We’re having it at the Split Rock Café on May 30th at 5:30, and I would love it if you would stop by! You can find that event on Facebook here.

I’m heading down to Missoula for an M. Ward concert in a few days. I’ve been listening to his newest album, A Wasteland Companion, and been loving it. I’m bit sad it isn’t a She & Him concert, but it will still be awesome and I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m going to start writing again pretty soon. Time to get going again on the third book.

It’s a beautiful rainy day here, and I’m excited to spend the day reading.

Dracula the Un-Dead by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holm ~ 2/5

Minor Works by Jane Austen ~ 4/5

Her First American by Lore Segal ~ 4/5

Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy ~ 5/5

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald ~ 4/5

Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World’s Religions Can Come Together by the Dalai Lama XIV ~ 3/5

Juliet by Anne Fortier ~ 3/5

I’ve loved having some time to read since being back from school. My bookcase full of books I am hoping to get to this summer.

I’m having a giveaway on Goodreads! Enter to win a free copy.

What are you reading?

It’s been a week or so since I finished Austen’s Persuasion, and it feels good to think about it after all my work has been turned in. I’ve had some time to contemplate how I feel about this novel, and it always amazes me how I can get something new out of it.

Persuasion is a hard novel to judge because I’ve always had a problem with Captain Wentworth blaming Anne for refusing his first offer of marriage. He is angry that she allows herself to be persuaded not to marry him—but honestly, I don’t really blame Anne for refusing him at first.

He was penniless, connectionless—a nobody who might not be able to provide for his wife and family. He had to earn Anne’s hand by joining the navy and making his fortune.

When I first read Persuasion as a teenager, I was so caught up in the love story, the fact that these two people should really be together but they can’t be. That Anne secretly continues hoping even though she probably shouldn’t. As I read it this time, I was again struck by the love story, but this time for different reasons.

For such a practical person like Anne, we can see it would be difficult to put that sense of practicality aside and just marry Captain Wentworth, no matter what anyone else says. And we can even see that today. We’re encouraged to be practical before we fall in love—for it to be convenient and in line with our plans with our careers, school, time commitments.

Perhaps that’s why we are so happy when Anne finally says, “Screw it. I’m going to marry the guy I love.” She eventually gives into her feelings and puts practicality aside.

And we get a happy ending from Austen.

What do you think? Do you think we need to be practical with our choices? Or should we put our sense aside?

I’m back home under the big sky in Montana. It’s hard to believe a year has gone by already. And just so you know, that cheesecake was delicious.

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I was thinking about this particular sonnet of Shakespeare’s today and couldn’t help but post it. I may be biased, but I think this is one of the greatest love poems ever written.

In other news, Shakespeare’s Lady was featured on the Daily Inter Lake and Sarah Lawrence websites today! Thanks so much to Kristi Albertson and everyone who has contacted me since the article came out. Hopefully I will get to see you all when I am back this summer.

I’m also having another Goodreads giveaway! Enter to win a free copy of the book.

Hard to believe I will be back home in five days. Just finishing up some final things before I head out.

I have three pages of a final paper, some edits to make of some stories, a novel (Austen’s Persuasion—be still my heart) to read, and that’s pretty much it.

I was thinking today of how much Sarah Lawrence has really come to be my home over the past few months. When I first came here, I kind of wondered if I was crazy for going to a school so different—and so far away—from what I was used to.

But honestly, it is one of the best things I ever did and I don’t regret a moment of it. I’m looking forward to my next year (senior!) here. I think it will be amazing.

In other news, this week marks my last of full on schoolwork. I’m looking forward to the Avett Brothers concert, seeing my mother, catching one last Broadway show this spring, and boarding that plane back to Montana for the summer.

How do you deal with finals? Any fun plans for the summer?

But when I got to Emma, I kind of scratched my head a bit. I don’t want to say that there are no pressing issues in it, because I’m sure I could argue about meddling in others’ lives or eventually needing to grow up and behave like a lady (when you’re twenty-one). But what really interested reading it this time around was the character of Harriet.

She starts out as basically a nobody, an orphan, but somehow at the end believes she is worthy of a man like Mr. Knightley. (Which, this may just be me, but I rank him up there with Darcy.) Emma feeds her these assurances that Harriet is better than the farmer Mr. Martin, then Mr. Elton, and then all hell breaks loose. Emma is left shaking her head wondering if she created a monster before Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was even written.

I was thinking today about how our class system operates. In America, we like to think there are no classes and we are free to marry whomever we wish, and in theory this is true. But have you noticed that this rarely ever happens? We date people with similar backgrounds and economic statuses.

However, while we’re reading Emma, we immediately start to resent Harriet because she wants to be with someone from a class that is not her own. We shake our heads at her—I even got a little angry. But can we really blame her for wanting something better? Can we really get angry at her for hoping?

I’ve been watching way too much 30 Rock lately, and I’m reminded of the episode when everyone is telling Liz Lemon to settle with someone—that love doesn’t exist past the first ten years. Are we supposed to be upset that Harriet, once Emma tells her there are other fish in the sea, wants something more? Are we supposed to resent her because she wants someone who treats her like a lady?

Reading it this time around, I wasn’t so sure.

What do you think? Do you think Emma is a commentary on improper hopes and dreams? Do you think we still do the same thing today?

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

School is really starting to take over. With only just a little more than two weeks, everyone is either running around crazily or walking around like a zombie. I find myself going between the two extremes. Caffeine helps a lot. A LOT.

My book signing at Womrath’s is this Saturday from 1:00-2:30. Feel free to stop by! (And bring me coffee?)

I’m getting ready for a summer filled with Sherlock, ukulele playing, writing, and book stuff.