's a scene after one of the big reveals where Helen-Helen-Lucy-Lady cries out that she's a "MAD WOMAN!" (and yeah, totally in all caps like that; it's kinda awesome), and Robert & Co. totally want to believe that. A psychiatric doctor stops by for a quick diagnosis, though, and he says, "She's not mad. None of the things she did look like madness. They look like self-preservation." And that psychiatrist wasn't given nearly enough book time because he's totally on the money with that. She's not mad -- she just knows that as soon as her secret is revealed she's ruined in a complete and total way.

Plus, bitch loves her furs -- and won't get to wear them if she's jailed or committed.

The novel doesn't hold up as well to the passage of time as my personal sensation novel hero Wilkie Collins's do. Not just in the way society thinks about and treats women, but also just in the technical aspects of writing, too. The novel is filled with pretty gaping plot holes, and she relies too much on Dickensian instances of coincidence. She'll spend inordinate amounts of time on certain pieces of evidence, only to not have them play out at all by the end of the novel. Plus George? Never stays missing. Ultimately, these just aren't characters at all that seem worth a full-length novel. Except maybe Lady Audley -- but she needs to find a better writer.

The Oscars

I made it until 11:00 and then I couldn't take it any more. Seriously, I don't care about the technical Oscars given earlier in the week in Beverly Hills. I mean, great: they got an Oscar, and how proud we are of all of them. That doesn't mean I want them on the actual telecast. If they want on the actual telecast, they can do it the usual way: play a retarded man or an ugly woman who kills people. Or June Carter Cash.

I love Jon Stewart the way I love all the Jews: all at once and much too completely. However, maybe the Oscars isn't the best venue for this guy. Actors aren't very bright, especially if you're an actor named Keira Knightley and you let someone from the Helen Keller school of cosmetology apply your mascara. Subtle and really funny cracks aren't going to register. What will register? Ben Stiller dressed like some kind of freakshow gimp pretending to be invisible. And for the pants-wetting finale? Billy Crystal getting shot in the neck with a tranq dart. Actors need broad humor to know that they should laugh much like they need easy causes like AIDS and the environment to know that they have to care.

Also, I thought we had come to an agreement about the Debbie Allen situation, right? And I seem to remember all of us agreeing that no, actually, NO: there will be no more dance sequences at the Oscars. Not to beat a dead horse, but I still can't take Rob Lowe seriously. So there I am, not really enjoying the Oscars because they were either (a) boring or (b) painful (Oh, Lauren Bacall: bless your heart) and out of nowhere there's a burning car on stage and a lot of interpretive slo-mo dance. I didn't want to have to resort to the Geneva Convention about this, but I'm also not above putting Ms. Allen to death if it turns out she is somehow involved.

Also, what are we going to do about Meryl Streep? Take some time; we don't want to rush in to anything. But something needs to happen sooner rather than later. Either she needs to go or Robert Altman. I'll leave that up to committee.

Funny

I'm funny. Just now, I said something, and my boyfriend totally laughed. I don't say this to be arrogant, or to, as the kids say, throw down so that now those of you out there who disagree can bring it. In fact, I don't really like people to tell me that they're funny at all. The new gal at work said to me, after pronouncing the word situation as sitchyation, "You know, I have a pretty dark and dry sense of humor." But the thing is, if you really do have that kind of humor, I'm pretty sure you lose all dry and dark street cred by drawing attention to it.

Last week, I received an email from a guy in my writing group. "Your writing is quite entertaining," he said, "and I'm looking forwarded to meeting with you." I joined this group back a couple weeks ago because I feel I'm at a place with two of the projects that I'm working on where it wouldn't hurt to have a little structure and critiquing. This group I found was just starting out, and I figured it would be best to get in on the ground floor, you know?

You totally didn't know, did you. And those of you who did know, knew better and didn't bother to tell me. Anyway, the first meeting of this group was long on introductions and short on any real talk of writing -- unless you count the one old guy who went through the entire list of publications who rejected him. "Then, back in 19-and-25 I received a very pleasant rejection notice from a little magazine just starting up called The New Yorker..." There were over 15 of us cramped into a corner of Panera on a Saturday, and there was already one South American gentleman who had issues with the personal boundaries. While standing in line to get tea, I was tempted just to embrace him and get it over with. "Are you happy now, Descamisado?"

I figured I would give the group one more chance. See if things settled down now that we had finally agreed on a schedule of meeting (the first Wednesday and the third third Saturday) and a venue (not Panera) and we'd all already introduced ourselves. "Finally, we'll get down to writing," I thought.

Wrong.

