My Response to The Daily Wire (Because Surely Everyone Was Wondering)

Through some twisted maneuver of data brokering, I have been added to the email list for The Daily Wire. No action was taken on my part; their emails just started appearing in my inbox a few days ago.

Today, out of morbid curiosity, I opened the daily digest email they sent me. One headline caught my eye: "What 'Bridgerton' Gets Wrong that 'Pride and Prejudice' Got Perfectly Right." As a dedicated Janeite myself (a real Austenhead) I felt as if I was the right person to respond to the article, even though I've never seen Bridgerton.

One of my fears going into this is that I might be put in a position where I have to defend Bridgerton. I will if I must, but I really do not want to. I haven't seen it, no, but I am not a fan of the costumes, or the general aesthetic, or especially the music. If you're a fan of the modernized regency genre, more power to you -- I enjoyed Mr Malcolm's List enough-- but I absolutely cannot in good conscience condone listening to the Vitamin String Quartet.

Without further ado, let's analyze the latest droppings The Daily Wire has excreted for us.

First, we need to think about this title:  "What 'Bridgerton' Gets Wrong that 'Pride and Prejudice' Got Perfectly Right." Framing this as a question of right and wrong is automatically suspect. My first impulse was to guess that it was a comparison of general historical accuracy, and if that is the case, of course a novel written in 1813 is going to be accurate to the customs and manners of 1813. However, historical accuracy is not the authors' (Holcomb and Jensen) concern here.

This is how it starts:

 

If we're going for a conversational, opinion-piece tone, like I also am here, I guess you can make a broad claim like "Ladies love" such and such. I don't know what style guide allows you to put in quotation marks the titles of books and movies that are italicized according to every single major manual of style, but I can let that go as well. Let's continue.

 

1. Ah, there it is, the conservative point you're trying to make.

2. Did you really need to cite a source for the fact that Pride and Prejudice (see? italics) doesn't have any sex scenes?

3. One is a film and the other is a TV series. Get an editor.

4.  Is it necessary to cite numbers for the popularity of Pride and Prejudice? Just one paragraph ago you were content to just broadly claim that "Ladies love" it.

 

1. Bridgerton is a television show, not cinema. This article is part of The Daily Wire's series "Upstream," the purpose of which is to engage with the "general culture." You would think that your culture writers would know the difference between a TV show and a movie, but this is the second time in as many paragraphs that you've messed that up.

2. By your own admission, it's the predictability that is turning off audiences, not the sex.

 

1. Are you really saying that women shouldn't want satisfying sex? If you're married, as I imagine Daily Wire contributors all are, I hope your husband sees this and gets his act together, Christ.

2. You are conflating two things that are actually not equivalent. Bridgerton is not an Austen adaptation. It takes place in a fictional reality that shares some surface aesthetics with the Regency period, but it does not really take place in Regency England in any meaningful way, from what I've come to understand. I could be wrong though.

 

1. I think you're greatly underestimating how horny Jane Austen novels are. Of course there is going to be less physical touch in a society with strict social rules regulating it. Therefore, you have to read so much more into any touches that do occur. The fact that nobody is having sex in Austen novels is possibly the horniest thing about them. It's about repression, it's about desire. Sure, there are no heaving bosoms and there is no bodice ripping, but the significance of these dance scenes should not be ignored. All these physical touches are extremely charged. Even Madame Bovary, a novel about having wanton affairs, doesn't have sex scenes, because that's not how books were written in the nineteenth century. I realize I'm placing too much emphasis on the books when these authors are really interested in the screen adaptations, but any adaptation that's even a little bit faithful is not going to invent from whole cloth sex scenes that weren't there in the books.

2. "Physical chemistry means little without the quick-witted interactions" etc. Oh, characters don't have compelling chemistry unless they also talk to each other and have an interesting relationship? This is groundbreaking stuff, alert the presses. The lack of little nuggets of wisdom like these are what kept your fearless leader Ben Shapiro from becoming the screenwriter he always wanted to be.

 

1. Please just admit you haven't seen a good romance movie. I am not going to try to defend "Wuthering Heights" or Bridgerton, but you can't use these as your only points of comparison just because they are inspired by the 19th century. In fact, from what I've heard, Wuthering Heights would have benefited from being hornier!

2. I think you are treating sex and romance as two diametrically opposed forces, and I pity you for that. 

Well, this is just true. Congratulations on having read a book.

