Re: misunderstandings of Shakespeare, whenever I see one of Shakespeare's sonnets used in a wedding ceremony or other happy occasion, I want to weep. Because, well, NOT happy stuff. He (and I'll leave it to the reader to decide if the narrator of the series is Shakespeare himself or a fictional person) was in love with a young man and wrote 126 beautiful, scathing, sarcastic, bitter sonnets about how badly the young man screwed him over. And then he and the young man both took up with the same woman, about whom the narrator wrote 28 even more scathing and bitter sonnets; he was only attracted to her because she was promiscuous, he really did think she was ugly, and oh, by the way, she gave him a venereal disease.

So yeah. If you want to talk about gut-wrenching unrequited love or ugly ladies of the night with a bad case of the clap at your wedding, Shakespeare's sonnets are for you! Otherwise, not so much.

WS, if you keep going on about your R&J and Ophelia hate, you're going to force me to send you tapes of Slings and Arrows, dammit.

Um. I realize that as threats go, that one... isn't. "You shape up, you, or I'm going to send you 12 hours of Paul Gross being beautiful and eloquent and passionate and making you love characters you never thought you could! He's naked in one scene too! Don't you push me, missy! I'll do it, I swear to GOD."

Also, there is not enough heart in the world for how much I heart Jen.

There was some small bit of joy in his sonnets, Jen. #18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day) does lament that people grow old and die, but he thinks that the youth's beauty shall outlast death, even if it's in the words of the sonnet. Which, I think would be appropriate for a wedding reading..

Other than that, yeah. There's chock-full-o'bitter.

Poor wakey JZ.

(and man, it's going to be hard not to dip into the bath stuff myself, it smells so good)

JZ, that stuff is for Yooooooouuuuuuuu!!!!

Enjoy. I got it at a hippy dippy new baby store (called something like Granola Baby) that just opened up in Salem. I could have easily spent $4 gazillion dollars on the organic goods and services there... had a nice time shopping, the folks there were so super cute.

Just thought you should know the fun that went into choosing your gift.

The same thing for mine! Though there is perhaps some delayed reaction with the thing I sent. *g* It was neat to go into the store and poke around, though.

Does anyone (else) remember years ago the BBC did ALL of Shakespeare and, for the wars of the roses ones, used the same actors for the same roles throughout? Gave it some continuity so that it was easier to understand the relationships. One of the bits I remember vividly is at the end Queen Margaret - old, bitter, mostly mad - sitting on a pile of bodies and laughing.

I'll be going to Ti Couz when I'm out in November too. At least once.

hey, everybody. I skipped a lot. I've had the bad, bad crazy vertigo. Like bad enough that I was in the hospital all weekend. I haven't been in the hospital (except to get stitches when I was 2 and get a broken finger set in my 20s) since I was a newborn infant. It was unfun.

I did make up all my sleep debt though, I think.

Oh, no, lisah! Hope you're feeling better now. Ugh.

My back is acting up horribly again.

Oh no, lisah! Did you have vestibular neuritis? I had that and was in the hospital for it, too, so if that was what you had, I can totally empathize with what you just went through. Did they do that awful test where they induce the vertigo so they can watch your eyes go crazy? I told the neurologist I wouldn't be held responsible if I threw up on him.

I hope you're feeling better!