We met for the second time last Wednesday. This time there were around 12 of us in the back room of a coffee shop and while the venue was a little better, hi: we still introduced ourselves. Again. And here's the thing about introductions: they don't need to be any longer than 2 minutes top. And even two minutes is pushing it. You give your name, maybe where you live (though not really necessary), and in the case of this writing group, maybe a couple words about what you're working on and what you hope to accomplish. I don't want to hear about what your wife thinks about your writing. I don't want to hear about all the places that have rejected you ("And then, in 19-aught-12, I was rejected a third time...") and I especially don't want to hear another joke about the "Great American Novel." You're not going to write it. I'm not going to write it. Novels don't work that way. One of the great things about novels is that they appeal to different people differently. Anyway, Tom Wolfe already wrote it. Back to the point: nothing in your introduction to the group should take more than 5 minutes. I mean, what is it about old people, huh? I didn't realize how little patience I had for long-assed stories about the good old days -- and don't get me wrong: I love grandparents as much as the next youngster. But still: you're near death -- let's keep this brief.

So, the guy who wrote me an email? Works for a "prestigious" television crime show. I knew this, because the email I received from him was from his work. But even if he hadn't sent me a work email, I would have learned soon enough about which "prestigious" television crime show he worked for because he repeated that particular bit of personal information again. And again. And hey, whaddaya know: again.

I'm totally being a little hypocritical here. I mean, if I had a chance to work as a writer for a show or a magazine I truly loved, I'd drop it into as many conversations as possible. "Oh, this? It's a shirt I purchased for my little writing job at this out-of-the-way magazine. I doubt you've heard of it. The New Yorker?" Or, "You know, at The New Yorker, we have a little saying. And I know this because I work there." Or, "Ugh, if I've told Roz once, I've told her a thousand times..." That doesn't mean that I wouldn't be a full-on asshat, though, for doing it. Which I would be. Because that shit's whack. I'm glad you have a job. I'm glad you love your job. I don't need to hear you name-drop every five minutes about how great it is, because (a) it's on Fox; and (b) you're show is peripherally responsible for the existence of C.O.P.S.. That's not really something to be proud of, no matter how many criminals you've helped put away.

Anyway, Prestigious Television Crime Show guy's sitting to my right at the table. And even though he sent me an email, I don't introduce myself to him as, "Hey, remember me? I'm the guy you thought was funny after reading my blog." I don't like to draw attention to myself like that. Another reason, though, is that PTCS guy is totally working the room like he's the last comic standing in the Catskills. He's the kind of guy who feels like every sentence needs a punchline, and it doesn't matter if that punchline is funny or not. He's the kind of guy who makes it impossible for anyone else in the room to be funny, because this guy's totally aggressively funny. Only he forgot the funny part; he's aggressively unfunny.

So, the meeting's going on, everyone is re-introducing themselves, and PTCS guy can't quit it with the Shakespearean asides and the drum-roll-cymbal-crash punchlines. After one guy shared that he'd received more than his fair share of rejection notices, PTCS guy pops in with, "I hear with 6 you get egg roll!" Another time, he complimented himself by throwing in his own, "Thanks, ladies and germs: I'm here all week!" And it was then that I realized what hell would be like. Hell would be this guy, a microphone, a 5 drink minimum and no restroom in sight.

Oh, but it gets better.

There's this other guy, some government bureaucrat or something, sitting across the way who decides that somewhere in his head the synth solo from "The Final Countdown" has started playing, and he and PTCS guy are totally going to have a Funny Bone Smack Down. Whatever minute traces of funny that might have been left in the room are totally sucked up by this guy and then squandered. I realize at this point that my carefully chosen seat in the corner is a liability. I can't escape without drawing attention to myself. I beging to chew furiously on the inside of my cheek, cursing God and wishing for death. Not mine. PTCS guy's and the other guy's.

A nebbishy guy at the other end of the table mentions that he'd like some feedback on his online blog. "No one really reads it," he says. "I'd like to know if it's worth reading or not." PTCS guy asks, "Hey, are you that British Adventuress guy?" And, as you all know, no: he wasn't that British Adventuress guy. I'm that British Adventuress guy. I raise my hand and cop to the fact, and PTCS guy says, "Really? You?" And before I can work up a proper outrage, he goes on to say to the group, "If you guys read his site, you'd never believe that this guy here writes that stuff."

Yeah. I was dissed as suspectly funny. By a guy who was a seltzer bottle and a "Take my wife. Please!" away from a boot up the ass.

Here's the thing about funny: it's not a competition. It's not a full-contact sport. Funny is just a nice way to hang out with other people. I like it when everyone gets to contribute, and no one is grandstanding, and everyone gets a chance at a zinger or a punchline. I love it when funny builds on itself until what started as a simple crack about Gnostics in the 1st century becomes instead this epic story about a quest for conditioner because fine, whatever, you're the Messiah but dude, have you seen your hair lately? It's awesome.

