Let's Just Skip Monday This Week

So, I know it is Monday but I wanted to do this Random Tuesday Thoughts over at The Un Mom. BUT I also want to do Tuesday Tribute tomorrow (you know, on the real Tuesday). And since Mondays pretty much suck anyway, I've decided I'm just going to skip Monday this week and have two Tuesdays. I will then proceed in an orderly fashion to Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. (Actually, to make this even more confusing, I'm going to go ahead and post this on Sunday night since Mondays I am always consumed with the Little One as he doesn't go to school! Worst day of the week for me! On the up side, it is nap day.)

• We were driving by the industrial part of town the other day and passed a factory belching white smoke into the air. The Little One said "Is that where they make clouds, Mommy?" If only that were true, Little One. If only that were true.

"Hey look ... it's a cloud factory!"
Photo from Flickr

• I always used to say "Two of one, half dozen of the other" until my husband pointed out that this doesn't make sense.

• If a blogger posts a post and no one comments on it, does it exist?

• The best thing about Easter are marshmallow Peeps. I like to put them in the freezer before eating them.
  

• I had a whole bunch of funny random thoughts last night at 3:00 a.m. when I couldn't sleep but I seem to have forgotten them.

• The best thing I wrote last week was on my book blog, when I reviewed the book Jane Eyre. In case you don't read it, here was the best part.

******

When I first started reading the book, I thought "I hate how this is written. It is so much work to read writing like this." I realize I've become a lazy modern reader -- I like reading books that are written how I think and talk. Jane Eyre is not written in this way. The characters speak in these amazingly long, florid and involved sentences that invoke all kinds of things from religion, myths and classic stories. But, just like when I attend a Shakespeare play or watch a subtitled movie, after a bit you don't notice it as much. You begin to get into the speech patterns of the characters. In fact, along the way, I started to get quite entertained by reimagining how certain passages would be written in a modern novel. Some examples for you.

******

Jane Berating Herself for Falling in Love with Mr. Rochester:

“You,” I said, “a favourite with Mr. Rochester? You gifted with the power of pleasing him? You of importance to him in any way? Go! your folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens of preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man of the world to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe!—Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to yourself this morning the brief scene of last night?—Cover your face and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis-fatus-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication.

(Ok ... do you totally see what I'm talking about with the writing?)

How This Might Read in a Modern Book:

"God, you are an idiot! How can you think he would love you? He's rich. You're poor. He's your boss. You're the lowly nanny. So he said he liked your eyes? Big deal! Get over it. It's not like he is going to marry you!"

******

Jane Telling St. John Rivers How She Feels About Him:

Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light kindling—no life quickening—no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths—the fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!”

How This Might Read in a Modern Book:

"I'm just not that into you. Can't you get that?"

******

Mr. Rochester Talking To Jane:

“Your answer requires a commentary,” he said; “it is not clear.”

How This Might Read in a Modern Book:

"What?"