Patience...
Aug. 7th, 2004 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatIt's the little things that annoy me...like not getting my paycheck.
It did *not* come in the mail today like it was supposed to. So I've worked hard two weeks and no money. Shit. I have bills to pay next week. Put in a message to the staffing service, who did warn me that it might not show up immediately and if it didn't told me to make sure and call them. Worse case scenario I have to go to the staffing service each week to pick it up. I know my friend Wales has had her battles with temp agencies about getting paid. It's one of the worst things about being a temp, making sure you get a paycheck.
And someone is baking bread or making pancakes, I can smell it through my window...yum. Want. Can't have. Sigh.
On the other hand...my cable is back! Yay!! Apparently the problem was the splitter that the old cable guy had used which made the box go kablooey after a while. He fixed it in five minutes. Quick fix, long wait. Life in a nutshell.
I honestly don't know how people who aren't patient survive.
Most of my time is spent waiting.
After reading Rahael's lovely posts on her grandmother, I called mine today, haven't talked to her in a while. She's doing well. The same snarky lady as always. I told her about my paycheck problems and she laughed. Granny always trys to laugh in the face adversity. She also reads alot. Fast reader. Read Gone With the Wind in 18 hours (she kept track way back when it was first published) and reads most 312 page books in maybe 3 hours. She doesn't remember much of it afterwards but as she puts it, she doesn't remember much of what she watchs on TV afterwards either. Now it takes me a week to read a 300 page book, on most occassions. Course I am reading other things, not just that book, but still, even if I sat and read just that book it would take at least two days. That said - I did manage somehow to read Richardson's 1300 page epic Clarissa in two weeks back in college. So maybe it does depend on how much other stuff you are plugging into the brain. They say we are reading less now, but as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cjlasky and I discussed last night - if anything, we are reading more. It's just we aren't reading books published by publishers and housed between covers as much. Why? Because we can now read books online, fanfiction, essays, emails (same as letters but more of them), websights, posting boards, livejournal entries, newspapers, newsletters, magazines, webzines, teleplays on the net, etc. Sooner or later we will watch information overload, considering the sheer amount we stuff into our brains each day. I know I'm starting to forget things again...just the other day, I made lunch for myself before I left for work, chopped some cheese, got some meat, stuffed it in bag, lugged it to work, stuffed it in the fridge there - went to get my lunch and found much to my suprise, I'd taken the entire hunk of cheese with me to work. (Sigh). Oh well. I guess some information needs to drift loose for the rest to attach, right?
It did *not* come in the mail today like it was supposed to. So I've worked hard two weeks and no money. Shit. I have bills to pay next week. Put in a message to the staffing service, who did warn me that it might not show up immediately and if it didn't told me to make sure and call them. Worse case scenario I have to go to the staffing service each week to pick it up. I know my friend Wales has had her battles with temp agencies about getting paid. It's one of the worst things about being a temp, making sure you get a paycheck.
And someone is baking bread or making pancakes, I can smell it through my window...yum. Want. Can't have. Sigh.
On the other hand...my cable is back! Yay!! Apparently the problem was the splitter that the old cable guy had used which made the box go kablooey after a while. He fixed it in five minutes. Quick fix, long wait. Life in a nutshell.
I honestly don't know how people who aren't patient survive.
Most of my time is spent waiting.
After reading Rahael's lovely posts on her grandmother, I called mine today, haven't talked to her in a while. She's doing well. The same snarky lady as always. I told her about my paycheck problems and she laughed. Granny always trys to laugh in the face adversity. She also reads alot. Fast reader. Read Gone With the Wind in 18 hours (she kept track way back when it was first published) and reads most 312 page books in maybe 3 hours. She doesn't remember much of it afterwards but as she puts it, she doesn't remember much of what she watchs on TV afterwards either. Now it takes me a week to read a 300 page book, on most occassions. Course I am reading other things, not just that book, but still, even if I sat and read just that book it would take at least two days. That said - I did manage somehow to read Richardson's 1300 page epic Clarissa in two weeks back in college. So maybe it does depend on how much other stuff you are plugging into the brain. They say we are reading less now, but as
cjlasky and I discussed last night - if anything, we are reading more. It's just we aren't reading books published by publishers and housed between covers as much. Why? Because we can now read books online, fanfiction, essays, emails (same as letters but more of them), websights, posting boards, livejournal entries, newspapers, newsletters, magazines, webzines, teleplays on the net, etc. Sooner or later we will watch information overload, considering the sheer amount we stuff into our brains each day. I know I'm starting to forget things again...just the other day, I made lunch for myself before I left for work, chopped some cheese, got some meat, stuffed it in bag, lugged it to work, stuffed it in the fridge there - went to get my lunch and found much to my suprise, I'd taken the entire hunk of cheese with me to work. (Sigh). Oh well. I guess some information needs to drift loose for the rest to attach, right?
