The Jane Austen of Horror

As Lou points out in one of his many, many comments, any prolific writer can be referred to as the "Stephen King" of their particular genre. I was on the verge of stealing Lou's insight and calling Jane Austen the Stephen King of rural gentry romance, but then I changed my mind. I think Stephen King is the Jane Austen of horror. That has a much better ring to it, don't you agree?
Anyway, the only romances I can admit to reading and enjoying are the really old ones that people now think are classics. But, really, they're still romances. You always put yourself in the shoes of the main lady protagonist and hope beyond hope that she wins the heart of the man she adores. Or you wait in horrible anxiety wondering if she will ever realize that he is already in love with her and that she must return his affections! Oh, goodness, my heart is all aflutter!! The secondary enjoyment of these books is the acquired knowledge of early 19th century social custom. And finding out what people did for entertainment before TV.
Anyway, have you ever seen the movie "Clueless"? Well, that was a total rip-off of Jane Austen's Emma. Little did I know! Emma tries to elevate the social status of a friend. Dissuades her from marrying the man who loves her and makes her fall in love with a man who is really in love with Emma. Then the friend falls in love with another guy, who Emma suddenly realizes SHE loves. Amid other similar blunders, everything turns out peachy keen. The friend marries the first guy and Emma marries the other guy. Happy ending! Now I know what its like to live in 19th century England.

New blog name?

Ok...I named this blog "NEW" because it was...well, new. But, I think it needs a more creative name. Something more interesting.
Any suggestions?

books, books, and more books!

I love books. I'm addicted to reading. I read so much, and so fast, that I never have any one to talk to about the books I've read (except maybe Jen Lindner, another fellow prolific reader). But now I can write about them here and pretend that people might read this!

Ok...the book I've read most recently is : Middle Age, A Romance by Joyce Carol Oates. I have...let me check..6 of her books, including this one. They are all great! This one is just what it is says. A romance about middle-aged people. But, wait! It's not as boring as it sounds. Someone dies in the first chapter. Do I have your attention again? And about 20 women are in love with him. His death creates a tremendous rippling effect throughout the community he lives in. Ironicaly, he died in a boating/rescue accident. This tragic catalyst sets off the powder kegs it seems most every middle-aged couple in the town are living on top of. Husbands and wives leave each other, cheat on each other, fall in love with each other, and in the end actualy get to know each other. One of the women even sets off to dig up the unknown past of the dead man. In getting to know this man's past, she is able to reclaim her own future. In the beginning the man dies as a hero, rescuing a little girl from drowning. After his death, he remains a hero, rescuing an entire town from drowning.
Read it! And then let me know what you think! Read it now!

Comments

I had to get new code for comments. The commentthis! code stopped working. Weird.
Not that I expect a lot of comments, but if I didn't have this then I'd never know!!

Escape!

Yesterday I had an adventure.
The weather was fairly nice and I decided to take a walk. Walking around Lawrenceville isn't that exciting and I always feel like I'm intruding on someone's lawn, since everyone's lawn is the sidewalk. Anyway, because of that, I walked over to the Allegheny Cemetery. Its a very beautiful place and I had a great time tooling around for a little over an hour. I even found Stephen C. Foster's grave. Pretty cool.
But then I heard a loud cawing noise. I turned... and the sky was black. It seems that I had disturbed the crow kingdom that, unbeknownst to me, was roosting in the Allegheny Cemetery. That was adventure number 1.
After a car drove by and scared them back into submission, I decided to head home. It was almost 6 o'clock, and I didn't want to miss the Simpson's reruns on the WB. As I approached the gate, something looked wrong. I got closer and realized what it was. The gate was locked!! Every exit that I could find was chained and locked. So, I scaled an 8 foot fence that borders the main drag in Lawrenceville and jumped down. I got some weird looks, to say the least.
I missed half of the Simpson's, but it was worth it. How many other people can claim to have escaped from a cemetery??!!!

what am i doing?

I don't know.
I really need to learn more about this stuff.
Too bad my arm starts to ache and my hand gets all cold when I start to use the computer.
On a happier note...the weather today was awesome!!

another day

Today is my heavy bag day. 5 classes, 5 notebooks, two books, and my lunch.
oh boy.
I also just realized that I can't post pictures on here unless they are already on the internet. That's crappy. I may have to do something about that. What, I don't know.

The real first post

Ok, this isn't the first post, but I didn't have time to post a "real" one earlier. Which wasn't as early as the time stamp says. I wasn't in LA when I wrote it, although the computer thought I was.
Anyway, this is my first blog. I decided to start one for no particular reason except I think it would be a lot of fun. I'm not a computer whiz, so I'm being a poser and using this "we'll do it for you" blogger site. Good enough for now.
Although they don't know it, my two main influences for starting this site are Mike (www.arsenic.net) and Rich (www.richardz.com). Mike is the older brother of one my good friends from high school, JoBeth. She gave me his site address so I could see pictures of her nephew, and now I'm addicted. As for Rich, our acquaintance is more roundabout. He happens to be a good friend of my twin sister, Diana, and also a good friend of previously mentioned Mike. Small world. I found his site as a link on Mike's site. They'll be surprised to know I mentioned them.
As you can tell, I'm still a newbie. But, I do know how to type...and I guess that's all I need right now! Beware!

This is my first post.