 

1. It's not that everyone knew Wickham was a philanderer and was just fine with it. The moral of his character, and of the whole novel, is that you can't judge someone based on first impressions. Wickham seemed like a charming man, but he was a liar and a scoundrel who ran off with Lydia without any concern of what that would do to her reputation. Yes, Lydia agreed to go, because she was a stupid sixteen year old girl, but it was really a larger failing that allowed that to happen. Nobody in her family could recongize Wickham for what he was, so nobody stopped her from going. That's a simplification, but it isn't ONLY a matter of Lydia having too low of standards.

2. However, I have to concede that this Daily Wire interpretation actually isn't a misreading of the novel. You easily can and maybe should read Austen's novels as her opinions on different kinds of guys, and she clearly thinks that the Wickham type sucks and you shouldn't fool with them! And he is contrasted against Darcy, who is the most suitable partner and, more importantly, a proper gentleman.

3. What gives me pause about this, though, is how they seem to think the next paragraph follows from this pretty milquetoast analysis of the novel. What expectations are being placed on women? Are we all being asked to run away with the Wickhams of the world? Is having premarital sex in any form, equivalent to running away with Mr Wickham?

 

1. The moral of their article: women need to stop focusing so much on having good sex, and instead focus on finding their Mr. Darcy.

2. Jane Austen writes all kinds of men, and the majority of them suck, because her art imitates life.

And a parting note: This is a thorny topic to write about, because this article is based in a surface level but not inaccurate reading of Pride and Prejudice. It is true that Austen novels can be mobilized toward conservative ends! It is possible to read them as proto-feminist literature in some ways, but they aren't fundamentally radical. This isn't a case where you can accuse conservatives of deliberately misreading a piece of art in order to suit their needs. It would not be worthwhile to argue with them on those grounds. Jane Austen was a moderately well-off woman living in England at the turn of the 19th century; her literature is generally in favor of the hierarchical class structure. She pokes fun at nobility, but due to their personal failings as individuals, rather than as the beneficiaries of a flawed system. She writes three-dimensional, interesting, brilliant female protagonists, but they all end up in the suitable marriages they "need." All of this is plainly in the text, of course. The real question to ask The Daily Wire is, why did you stop updating your values after 1813?

On Madame Bovary

 

Seeing emilyjones in an English seminar is like seeing a frog on a lily pad, I have been told. Or at least, I have said to others and they have voiced their assent.

Yes, Reader, I never feel higher up on the food chain than when I am tasked with preparing a juicy morsel of close reading to share with the class. The undergraduate close-reading essay is a genre that I mastered, turned into an art form. The way Vivaldi was able to churn out lovely and functional concerti by the hundreds, by relying on repeatable formulae, I was able to spend the last week of an academic term mass-producing literary analysis.

I miss it, Reader. I miss it. One might consider it a moral failing to be so emotionally attached to Winning at English class. One might call it "peaking in high school/college." But if that's the case, it stands to reason that if I never leave school, I never stop peaking. Checkmate, atheists! Maybe that's a secondary strand of that urge that calls some people to become teachers. Do we like literature because we're good at it, or are we good at it because we like it? An age-old question.

Anyway, now that I have finished pontificating about reading books --

hold that thought. I need to look up the etymology of "pontificate."

Before I look it up, I'm going to hazard a couple of guesses: 1, and more likely) probably comes from Latin, some kind of verb like pontificare, and it might have to do with the word for bridge ponte. I'm not sure how those could be related, but fascism and fajita also come from the same Latin root word so who's to say. 2, a wild card pick) it would be funny if it was a latinate-sounding word that actually came from Middle English. In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer describes Absalom yelling "in Pilates voice," i.e., like Pontius Pilate, who in medieval religious plays was known for being very loud. So it would be very funny if it was Pontius --> Pontificate. Being loud like Pilate.

Place your bets, Readers. To the OED I go.

(drumroll)

It was number 1.

 

Pontificare! And it originally had to do with "performing the duties of a Pontiff." a position in the Catholic church.

But of course, I had to see if my ponte/bridge hunch was right, so I had to go to the etymology of Pontiff.

Pontiff is a borrowing of the French pontife, which comes from the classical Latin pontifex which is -- hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen--

 

 Sure, it "may represent merely a folk etymology" but you have to admit I did a pretty good job, seeing as I do not actually know Latin; I'm just a good guesser.