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 11:23 am (UTC)PS, what did you think of Clarissa?
Re Clarissa
Date: 2004-08-09 04:14 pm (UTC)I remember reading more of it than we had to.
We only were supposed to read about 60%, I read the whole book because it captivated me.
I think the reason is the letters. The idea of telling a story almost entirely (or was it entirely, I read it in 1988), in letters was fascinating to me. Also I found the story an interesting twist on romance conventions. Richardson sets it up as a bit of a cautionary tale, punishing the heroine for being seduced and going off with the attractive rogue, while in most romances she is rewarded and able to change him, with Richardson it's impossible.
We compared it to Les Liasions Dangereux (both the book and the play version, in one the villianess, MErtueil clearly pay for her sins, in the other it's left more ambiguous). What was interesting - was in Les Liaisons, the rogue regrets his actions and is pained by them and does fall for the heroine, while in Clarissa this doesn't happen, the rogue uses her shamelessly, including one of the most realistic and painful rapes I've seen in romance fiction. Fascinating book - I can still remember passages of it vividly. So yep, in the minority who actually liked it I think.
Re: Re Clarissa
Date: 2004-08-10 08:25 am (UTC)I don't know that Richardson punishes Clarissa so much for running off with Lovelace - its quite clear that she is in a ghastly sitaution and she retains throughout a clarity of moral vision that makes me certain she is a heroine in every meaning of the word.
In fact, I always see Lovelace as an Angelus kind of figure and cannot resist seeing shadows of the early Buffy/Angel relationships. Lovelace is so superficially attractive and charming seeing. And her family are so absolutely horrific.
I grew up in a community where arranged marriages were very common. One of my youngest aunt's closest friends committed suicide when her mother locked her up with minimal food and water until she agreed to marry the mother's choice. That kind of tragedy was both shocking and not un-comman. So Clarissa rang true to me. The description of the claustrophobia imposed on Clarissa was terrifying all the more because I can imagine that kind of situation happening so easily.
Re: Re Clarissa
Date: 2004-08-10 04:11 pm (UTC)In retrospect, I think you may be right here.
I always read it as punishment, but I think it's more a natural progression of what happens and how Clarissa deals with it. Like many good writers, Richardson tortures the heroine to evolve her.
In fact, I always see Lovelace as an Angelus kind of figure and cannot resist seeing shadows of the early Buffy/Angel relationships.
Interesting. Usually people compare Spike to Lovelace, which I can see as well although it's not as good a fit (since Buffy was more in control there and never had illusions about him nor seemed to be romantically in love), but Angelus/Angel does fit - as did the B/A relationship (that never occurred to me before, but you're right)- because of the girl who admires and swoons over the charming male who provides her both with an escape from her family and the romantic love. The dream. If Buffy hadn't had to kill Angel, she may very well have run off with him at the end of Becoming a la Clarissa and her Lovelace.
I grew up in a community where arranged marriages were very common. One of my youngest aunt's closest friends committed suicide when her mother locked her up with minimal food and water until she agreed to marry the mother's choice. That kind of tragedy was both shocking and not un-comman.
I vaguely remember arguing in a paper that the reason Clarissa runs off is not so much that she is in *love* with Lovelace, but that he offers her a way out of an impossible situation. What are her choices, really? The horrid man her parents choose or the horrid one she runs off with? She was trapped. In her head, the best way out was to take off with the man who appeared to love her. When one is desperate - one may well do just about anything.