I squeed myself

Can we talk about Pride & Prejudice for a bit? This should serve as a warning to those who don't give a shit about P&P to stop reading because I am about to lit-nerd out in a huge way. Like, for real, those of you who've never asked yourself "what would Elizabeth Bennet do?" kindly step to the left.

It's a truth universally acknowledged (seriously, it's well documented all over the internet), that I'm a fan of Pride & Prejudice, along with, you know, Jane Austen in general. I will read or watch pretty much anything Pride & Prejudice-related, though I have managed to steer clear of most of the fiction that expands upon the Bennet-Darcy story. I have to draw the line somewhere.

But I have read Bridget Jones's Dairy (duh) and watched Lost in Austen (shut it) and I've read Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (well, most of it) so when I heard about The Lizzie Bennet Diaires, obviously I knew I had to watch. When it first started, I used to only watch the videos every couple of weeks, catching up on everything all at once, but for the last month or so, I've barely been able to wait until I get home from work to watch new videos. Mondays and Thursdays suddenly became the greatest days of the week and not for reasons like, oh, I don't know, Memorial Day or a new episode of Community.

Do I need to do a spoiler warning? I mean, you know how P&P ends, right, so really there's no such thing as spoiling so shut up I'm not spoiling shit. Anyway. This past Monday’s video ended with a HUGE CLIFFHANGER, if it can be true that something based on literature written 200 years ago could ever cliffhang anything, so yesterday, when I saw the new video was posted, I LITERALLY SQUEED. Which is gross, because I'm an old now and I thought my squeeing days were far behind me.

I didn't think I was that obsessed with LBD because I'd pretty much only been half-hardheartedly watching it, until it got to a certain point (oh, like maybe when Lizzie went to Pemberley and Darcy started being all dreamy) and then I was hooked and wouldn't have stopped watching if you paid me, unless you paid me a million dollars or something, I mean, what am I? An idiot? Oh, wait.

I was going to embed yesterday's video so you could see what I was squeeing about but it wouldn't have the same effect on you unless you've watched LBD from the beginning, which I guess you can go do right now if you have something like eight hours to kill. Go for it! Who needs sleep? Not you. NOT WHEN DARCY'S ON THE LINE.

Anyway. Do you think the original readers of P&P shipped Lizzie and Darcy? Did they read P&P and then daydream about Lizzie and Darcy frolicking through fields of flowers, gazing adoringly at one another or even GASP grazing hands? I hope so. I'd like to think I have at least that in common with a proper lady.

I hope they do Persuasion next. Somehow. In my advanced age, the wistfulness and missed opportunities of Persuasion really do speak to me more than P&P. Just don't tell 24-year-old me, she'd probably freak the fuck out and light 30-year-old me on fire.

"I already feel like an idiot most of the time anyway."

Your mind is a pretty effective time machine, provided you have a good memory and at least a little bit of an imagination. The only drawback is that you can't really change anything unless you can somehow change your own memories AND the memories of all the people who were involved in whatever you're changing. So you can see how that might be difficult. It's one thing to impose your will on your own self, but on other people? Unless you have an Inception-machine or know Joseph Gordon-Levitt, you can just forget it.

But you can pretend things changed. You can even change your own memories enough, just for yourself, that it helps you in the future. Some may call this denial, but I just call it playing the system. I find myself so often hung up on things that have happened to me, things that I no longer have any control over, if I ever did, things that I cannot change now, no matter how hard I wish for it, and yet I dwell on them, well, forever. The whole making mistakes and learning from them has always been hard for me. Like most people, I'd rather not make mistakes, I'd rather just do things perfectly the first time, otherwise aren't I wasting time?

No. Duh, NO. Everyone knows it’s important to make mistakes, because at least you're trying, but it's hard to really take that to heart, to do something about it. Much easier, really, to stay still, doing the things you know how to do and not having to worry about messing up or looking foolish.

I'm not sure why this is something I ever worry about. I try so hard NOT to make a fool of myself and it's usually all for nothing. I end up looking like an idiot at some point during the day, it's just going to happen. That’s just who I am. I'M AN IDIOT. And I'm not trying to demean myself or anything, I like being an idiot. It's much more fun than being serious all the time. And yet, it bothers me sometimes that people don’t seem to take me all that seriously.

This is mostly my fault, I’m pretty sure. I'm more likely to joke and make sarcastic comments and belittle myself than I am to actually offer helpful advice or suggestions. I’m not sure why I do that. Chandler Bing my way through life. (Oh, right, defense mechanism. Duh. Plus, Chandler is the funniest Friend. Who doesn't want to be the funniest?)