---

That digression aside, my whole reason for writing this blog post at 1 o'clock in the morning, was to talk a little bit about Madame Bovary. The discussion I was having with my darling boyfriend and most devoted Reader brought me around to understanding Emma Bovary a little bit better, or at least being able to articulate better what I found so intriguing about her in the earlier parts of the book. Those early stages of the book being, of course, before she falls victim to a shady lender and escapes her debts via a handful of straight arsenic.**

*Aside #1: Spoiler alert for the 1857 novel, sorry. and *Aside #2: In hindsight, it's the funniest Chekov's Gun ever. Midway through the book, Homais the pharmacist is yelling at his assistant, quite out of nowhere, like "How dare you go up into my private room! That's where I keep all the chemicals! The ARSENIC is right next to that pot you grabbed! WHAT IF SOMEONE GOT POISONED?" And it is through some plot contrivance that Emma is present for that conversation that has nothing to do with her.

The thing that cuts deep about Emma Bovary is the sense of ennui that feels immoral to have and even more sinful to admit to having. I understand that very well. She is an interesting and compelling character because she makes extreme and irrational choices that are nonetheless rooted in feelings that are easy to understand.

I understand being in a relationship and having the vague, gnawing feeling that things are supposed to be better, you're supposed to be happier. You can't put your finger on any particular thing that is wrong; you just don't feel the way you expect to. It makes you feel like an ungrateful woman at best and an insatiable whore at worst to acknowledge it. It's a kind of feeling that you are certain only exists in literature, so you're destined to keep circling around and, with any luck, at least asymptotically approach that thing that remains out of reach. If we're getting psychoanalytic with it, it's a Desire, Not only that, it's a desire that you feel stupid for having, which is what separates you from Madame Bovary. She takes that desire at face value; she wholeheartedly believes in the existence of capital-r Romance, and if it doesn't find her, she will go out and take it.

I remember a moment, less than a year into my first relationship. I took my then-boyfriend to see a local production of Romeo and Juliet. At the end of the play, Reader, I cried. I cried not because of the centuries-old tragedy being played out in front of me, but rather I cried for myself--vain, narcissistic tears. I had simultaneously watched the play and watched myself watch the play, and in doing so, I realized that I had never felt anything as strongly as Romeo or Juliet felt. I realized that there was no classic romance that I could project myself onto with the man sitting next to me. No models in literature or film or even television for the kind of relationship I was in, because we didn't have the kind of rapport that made for interesting art, even if it did make for an adequately healthy and comfortable relationship. I was grieving the loss of the relationship I thought I had. I was moody and distant for the rest of the evening, emotionally fragile for reasons I couldn't fully articulate to myself, let alone explain to my partner. 

For a moment I considered ending things right there. I didn't. I stayed for three more years, because nothing was wrong. At times things were even very good. But, looking back on it now, I get the sense that the feeling I had at Romeo and Juliet never quite went away. There was a sense that I was missing something, which feels bad to admit, or that I was missing out on something, which feels ten times worse to admit. I had love, but I wanted passion. I was being worshiped, but like an idol you keep high on a pedestal out of fear of getting it dirty.

Wanting something is always a mortifying idea. Wanting something without actually knowing what it is, is practically unthinkable. So I simply didn't think it most of the time. A more lighthearted example than the Romeo and Juliet one, I would watch a lot of Frasier (Readers know I still do). I would hear the way Niles talked about his doomed relationship with Maris:

Niles: It doesn't burn with the passion and intensity of a Tristan and Isolde. It's more comfortable, more familiar. Maris and I are old friends. We can spend an afternoon together - me at my jigsaw puzzle, she at her auto-harp - not a word spoken between us and be perfectly content.

 I would immediately understand that Niles was using comfort as a substitute for passion and that it reeked of "cope," as they say. I also immediately understood that on some level I was doing the same thing, but I was convincing myself it was different. (Once a Nilesbabe, always a Nilesbabe.)

There's the vague ennui that creeps in time to time, but that's not the same thing as a real problem in a relationship, so there was no reason to address it. Why would you sacrifice a perfectly good thing out of the possibility of having more? Did Aesop write the fable of the Dog and His Bone for nothing? Things were as good as they could possibly get, I told myself, and only anxiety and greed would ever  make me think otherwise. (You might notice that my self-reproaches took on something of a Protestant flavor.) I never wanted someone else, I only ever wanted something else. A feeling I couldn't describe, and therefore convinced myself didn't exist.

