15.8.14

A foolish return to blogging for its own sake

Point the first: I haven't forgotten this blog. Obviously; as I'm writing in it at present. Nor have I forgotten the story I was working on. I just need to set out some ideas and get that sorted before I carry on. Although upon reflection and a desire to rewrite (made more severe by the fact that it's already been made public in all its awkwardness) it may become another Abortive Piece of Florid Prose - I have innumerable quantities of those, shed at the wayside like so many colourless papery snake-skins.

Point the second: I am utterly bewildered by the fact that there are still visits to this blog, even though I have not added new material in .... many months. Like, who wants to see my old stuff, really? My most popular posts to date are still the one about pretty actors and the one about things I smelled in one day. I really don't understand people. At least most of them are not foolish enough to actually read the (similarly multitudinous to the Prose) Florid Poetry I have been so silly as to share here. The idiotic phrases one puts together in the gut-wrenching years of 18 and 19 - well, there's no harm in them, but why, oh, why, did I have to share them on the Internet? Foolish child I was, and still am, I'll admit.

Point the third: Pursuant to that last statement, let me explain, if you care to read, why I think I'm still foolish: I seem to frequently put myself into a state of maudlin melancholy, and what's worse is that I seem to do it on purpose.
I can't think why I do it, but the how is easy. Let's just say I have a partiality for certain types of love stories. Pride and Prejudice, Gaudy Night & Busman's Honeymoon, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew, for a start.
I've lately been home sick from work, so yesterday (as is traditional when a Klassen is ill) I watched the entirety of the A&E version of P&P. I know nearly the whole of it by heart by now, and can imitate Lady Catherine as she's telling off Lizzy about Darcy quite creditably. But the moment in Pemberley as Lizzy rushes back to Georgiana, ostensibly to turn pages for her but really to distract from silly Miss Bingleys and their references to certain Wickhams - and she and Darcy have an entire conversation with their eyes. Just kills me every time.
Then today I re-read Gaudy Night. Dorothy Sayers. I love that woman. And it occurred to me, on this re-reading, that I owe a fair number of my feminist opinions to her, because really, Gaudy is full of them*. But there are two moments in that book that just kill me too. The first, and actually more murderous of the two, as far as I'm concerned, is the scene when they've been punting on the river, and Wimsey's reading Harriet's notes on the crime and catches her perusing his face. The second, of course, is the bit at the end when he proposes for the umpteenth time and she finally accepts.
Now, I'm not entirely certain, but I have a good strong suspicion that my maudlin mood upon re-reading and re-watching these gems is solidly based in the fact that none of the so-called love stories I have embarked upon in my own life has ended well.
I do have an inner Mr Bennet (probably due to watching P&P so many times), who thoroughly laughs at the whole deal, with a hearty, "Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then," though contrary to what he thinks, taken all together, I rather dislike than like the experience. But then I read these stories and I have a little hope for a time, and then I remember that I've been living vicariously through Lizzy and Harriet for the last few hours and that reality is not often like books, and my hope bursts like little bubbles and I'm left with this sort of bittersweet melancholy.

Point the fourth: I'm sort of a little bit sorry that my first post back since January is full of emotional dreck, but it was what was on my mind that caused me to write at all, so, in Internet-speak, sorry not sorry. 

Point the fifth: Goddamn loneliness. It's shitty.


*Also I came across some excerpts from essays by her on the subject a little time ago. Cast your eyes across these, if you will: http://hardheads.blogspot.ca/2010_10_01_archive.html - I particularly liked the section out of The Human Not-Quite Human.