I wish I spent less time worrying about the past, I really do, if only because it does no good. Sure, it's helpful to remember your mistakes (if you've been brave enough to make any), but there comes a point when you have to stop dwelling and start thinking about what you're going to do next. Hopefully, it doesn't involve sitting and moping and getting all verklempt while you listen to The National, unless you're me and today is today*. No. Stop that. Get up, take a walk, sit down, read a book, write some nonsense, just do SOMETHING.

Your mind is a time machine after all, bigger on the inside, so just imagine what it can do. 

*I actually wrote this like a month ago, so I feel the need to point out that today I am not moping and listening to The National, today I am high on cold medicine and enjoying Spotify 90s radio.

Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted.

I’ve been rewatching The X-Files like it’s a project, because calling it a project means I’m not wasting time watching TV, I’m DOING SOMETHING. I’ve been sort of cheating (at least it FEELS like cheating, in my head, because my head plays by arbitrary rules) by skipping episodes that I really, really don’t want to watch. I used to watch this show over and over again, though, when I was a kid, so I feel OK skipping some of them. SO IT’S NOT CHEATING BACK OFF.

I spent the majority of my teenhood watching this show, so it feels quite strange to be watching it all again now, from an adult’s perspective. Well. “Adult.” Weird things are making me cry much more than they ever did before. And, of course, there’s the Mulder/Scully romance thing.

It should surprise no one that I was a Mulder/Scully shipper, because I’m an EVERYONE/EVERYONE shipper. Mulder and Scully were the ship that launched a thousand ships, the epicenter of UST, the subjects of argument between Shippers, who (in my mind, anyway) enjoyed the stories and conspiracy aspects of the show but also wanted Mulder and Scully to touch each other where they pee, and NoRomos, who thought Mulder and Scully ending up together would ruin the show, blah blah Moonlighting.

I spent SO many hours in the early days of the internet (AOL WHAT), arguing with NoRomos on my X-Files email group (shut up) about how Mulder and Scully were MFEO OBVIOUSLY. A friend and I even made a website solely devoted to cataloguing the shows “shippy moments,” (jesus) episode by episode, WITH SCREENCAPS. This was high-tech stuff back then, you know. My friend was the one who captured the pictures of the moments, which felt like magic at the time, while I spent hours rewatching episodes and writing blurbs for each. I found the website a few months ago. It felt like time traveling. No, you cannot see it.

Watching it now, I don’t know why there was ever any argument. Mulder and Scully are obviously in love. Like, completely. Maybe not romantic love, not at first, because they weren’t banging yet (um, spoiler), but they so loved each other’s faces! Have you seen the way they GAZE at each other?

Whatever, Mulder.

And they way they talk to each other with about two inches separating their faces?

Also THIS. I don't make a habit of gently cupping a co-worker's cheek.

Joe tried to tell me that the close-talking is just a TV thing but no, that’s how Mulder and Scully talk to each other, all the time, all whispers and furtive glances, and they are in love THE END.

Anyway. My new favorite thing is watching The X-Files while in bed. If I could go back in time and tell 14-year-old Jennie that when she’s an adult, she’ll have the ability to lie in bed and watch The X-Files on her computer while surfing the internet on her phone, her head would explode. So, I guess if I ever find a time machine, I won’t do that. Otherwise I’d have no head right now. And I need one of those to live, I’m pretty sure.

The only bad thing about doing this is that some episodes are really, really creepy. I wouldn’t say they’re scary, as in a “this zombie just jumped out and chewed off a guy’s face,” but more like, “why am I watching the creepiest episode of The X-Files ever, in bed, in the dark, when Joe isn’t home?”

The episode in question? Irresistible, starring one Donnie Pfaster, aka The Creepiest Creep To Ever Creep. This episode has always terrified me, Donnie Pfaster being one of those normal-looking human-monsters, so able to blend into the background, and of course it features one of the show’s scariest tropes: Scully In Peril. Joe said I should make a list of all the times Scully is kidnapped/in danger and Mulder has to maniacally rush to find her (also a list of all the times Mulder loses/drops his gun, but who has that kind of time?), which does happen a lot, but I’m kind of OK with it? Because A) Mulder gets himself into plenty of trouble, too, and Scully has to save him and B) Mulder worrying about Scully is SUPER ADORABLE YOU GUYS M+S 4EVA!!1!!1!!!