Madame Bovary is starting from the same place but doesn't hold herself back like a Christian. 

A Quiet Day

I always have ambivalent feelings toward uneventful, quiet days like these. Nowhere to go, nothing I absolutely have to do. You could say it's a lot of pressure to do something interesting. All the time in the world. It's already 8pm. Where has the time gone? 

In fact, though I want more than anything else to write an interesting blog post, I'm at a loss for what to say.

It's been slow, leisurely. Even luxurious. Since my darling boyfriend and the light of my life departed at 6:30 this morning, I don't think I've spoken a word.

I went back to bed until 10. I've spent much of the day reading Madame Bovary off and on. A while out in the backyard while I wait for my laundry. A while sitting outside my front door, enjoying the late afternoon sunlight. A while longer in the early evening, letting the breeze in through the open door. I'm almost done, about 60 pages left. 

In between, I've gone back and forth between YouTube videos, too long scrolling on Instagram (which I can never bring myself to delete because once in a blue moon I actually do find out about something exciting there), other minor rabbit holes.

A calm little cycle. Read for a bit, do a chore, make a snack, look at something. Rinse and repeat.

Days that are this calm do, of course, also bring about their own little anxieties. How long have I been doing this or that thing? Is there something important I'm neglecting?

Arlo was in SF today to see a friend's show. I guess I could've gone out to the city to see him, but it was up in the air what time he'd get there. I do hate to continue the ignominious lineage of flaky family members though.

Also, having too much time to think gives me too much license to think about the wrong things. emilyjones is, as Readers will know, numbers-oriented. Charmingly so, some would say. To a fault, those same people would concede.

Waist beads are maybe not the wisest choice of accessory for a numbers and metrics-obsessed woman.

 Though it is manifestly impossible for anything to have meaningfully changed since I had these put on seven days ago, I am still find myself constantly bodychecking. I look at the first photo I posted in them, take note of exactly where the beads fell relative to my belly button, and then check the mirror again, and again, and again.

Was I standing in this specific way when I took that picture? What time of day was it? How much had I eaten? 

It is certainly a change to have a visible and tangible indicator of exactly how bloated your stomach is at any given time. I did not consider this when I bought them. The real question is, is this sufficiently obnoxious for me to take them off permanently? They are, after all, very pretty. And once I take them off I can't put them back on. Remains to be seen.

This has been in the back of my mind since I got them last week, but it's been especially present today due to the deadly cocktail of alone + didn't walk today +  food schedule slightly different.

Logically I know that I ate probably the same amount as I normally do, but yet the prevailing thought is WOW you ate FIVE TIMES today.

It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that food and body thoughts are the preoccupations of the profoundly bored. Anyone with important business to do does not have time to think about these things, and all the better. Looking back on all the rituals I assiduously performed during the pandemic, they were all examples of, to put it bluntly, supremely unemployed behavior.

To be absolutely clear, I am fine. I never avoid eating because I feel weird about it; I simply eat while feeling weird about it. However, is it worth examining further that once I'm left without something better to think about, food/body problems are my first port of call? Eh! Perhaps worth acknowledging that walking and meal prep are the two things in my daily routine that I am the most on top of, because those are both the things I spent a long time being too into, and it's just sort of evened out over time. I definitely started checking step count again once I realized my period app was tracking it.

(Puts the FitBit back on, as a cursed amulet)  

---

Ah, be careful what you wish for. I was saying earlier how the day was very uneventful and I hadn't spoken a word. Well, then I yelled "fuck!" because I spilled so much of a delicious little cocktail on my sofa.

That is a delicious elderberry shrub cocktail, served on a yellow sofa.

I was mostly able to get it out. The sight of my rag makes me think of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, where that damn cat is just moving a pink stain from one object in the house to another and filling the house with ever-smaller cats in hats. Until, if I remember correctly, the smallest possible cat removes his smallest possible hat which banishes both the stain and the cats to whence they came.

 An inauspicious end to the evening. Maybe I should just go finish Madame Bovary. A book whose literary value and cultural significance rival that even of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

---

Update from later in the evening: I did finish Madame Bovary. What an insane ending. God. Flaubert really ends it on a sour note. That was a great novel though. I plan to read lots of novels this summer.

