Crap comes to Pemberley

Oh man, this may be the last time I try to read one of these books-based-on-books-that-I-already-love.

Image (via)

The first chapter or so of Death Comes to Pemberley was awesome. The rest was pretty much crap. First boring crap where nothing really happened and then implausible crap that made me want to punch P. J. James (who is apparently, NOT a man, as the Southwest employee told me rather emphatically as I was telling her about my opinion of the book) in the throat.

I am not sure why I thought that this wouldn't be disappointing, maybe because they advertised it on the back of the New Yorker, maybe because Lydia is secretly my favorite Bennett sister (I am a big fan of doing things just for the story, as is she - trust me). But this was a mega let down.

Speaking of Lydia, for some reason as I read this book, I was not picturing Colin Firth or Kiera Knightly or anyone EXCEPT I could pretty much hear Jena Malone reading Lydia's dialogue in my head. Say what you will about her as an actress, but clearly she leaves a lasting impression.

Of all the things that pissed me off about this book (and there were MANY) - the thing that got my goat the most? The cross over business between the books (I won't ruin it and tell you how it affects the story, but I feel like you have a right to be warned against such atrocities). I am not quite sure who died and named P.D. James queen, but there needs to be a coup d'etat. Pronto. You cannot just wave your magic freaking quill pen and connect imaginary dots between Emma, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. You. Can. Not. I do not care how many old ladies think you're really great.

Thank goodness it was over quickly. And for the record, I knew who did it all along.

my turn

Hyperbole and a Half has a new blog post up which is enough to totally make my week most of the time.  If you aren't reading her you're making a huge error in Internet judgement.

My favorite post is this one for the very selfish reason that it totally happened to me (sort of kind of not at all)...

During my junior and senior years of college I was living in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn.  It was a lovely little neighborhood that bordered on one of the swankiest BK neighborhoods and one of the most dangerous.  I would get off at my train stop and I could see a White Castle just a few blocks down Atlantic Avenue but I never went there (despite my deep and insatiable love for small food) because it was, in general, a poor choice to go to places that, "Jay-Z talks about in his early work."

Anyway- my neighborhood felt safe enough but I heard plenty of stories of robberies and other stuff you don't tell your parents about so that I always was very aware of my surroundings (you don't not spring from the womb in the District of Columbia without some solid street smarts).

SO - at some point in that time I contracted a very serious case of the flu.  Having been a fairly healthy kid, I am not very well versed in how to be sick without being totally pathetic and ridiculous.  I was feverish and miserable and stayed in bed moaning.

At one point, around 10 or 11 PM I decided I was feeling better and decided I needed some ginger ale and orange juice immediately.  There was a 24-hour diner catty-corner to my building that delivered, so I called them.

"Hi, can I get a bottle of orange juice and a bottle of ginger ale."
"We don't have bottles, only cups."
"I can't get a bottle?"
"No."
"How much would a cup cost?"
"It would be $6 total."
"For a cup of ginger ale and a cup of orange juice?"
"Yes."
"That is ridiculous."
Click.

Even with a 102 degree fever I am a bargain shopper.

After I hung up I put on my coat.  Down the block in the other direction there was a bodega that was also 24 hours and I knew would be able to make me a better deal for more of the liquids I so desperately craved.  I had been wearing the same clothes for about two days but made no effort to do anything except put on outerwear and find some money.

I made it down the block and into the bodega just fine, but something, I don't know if it was the smell of the slightly rotten deli meat or the hundreds of virgin mary candles but I knew something was not going right.  I found my juice and ginger ale and tossed some dollar bills on the counter.  At this point I could not hold myself upright without leaning on the counter but I took my purchases (because we all know that the best thing to do when you can't handle your own body weight is add a quart of OJ and a 2 liter of Canada Dry) and walked out.

This is where things get hazy.  I know I made it across the street before I faceplanted.

As a kid I was always epically jealous of girls who fainted.  It was the way to get attention.  I used to wish that I could do it just once so that when I faked it it would at least look realistic (I was very method in my pretty, pretty princessness).

