Anybody else ever find they gave somebody they're writing about a problem they are actually having? Without realizing it?

I do it all the time. I figure I am getting writing done AND wrestling with my demons at the same time, so why fight it? It's like mental multi-tasking.

Yup. See also the point where you realize that all your characters are a little bit you (and not in a MarySue wish fulfillment way), even the ones who are diametrically opposed to each other and caught in a constant, bitter conflict.

I haaaaaaate flavored coffee (well except for chicory, but that's not really a flavor).

Heather is me. But cuter.

Beathen's tag-

Anyway, [Kate] says, "Shhh." And Sawyer says, "What, you smell blood on the wind?" because yeah, when people say "shhh" it's usually because they're trying to SMELL something, Sawyer.

Y'know it's funny because the other day I'm driving with some girl friends and we're listining to music and laughing and basically having a good time. The driver turns down the music because she's looking for a street name. Apparently the sense of hearing is connected to all the other senses.

t blushes. Thanks Anne. Though I have to admit, there's less cute here today and more surly, overtired office worker.

Heh, coffee mis-reading x-post with Heather.

Was yours at the Exxon, Lilty?

Jane Austen's Guide to Dating.

Jane Austen's Guide to Dating, the work of the British-born writer Lauren Henderson, 36, leaves the world of rampant rabbits, serial cosmopolitans and toxic bachelors behind, to advise girls on how to snare a man the Regency way.

Undeterred by potential drawbacks - Austen's books tell us nothing about sex, are set in an age whose social mores bear scarcely more relation to downtown Manhattan's than they do to downtown Kabul's, and are novels rather than self-help manuals - Henderson has discovered, at the heart of the oeuvre, 10 principles of dating.

As she puts it: "I think the books are coded instruction manuals - but they can be novels, too. They are about the best way to find someone who's going to be a life partner for you.

"What Austen is about is the continual process of observing the behaviour of people around you. And whether you're country dancing or grinding your bum into someone at a hip-hop club, it comes down to the same fundamental things."

"Dating nowadays," she writes in the opening sentence of her book, "can be like walking through a minefield." And if you need a guide through the minefield, who better than a 19th-century author?

Mine was at a Mobil Mart. Green Mountain, so it's the brand I'd have gotten at the grocery store anyway. But I was in a hurry.

So Jane Austen wrote a secret code book to dating that only she's found out? It sounds like the...Bible code thing once something happens you can go back and find out it was predicted!

(yes this is an extreme simplification of both ideas)

This cracks me up:

In addition to the golden rules, Henderson includes two quizzes to enable you to arrive at a scientific understanding of which Austen heroine you most resemble and which Austen hero your preferred man is.

A handy chart advises you as to your compatibility. Are you an Elinor (sense) or a Marianne (sensibility)? Elizabeth? Grab that Wentworth! Jane? Steer clear of that Henry Crawford!

But one nagging question remains. If Austen really was such a dating genius, how come she died a spinster? "Yes!" says Henderson. "Poor Jane."

I just got a post-election email from T.:

one of the best and most liked soldiers ended up standing on a bomb and needless to say didn't feel much. it has really hurt...i have gone through almost every emotion i think a guy can go through in the last week and i am exhausted. election day left me some hope that i am not going through all this for nothing and that our soldier whom didn't stand a chance that day didn't die for nothing

I'm so glad to hear from him, but I hate this. HATE THIS.