The book club has voted on their next book: it's going to be Brokeback Mountain. I have no idea how the book is relative to the movie, which I also haven't seen. 

---

It's just been a weird mood sort of evening. I think when left too much to my own devices I am prone to moods. The kind of hysteria they used to have the decency to assign coke and orgasms for.

Airing Out My Family's Suspiciously Clean Laundry

It's come to my attention that I am in fact one of the wildest, craziest people on my mom's side of the family. That should give you some sort of idea of where the bar is.

I was thinking about this because when I was on the phone with my mom yesterday, she was telling me all about how she's going to Mobile for my cousin Emma's high school graduation, because she is valedictorian, national merit finalist, and got a full ride to LSU. Chemistry major, just like her sister Mary Helene.

I'm very happy for them both, but it did make me think. Reader, my brothers and I are the only ones on that side of the family who went to public school. The Alabama conservatism runs deep. Of all my aunts, uncles, and cousins and everything on my mom's side, nobody has any tattoos or dyes their hair anything other than blonde. Nobody leaves Alabama--except possibly to go to Louisiana, of course. I don't even think anyone else in the family would do anything as crazy and liberal as study the humanities in college. Science and engineering only! Business and law are also acceptable.

What a world, in which my three brothers and I are the black sheep, because we would dare to go to the University of California. And Alex and I, doubly marked, for not being engineers. However, playing piano and singing both give me lots of points back into the Ladylike category, which is very important. It is still wild to consider what drama it was, what family embarrassment it was, that I did not want to do a beauty pageant. Luckily, of course, Mary Helene and Emma competed.

Here's a fact that I had nearly forgotten: my grandparents weren't on speaking terms with my aunt Amanda for years. Her offense? She was living with her boyfriend, but they weren't married. Reader, Amanda was in her late 20s or early 30s when this happened. I remember being told about this like it was a great scandal, only to be talked about in hushed tones when nobody's around.

The situation is dire, Reader, dire. However sheltered I may have been as a child (and believe me, I was, running around in a Mormon friend group just for the love of the game), it's nothing compared to my cousins. I remember when I was in high school, my mom was considering asking if Mary Helene and Emma wanted to come to camp, since they both do theatre at school. She decided against it, though, after realizing that they probably had never been around queer people before and their parents wouldn't want them to start now.

There's a fantasy world in which they came to camp in middle school/high school, in some of my first years on staff. I could tell them that "There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy." (A little Hamlet quote for you there, on the house). Let them experience something, anything, that isn't Alabama private school. Mary Helene wanted to go to UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham), but I think she ended up accepting an offer at University of South Alabama. Even Birmingham was too far away from home and too liberal. CENTRAL Alabama? What are you, a yankee?

It's weird to think about, because I'm really not very close with my cousins at all. I never see them, and we have very little in common. I see them maybe once every few years. But I can't help but feel for them. They don't even know everything they're missing out on. It's a path I very nearly went down myself and thank God each day that I decided against it.

Imagine Reader, a world where the most wild black sheep of the family are... Arlo and me.

What's more frightening than a mirror?

I'm always haunted by some guy, as my Readers will know. This week, that Guy is myself. Is there anything more frightening? 

As a responsible woman who has read her Freud, I recognize this as a textbook unheimlich situation. An uncanny double. The unheimlich, or literally, the un-homely. That which is supposed to remain hidden, but has been forcibly revealed. To get even more Freudian with it, the return of the repressed.

Reader, my three QE essays have coalesced into a Doppelgänger of emilyjones, and I fear her. A version of myself who simultaneously is and is not me. For three hours on Tuesday, I will be engaged in hand-to-hand combat with my own distorted reflection as some of the most respected members of my career field watch and judge.

Or maybe the Doppelgänger is the wrong uncanny double to use in this metaphor. Maybe I'm more like Victor Frankenstein. In my hubris, I've created a monster, perhaps inadvertently in my own image. When I submitted the essays to be read, she escaped. But now she's coming back. And she demands that I make another creature (a dissertation prospectus).

I'm terrified to look upon my own creation because it necessarily requires looking at myself. What do I create, using MY sources, that I chose, as the culmination of MY year of preparation? What does emilyjones do when left to her own devices? 