I don't quite know what happened when I really did faint - I do hope that there was an instant where I was having my teen-queen-movie-first-kiss moment where it was like, "This is it!" but I spent most of the way to the ground unconsious so there is no way to know.

Once I hit the asphalt I regained as much consiousness as can be expected pretty quickly.  At this moment, this could have taken a very SVU turn.  A smelly-ass 20-year old, with no identification on her, is passed out on the street corner at like 11:30 at night, and when I first opened my eyes I was totally disoriented (probably because I was lying on the ground) and so I kept saying, "this is not where I am supposed to be."

Luckily, the first person to come upon me muttering to myself wished me no harm.  Once he realized that I was still talking about not being in the right place he probably wished himself away from this sketchtastic scene.  But he very nicely asked me if he should call an ambulance.

"No, I'm fine."

Like I said- not super good at being sick.

I managed to stand up, fall back down and then stand up again while still insisting that I was totally fine and that I just needed to go one block and I would be home.

He was super wary about all this so, naturally, I negotiated, "listen, you can watch me walk to my apartment and then if I fall down again, you can call an ambulance."

He seemed fine with these terms so I stumbled home as fast as I could with the thought that the faster I walked the less likely I would be to pass out.  This logic managed to work as I made it in and up two flights of stairs, through my unlocked door and into bed before passing out again.

But Rachel, what about the orange juice and ginger ale?!

Don't worry.  They made it all the way through this journey unscathed some how and were incredibly restorative, making this entire adventure totally worth it.

funny lady

"It's freeing to fail and realize you didn't die" - Tina Fey

I was in an improv class a year or so ago and my teacher (who, not to toot anyone's horn or anything, is kind of a big deal) told me that if I just stopped fucking worrying so much I could be like Tina Fey. That I had it in me. It was the most amazing compliment I have ever received (so of course I immediately came up with all these excuses about why it wasn't true or that he misspoke or something along those lines).

It has stuck with me, and reminded me that I have potential. But I am a huge worrier. And maybe it'll get better over time, maybe it won't. But I love this video for a lot of reasons. And if Tina Fey ever wants to shoot the shit over fantasy football or why kids on leashes are always the ones who kick puppies or kinds of cake...I would be totally down.

This is not a real blog post...I have a backlog of them in my noggin. But its been a busy few weeks and now I'm attempting (and kind of failing) to Nano (yes, that's right - its a verb now) so all writing over 140 words that doesn't pay me a salary has been put on hold.

Back soon!

a couple words

It has come to my attention that I am terrible at putting up pictures on this business. While words are nice - I feel like pictures take the game up a notch. Also, I have 8,800 pictures on my computer which means that every time I open iphoto everything comes to a screeching halt for 4 or 5 minutes as it loads. Its time to share the wealth.

My first word/photo essay is entitled "Photos of me with famous people."

This is one of my favorite pictures of all time. Its framed next to my bed, which if Mr. Sedaris ever knew would either delight him or terrify the shit out of him. Its one of the only pictures of us all together as either my Mom or I tend to be behind the camera, but some nice lady took this for us. Apparently David Sedaris doesn't like to have his picture taken so this is a pretty rare find. He looks so content? confused? angry? I have no idea - we almost look photoshopped behind him- which would kind of brilliant of him - to sell this image and you can just put your own family behind him. Also we all look very young in this picture - it is about five years old, but those are 5 clutch face-changing years.

What is super unfortunate is I look like a pile of awkward garbage in this picture. This was poor planning on my part. This picture never should have happened. I had an English class and wasn't feeling well. But Miss D said two little words - Christopher Meloni. And I was there. With my pigtails and my raggedy tee-shirt and my make up - oh wait no, not so much that last one. This night was also the night that brings you this little number...


