literary loves

I have a theory that girls fall not so much for the literary males they'd most go ga-ga over in real life as for the literary males loved by the literary ladies they are most like. Hence, we all like Mr. Darcy because of course we're all terribly clever like Elizabeth Bennet, but no real girl sighs over Don Giovanni because certainly we're not as easily won as his endless hordes. It also solves the horrifying help-I-love-a-psycotic-killer dilemma of the lasses who, really just have long, curly hair and amazing opera voices.

life v. travel

I think it's a mark of actually living somewhere (as opposed to gliding through on a whirlwind tour) that you sometimes hit boring weekends.

If you're brand new in town or in town for only one and a half days, you stay endlessly busy -- out of both desire and the desperate need to fill every waking moment so you don't break down and cry for home. But once you're settled you sometimes find that, oops, you thought you'd go skydiving this weekend, chickened out and now you've got nothing.

But it's okay -- it's life, and it goes on. And next weekend will be way cooler.