 I'm afraid I will open the essays that I was so proud of a couple weeks ago, and they will have turned back into a proverbial pumpkin. The haze I was in while I wrote will have dissipated and I'll see the disgusting truth. It's like when a new mother is so under the influence of pain meds and hormones that she is blind to the fact that her baby looks like a raw chicken.

As long as I continue not reading the essays, they will continue to be good.

Of course, reading the essays is both the cause and the solution to my problems. In theory, I could find out once and for all if my essays were competently written. However, I know that I cannot be an impartial judge of that. I can speculate about what the faculty will say about them, but there's no way to know. 

I brought this up to Allison.

"Well, you probably got a text or something afterward saying that the essays were good and that the oral exam is a-go?" No I did not.

"I mean, the next day I saw Nick and he said that he'd scrolled through them, and that they 'looked like QE essays.'"

"Oh, they always say that. They passed the sniff test, like James says."

I spend 36 hours writing, and all I know is that Nick has scrolled through them and believes they are of appropriate length and contain a reasonable amount of sources. To say nothing of Shannon, James, or Mary Ann.

This is the problem with the faculty. Sometimes no news is good news, yes. But plenty of other times good news is good news. I remember Flannery showing us her text from Nick saying that her essays were "Extremely bar clearing" or some such quirky Nick-ism.

It is slightly embarrassing and extremely undignified to put into writing how badly I need to be told that I am doing a good job. However, I choose to blame the department rather than myself, because there is no standardized type or amount of feedback, or a timeline for when you can expect it. A text from Nick would go a long way in easing my mind about these things.

I did get a text from him today, that had nothing to do with the QE or anything. He texted me during the Works In Progress session we were both at, to point out a missed opportunity for a "but this is ridiculous!" joke. Two texts:

    "You missed your bad joke opportunity"

    "'I've heard about *archive fever* but ...'"

This was about Lester's piece, which I did not read, so I was sort of zoning out, so I have no idea what the setup to this joke was. I'm glad he's joining the eternal search for "but this is ridiculous" jokes. I explained to him in our last meeting that you have to keep doing them as etudes. Like Monet, painting the Rouen cathedral over and over in different lighting conditions.

But I digress. One day I'll read my essays, Reader. And also one day whoever is in charge here at Oneword will standardize what bits of dialogue are italicized and which aren't.

Maybe I'll write another post later, about what actually happened during the day, rather than just my spiraling thoughts about what will happen next week.

But until then, this has been,

Emilyjones 

--- 

A picture is worth oneword

 In Which Emily Learns You Can Connect Your Google Photos Account Directly to Blogger

Taking walks and observing nature for inspiration: it was good enough for Beethoven, so it's good enough for me.

But Beethoven knew neither the epic highs nor the infinitely more numerous lows of owning an iPhone. To wit, he could not take photos on these walks. I can. Beethoven - 0 Emilyjones - 1

To be fair and balanced:

Symphonies composed: Emilyjones - 0 Beethoven - 9 

Tonight's post is going to be a bit of a retrospective photojournal of my last few walks. Things I've seen but forgotten to post or send pictures of, and any little thoughts those bring up.

 Tuesday

I took BART to El Cerrito yesterday for a trip to the Asian supermarket. It's about a 15 minute walk from the station to the store, a walk I've made once or twice before. This time, however, when I asked Google Maps how to get there, it suggested an alternate route that went down a walking trail rather than the busy main roads. It began on a main road, then cut through a shopping center, then went to a trail.

 

I started down the sidewalk and heard a man's voice

- Sorry, didn't mean to blow all that smoke in your face.

It didn't occur to me at first that he could be speaking to me at all. I didn't see or smell any cigarette smoke. Not even a vape cloud. Regardless, I turn toward the voice, and the man is looking at me. He has a beard, a southern drawl, and a baseball cap. He's probably in his early thirties. 

- "Uh, it's all good," I say, or at least I mumble something to that effect because, Reader, I reiterate, no smoke of any kind had been blown in my face.

- Can I take you to dinner? The man asks. We're both waiting at a crosswalk.

- No thank you! :) 

- You're a beautiful woman. Luckily we are crossing in different directions.

 

That takes me to the shopping center I have to cross through. Walking around in jeans and a baggy sweater, you know, like a beautiful woman.

 

Then I make it to the beginning of the trail. Trail is a strong word, really, more of a sidewalk that happens to be next to a creek. But it was still a nice change of pace.