Back when this picture was taken four long years ago - I was a senior in college, young and full of dreams and bad skin and the ability to understand the physics of how to take a good picture. And this guy was just finishing a show called Light on the Piazza which I had loved in that way that you are pretty sure you should love something but are mostly just distracted that the lead male is supposed to be Italian and does not even resemble a pasta noodle he is so un-Italian looking. Anyway - at this point I was madly in love with him, having seen the show and since he wasn't actually a celebrity yet - he was incredibly nice and chatty. And now he's all famous and I still kind of look that weird, but am better at being pictures (sort of).

Okay - this picture almost doesn't count for a few reasons - 1) Vanilla Ice isn't really a celebrity any more, and 2) you can't actually see my face, just my enormous cobra-esque mouth that has the capacity to swallow you hole. The fact that I went to a bar just to see Vanilla Ice shows just how desperate I was for human interaction when I moved here. The fact that my coworker invited me out - I would have probably gone and seen MC Hammer (actually - that's 100% true - I would go see MC Hammer by myself).

Again - why must I look atrocious in every celebrity picture? This is going to really hurt down the road...when we get to later pictures. Ryan Shaw doesn't really count because he did not blow up like Matthew Morrison. Bummer - but we like him anyway.

And then next three all happened in one day too - you can tell because I'm wearing the same clothes. Also - I look *almost* okay



McKim looks gorgeous in these pictures - she is flipping radiant. I look like I need some sun, and may or may not have to pee. I get so excited when I meet celebrities I care about (...or I just make terrible faces) that I forget how to look like a normal person. But its nice to have pictures to remind me of meeting a bunch of strangers.

Sing sing

Excuse the extended break - I've been trying to be better about posting at least a few times a week but I went home to the land of crab cakes and football (with a quick stopover in the land of moose and lakes) and did not have a ton of blogging time.  My younger-but-not-smaller siblings both managed to maintain the family average by graduating on time from various academic institutions.  Buttmunch from Plymouth State University and the Bear from our local High School.  I am very proud of both of them, mostly for actually graduating and also not puking/falling during the ceremony (our family standards are pretty low).  

After the graduations (which themselves seemed utterly endless.  Seriously - so so so boring listening to people's names) there was the obligatory graduation party.  Thanks to father time and uh, mother tedious there was an obligatory 4 day lull between the last graduation and the party itself.  Which was good- because it gave everyone time to prepare and call maids to come clean the house (the maids themselves should really be their own blog post - maids are awesome).  It also gave me time to see people I love and hardly ever see - also eat crabcakes, play bar trivia, imbibe a little too much and spend some serious quality time with my siblings.   

My siblings and I are exactly 4 years apart in school - which is convenient if you think that it means my parents only paid for one college education at a time, but also craptastic, because it means they're paying for a college education for 12 years in a row.  2 sides to every penny, Amigos.

Since we're this far apart, our friend circles don't overlap at all.  In fact, there are a fair number of my sibs friends that I used to make sweet, sweet money baby-sitting for.  And we've always given each other a serious hard time.  Buttmunch for being a lazy boy, Bear for being the baby, and me for being the bossy (always right) big sister.  But in general, these days, we get along pretty well.  Which is kind of awesome...but there are still some things that give me flash backs to being little.

Once upon a time, millions of years ago (when leggings were cool the first time around) - Buttmunch and I told Bear that she was under no circumstances allowed to sing in the car unless she knew every single word to a song.  This was the law and it would be followed.  Mostly by her.  Not so much us.

And now, my sister knows every word to every song on the radio.  Which is impressive (although not that impressive when you consider the lack of variety on the radio these days).  Its nice that we could give her this gift by being bossy d-waffles.  You're welcome, Bear.

Anyway - the rest of the 10 days back East were also really lovely (there was a zoo and a wine/beer tasting - at the same.time), but that kind of stuck with me.  The fact that my baby-sister is all graduated from high school and still follows my stupid rules.

In other news - My summer is going to be very awesome, and I'm very excited.  Also exciting? Nora Dunn just walked into my place of employment.  I get excited from the weirdest celebrities