PTCS guy couldn't allow that. Someone somewhere told him once that he was pretty funny, and PTCS figured he'd better milk that cow for all she's worth. He strikes me as the kind of guy who's worried people will forget that he's funny unless he cracks wise something like twice in any given 30-second period. "I have nothing else, really, to offer except for these awful puns and 'wry' observations," I think he's thinking. And sadly: he's right. Only, he's not even getting the funny part right.

I haven't even gotten around to the guy who shared this painful anecdote about his cousin who wrote a book. He's all, "So I said to him, 'At least you've written one more book than I have.'" And no one laughed, so he added, "Because I haven't written one yet." And still no one laughed. "And he's written, you know, one."

And still. No one. Laughed.

And don't even get me started about how he was outraged about Tupperwear.

I wanted to like this writing group. Really. However, I don't know that I can bear another meeting. I can't introduce myself again. I simply can't. And I can't vote any more on days to meet and times, and in what order we should submit stuff, and who should read it when. I just want to write stuff and read other people's stuff. But if I have to deal with PTCS guy again, it might kill me.

Make Room for Sissies

I was never really a robust child. Sure, now my metabolism has delivered a hefty and poignant "fuck you" -- but once upon a time I was just a little wisp of a thing. A sissy, if you will.

I was called sissy for a lot of reasons. I liked to read. I liked having my hair brushed. I enjoyed dressing my teddy bear (named Teddy) in doll dresses letting him act out his favorite scenes from Gone with the Wind, which just happened to be my favorite scenes, too. I didn't care much for sports. I didn't like to be loud. And when my mom would take my brother and me out to the county dump to shoot her .22 pistol at the rats, I'd cry quietly in the back of the pickup truck and wish that I had a unicorn to ride swiftly away on.

Yeah.

As an adult, I'm not quite the sissy I was as a boy. For one thing, there are a lot of hard lessons out there for sissies to learn. The things that I valued: good books, nice discussions, tea -- these were things no one else valued, and this wasn't kept a secret from me at all. I was taunted, tormented, and bullied into the fairly "straight-acting" gay guy I am today. Sometimes, though, I still miss the tea parties.

I mention all this because we're going to switch from my cloying, sepia-toned memories to a work anecdote. We have this publication that [redacted] is putting out, and in both the publication and the marketing material that we'll use to try to drum up subscribers, there's a pull-quote of someone saying, "There's no room for sissies in this industry," or something like that. And it made me mad and sad, this idea that there's no room for sissies. And I realized that no one else was going to make room for sissies; it was going to have to be me.

"This is a little offensive," I told the writer. "I know you didn't necessarily write it, you're just quoting someone else, but still. (As I'm writing this, during lunch, Bronski Beat's playing on my radio. Neat.)

"Which part?"

"That 'sissies' part."

He giggled.

"You don't see it, really, do you?"

He giggled some more. "Say it again," he said.

"Great. Could you put an adult on the phone? Is your dad home?"

"Sorry. So, what you're saying is, you think the word 'sissy' is offensive."

"Yeah. I mean, it's not the c-word. Or the n-word. Or the f-word--"

"'Fuck'?"

"No. 'Faggot'. Besides, it's misleading. You think sissies aren't tough? Have you been a sissy? You think it's all Easy Street and unicorns being less masculine than your cohorts? The strongest people in the world, I think, are sissies and women who forgo epidurals."

He sat thoughtfully for a few moments. I pushed on. "The thing is, it makes me very uncomfortable to be involved or associated with a publication that's going to resort to that kind of elementary-school name calling. If it has to stay in the publication, that's one thing; it's a quote, someone stupidly said it. But I don't think we should use that quote in the marketing material. It looks like we're both valuing that statement and condoning it. And if we're doing either, I'm not sure there's room for me here."

"You feel that strongly about it?"

"Yeah. And I'm disappointed that you don't."

"No, no. I hear you. I just, you know: it's just a word. I don't think I thought about it from your angle before. You know, 'political correctness' and stuff."

"It's not about political correctness. It's about not using names. It's, like, basic kindergarten."

And I won. The quote's coming off the marketing material, and there's a chance that they may take the "sissy" part of the quote out, too. I don't know that I struck a huge blow for sissies everywhere -- but it felt really good, in the way telling someone "You know, that Pollack joke? So not funny and so not appropriate. Stop being an ass" feels good.

One small step for Michael Bevel: British Adventuress.
One giant tea party for Sissykind. BYOU.