 

I love the art on this sign. And it also reminds me not to take any creatures for granted. My first thought when looking over the list of animals was Well these are all very ordinary. I was hoping for something more exciting. But look at how lovingly rendered these all are. And, of course, these animals don't exist everywhere. In France you'd have to go to a zoo to see a raccoon. Losers one and all, the French.

 The French mind couldn't comprehend a creek like this.

 

This little path took me to the grocery store, or rather, I eventually made it to the grocery store. First I had to wander through an Asian shopping mall that was much larger than I remembered. Lots of interesting stores and restaurants there though.

I'm intrigued about what late night karaoke happy hour looks like at a sushi restaurant in a mall. Every night!

 

Later that evening, when I was walking to campus to dedicate almost two hours (3, if you include travel there and back) to three minutes of Mahler, I took some time to take pictures.

 

I've walked past this spot almost every day for 3 years and have never seen this Vibe Check rock. Consider my vibe checked.

I think these bright, bright pink flowers came into bloom recently. I really do love and appreciate the patches of wildflowers all over the sidewalks in town.

 Spotted outside the Cat House, which often has a lot of cool and based things posted outside. Free "fuck ICE" posters, copies of a radical newspaper, etc. But this has me baffled as to the message. Yes, it's anti-AI. This seems to imply the existence of a large contingent of AI users who pay LLMs to be weird. And our resistance to that? Bunny ears. Keep up the good work.

 

 Wednesday

Far fewer pictures today, because I spent a good chunk of the afternoon at home cleaning. (sidenote: my chore chart seems to already be working before I've even said anything. I was sitting at the table this evening eating some cherries. Maya came in to make dinner. She unloaded the dishwasher for the first time in what feels like months, and signed the chart) My Goodwill finds have already been reported on. 

I did, however, see a couple of things on the way to and from Maddie's today:

 

Free herbs. I was going to take the sage on the way home but I completely forgot. I would have tried burning it, just because. I think now I will go diffuse some sage essential oil as a consolation prize.

 

I was already in a purple and yellow mood today. The flowers I bought at the grocery store today were those colors. Then while walking I saw these gorgeous flowers that are purple on one side and yellow on the other. In general, a lot of the flowers I've seen while walking have used complementary color schemes. I wonder if there is something in nature that encourages that. I think there was a chapter of Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass about this very question, but I forgot everything else about that book, so, go figure.

 

My darling boyfriend predicted the return of I <3 Boobies bracelets in 2026. Even if those don't take off again, we can officially say he was right. Someone <3s boobies enough to shout it from the rooftops.

Unless, of course, there is some other meaning instead of the obvious interpretation.

Lesbian Vampires Bite Every Woman Before Sex

 

--

And with that, a work of photojournalism is completed.

Until next time, fair Reader. 

 

Yours, 

Emilyjones 

The Wet Badge of Courage

There seems to be a war brewing on the Drying Rack front. To bring readers up to date on the escalating tensions:

First, there was a big drying rack taking up the majority of our very limited counter space. It ended up becoming a place to put your dishes instead of back where they go. I grew up in a strictly no-drying-rack household for this very reason.

It reached a point where I ousted the drying rack from this contested territory and claimed it for cutting boards and food prep. Food is prepared on the counters. Dishes stay in the cupboards.

For a while we had normalized diplomatic relations under this uneasy truce, but lately the dishes have begun encroaching on the territory again, in strict violation of our treaty.

It began in strange ways: Wet spatulas and ladles left in, around, and on top of my fruit bowl to dry, even though the container they live in is approximately 24 inches away from the fruit bowl. And what's more, spoons, crucially, are not fruit. Then the dishes became bolder. A box greater on top of the delicate avocados. Cups, knives, blender parts, left clean and dry next to the sink.

Tensions reached a boiling point this morning as the dishes started pursuing expansionary policies, boots on the ground. Two pots. Knives. Cutting board. Even several tea bags--food mercenaries joining the side of dishes. A rusted cast iron pan left on the stovetop, as if to send a message. This aggression would not stand. I put every single dish away back into the cupboards where they belong, as agreed to in the treaty. Rained chemicals down onto the battlefield until there was no trace of their presence, scorched earth style. Though I did strike up a deal with the cast iron skillet to give it some oil.

Now, in the late afternoon, it looks like the dishes have begun again but have fallen back to a safer position: the sink. So it's trench warfare they're after.