Czech, please

Badummmm-shhhhh. (That's a drum. The sound FX on this blog are stunning. It's all about #multimedia right? (...what is happening.))

Okay, so opening with a bad joke and a double parentheses doesn't bode well for this particular post but I promise it's worth it because the glories of Praha, where I went on reading week with my visiting famiglia, are multitudinous. To wit:

THE HAT got taken out in all its leopard-print, furry glory, beause if you can't wear a leopard-print furry head covering in the cold winter of Eastern Europe, when can you? I was emboldened by the many and various beautiful fur hats/ensembles of the local stylish Czech ladies; I have seen the utmost in glamour and function, and it is a full-length fur cape.

THE HAT was really in its element in the Czech Republic, where fur hats were one of the things sold at Prague Souvenir shops, alongside "czech me out" t-shirts, marionettes (?), and those stackable dolls. Nothing says "my beautiful Eastern European vacation" like a set of stacking dolls with the cast of Twilight inexplicably pictured on it.

Also, our tour guide did NOT delineate when she was telling us historical facts and when she was telling us folkloric Czech myths. "This is where the statue of Stalin was until it was joyfully torn down after the fall of the Communism" was exactly the same as "This is the statue of the frog spirits who can marry women of the town, and once the woman is marriage to them, she can breathe also underwater." (That is a real informational tidbit she told us. The Czechs are a complex and storied people.)

... And then we went with my Dad to a black light theatre show with some minor barely-legal nudity and a great deal of lesbian sensuality.

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS

Today, in "things I did instead of my readings for tomorrow," we have Home Haircut. Now, normally I cut my own bangs and it's no big D. A cooler-than-me friend initially gave me a straight across fringe one summer at Cambridge and since then I've felt pretty okay about giving them a trim, or letting them grow super long to cover it up when I can't afford to dye my eyebrows (it's fun to be albino). But when I cut them it's usually, just, like, straight across. Following a line.

And then today, for no reason, I did this:

 

You brought this on yourself, self.

LIFE, sometimes, you know?

"Well of course the lovely thing about the house is that each marchioness has such a different taste, and that is really reflected in the Great Hall. Most of the decorative touches in there aren't original, they've been Jacobethan-ized by past dowagers. ...More tea?"

THIS REALLY HAPPENED TO ME.

I spent the day with the other research interns at Hatfield House, a manor home in Hertfordshire originally built in 1611. It's closed to the public in the winter but we went on a Special Geek Mission to check out the Jacobean tapestries. (This is my life now, deal with it everyone.) It was nerd heaven- the library there literally looks like the one from the part in Beauty and the Beast where he just gives her the library as a present. BEST PRESENT EVER. NICE ONE, THE BEAST.

It was also the most British day of my life.

I think I'm going to kill someone.

In Gnomeo and Juliet one of the characters talks to SHAKESPEARE'S GHOST in the form of a statue, and together they decide that the lovers dying in the end is not a good story. OH GOOD.

Royally Screwed

The English like to refer to pervy weirdos as "sexual perverts", as if there were some other kind of pervert running around that wasn't into sex whatsoever, but was reaaaaally into watching people grocery shop or exposing their musical tastes to unsuspecting fellow passengers on the subway. Regardless, I don't think you have to be a complete seeeeexu-al peeeerveeeeehrt to find these ROYAL WEDDING-THEMED CONDOMS hilarious/intriguing/brilliant. They come in a "timeless souvenir heirlooms box", which is good because you for sure want to display these prominently in your home. They mostly refer to the condoms as LOVE SHEATHS which is just tooooo much for me to handle or even really consider, but the company assures me that "England boasts some of the best lovemaking in the world," so at least there's that.

wherefore art thou work ethic

Sometimes I worry that I don't try hard enough with anything that is actually important. Case in point: I try preeeeeetty hard to make it clear that I know selfies are embarrassing, but also something medium necessary to convey certain instances in my life that I'd like to tell the internet about. I do not try pretty hard to find the appropriate readings for each week. Or to say things in class that make sense. My initials are M.E.H.... My NAME ITSELF expresses ambivalence. Doomed! I had hoped that entering an MA program would have magically flicked the 'on' switch on my work-ethic-o-meter, and the 'off' on my bullshit-all-the-time-capacitor. Not the case. And so we get situations like my class notes from a little while ago:

Please note the valiant effort made at the top with the date and course-title. I was SO close. Also, this was at least moderately productive as an exercise in that it made me 100% aware that a future career as an artist is not something I can aspire to...

Two households, both a huge indignity...

 ...No.

Puns and Shakespeare are two of my favourite things (puns IN Shakespeare, natch, drive me wiiiiild), so theoretically I should LOVE the upcoming film Gnomeo and Juliet. And yet, it offends me deeply. I think this is a bulletpoint situation... wherein I picture the points as actual bullets shattering the piece of crap porcelain lawn figurines they are using to bastardize one of the greatest love stories of our time.

In that spirit, I give you a list of reasons this movie is an abomination: