In Which The Universe Mocks Me

Now, it isn't as if I particularily embrace my Singleton life, although I'm fairly realistic about the sacrifices marriage and family entail. I am where I am and I deal with it as best I can, but some days I do long for a corporeal significant other, rather than the bevy of Fantasy Boyfriends with whom I am currently involved. I do not need the fact that I am 29 and single emphasized for me. Which is exactly what the theme of the past few days has seemed to be. Two incidents seem to indicate the Universe would very much like to pour lemon juice in the paper cut that is being 29, single, and LDS.

INCIDENT #1
Setting: Sunday evening, my home.
Players: The Wholly Unsocialized Twelve Year-Old Daughter of my dad's friends, and myself.

Parents of WUTYOD: This is our oldest daughter.

Scully: Hel-

WUTYOD (interrupting): Can we watch TV?

Scully (befuddled): -lo. Um, I guess so. Let me show you how the system works. (We have a complicated system of remotes - not for the faint of heart)

WUTYOD: Are you thirty?

Scully (even more befuddled): No, twenty-nine, but close.

WUTYOD: I thought so.

Scully (silently): And what does that mean?

Later in the evening, as the family was leaving.

WUTYOD (popping up out of who knows where): Are you married?

Scully (thinking, 'Do you SEE a husband?'): No.

WUTYOD: Are you going to get married?

Scully: I don't know. I haven't met anyone I like that much.

WUTYOD: Oh.

END SCENE


INCIDENT #2
Setting: Monday night, ward member's house who had invited my dad and I and another family over for Family Home Evening. I'm playing Wii games with the daughter of the family that invited us while the thirty-four year-old daughter with Down's Syndrome of the other family watches.

DwDS: Do you have a boyfriend?

Scully (out of breath due to the Wii kicking my trash): No.

DwDS: I have boyfriends.

She then proceeded to name three.

END SCENE

Now, if an unsocialized twelve year-old and a woman with Down's Syndrome is calling one out on one's lame social life, changes need to be made.

Dwight v. My Dad

So, my dad and Dwight nearly got into fisticuffs this morning. Those of you who know my father will no doubt be surprised at this, so I must explain. First, you should know that I got another flat tire on Saturday night, just as we were about to drive home from the Tri-Cities. It was completely my fault, as I thought I could make a U-turn rather than a 3-point turn and the curb totally kicked my tire's trash. So we got to drive home at speeds of no more than 50 mph and I needed to get the tire replaced today. My father gallantly offered to take it to Les Schwab this morning and meet me at work to get his truck. So he was waiting in the parking lot, near Dwight's car, until I got there. Dwight came out, told him to get away from his car and didn't give my dad a chance to explain he was waiting for me until my father told him to stop being belligerant and interrupting. In Dwight's defense, we get a lot of homeless and/or drunk guys wandering through on their way to the tobacco/liquor store next door AND we even had one walk in our back door before. However, my father, standing there with his briefcase, looks nothing like the homeless and/or drunk guys who wander buy. Needless to say, Dwight was fairly apologetic to me and quite nice for the rest of the day. My dad said "I don't usually get upset, but the first words out of his mouth just made me so mad." Which sums up pretty much EVERYONE's first reaction to Dwight. And neither of them found the situation as amusing as I did. I'm sure they will laugh about it someday. Just not together.

I'm Just Glad I didn't Get Fanny Price.

Take the Quiz here!

Check Your Local Listings. STAT!

I just finished watching a presentation of the 2006 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company on PBS's Great Performances. You all need to check your local PBS station to see if/when it is being re-aired, because it was amazing. I have never seen it before and the only song I had heard from it was "Not Getting Married Today" but I have totally fallen in love with it and am very, very tempted to buy the DVD from the PBS website. Oh, and it is in the PG-13 realm for you readers with young ones. Or easily offended old ones. Also, the lead, Raul Esparza, would not be out of place among the Fantasy Boyfriend League. I'm just saying.

The Withdrawl Is Always Fierce

I have mentioned previously that reading Jane Austen is the literary equivalent of crack. And I am full blown addict. I have been giddily watching the Masterpiece airing of the BBC adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. Honestly, how hard is it NOT to grin like a doofus while watching Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet awkwardly meet at Pemberly? It fills me with delight and false expectations to watch the story unfold. Delight because they are wonderful characters and false expectations because, well, the story is a fiction that feeds into one of the most elementary of female fantasies.

Why is it that I can revisit Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion, and Jane Eyre (and the rest of their kin by Austen, Bronte, Glaskell et al) in both their literary and film versions repeatedly? I find these three novels deeply satisfying in a way that is, perhaps, not completely healthy. They are, all three, stories of women who, while neither the great beauties nor wealthy heiresses of their worlds, inspire grand passions in strong, intelligent, desirable men. Despite not possessing the two things (great beauty and wealth) highly prized by society, these heriones completely enthrall the gentlemen in question. It is not just a passing fancy or a genial respect. The heroes of these novels determinedly face down class distinctions, familial and societal disapproval, and even eternal damnation, to earn and own their lady's love. That, my friends, is a strong fantasy indeed. I gave up on being a great beauty long ago and have no fortune to speak of, which makes the fairy-tale endings of these novels all the more alluring. I identify with Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Eyre and, most especially, Anne Elliot. And I'm looking for my Mr. Darcy, Mr. Rochester, or Captain Wentworth.

I am 29 years old and have never inspired a grand passion. I have had a creepy psychostalker or two, but that wasn't so much inspiring a grand passion as exciting an unbalanced psyche. I would think that at some point in the past ten years or so, some member of the male species would have seen something admirable enough in me to inspire a grand passion. But, alas, one has not. So I will content myself with living vicariously through the fictional experiences of the Elizabeth Bennetts and the Jane Eyres and the Anne Elliots and the Eleanor Dashwoods and the Emma Woodhouses and the Margaret Hales of the literary world until reality crashes in, yet again, and I have to face the real world.