The Skipping Bride

I simply cannot get over how happy (and adorable) Kiera Knightley looks in this photo taken after her wedding. She’s literally skipping, she’s just that excited. I hope I’m this happy on my wedding day.

Wedding season is officially underway; I want to give a special shout-out to my friends Tina & Brett who are getting married on Saturday and to my little brother who is serving as a groomsman for the first time and has no idea just how much fun he’s going to have.

Kiera Knightley and James Righton

Picture from People Magazine.

Gone Girl

I loved Reese Witherspoon. Loved with a capital L. (Is past tense accurate? It’s too soon to tell) If she was on the cover a magazine, I bought it. If she was in a movie, I saw it (Okay, I haven’t been so good on this front, have not seen ‘This Means War’ or ‘Water for Elephants’). So you can believe when I say that I was, and there really is no better word for it, devastated by her actions from this past weekend. This is a painful post for me to write, so please forgive the fact that I’m not going to recap just what her actions were, I’m sure TMZ has it covered.

I looked up to Reese; maybe a more apt word would be idolized. We are both petite, blonde girls from a Southern state. When people told me I looked like Reese Witherspoon (and I’ve gotten a few of those), I was extremely flattered. And although I am disappointed by her actions, I know I shouldn’t be. I’m not her daughter, mother, or friend. I’m just somebody who admired her from afar. I have no right to feel like she let me down. Our culture put her on a pedestal and dubbed her America’s Sweetheart. Really, where can you go from there, but down? Is that too cynical? Sorry, but that’s just the kind of mood I’m in.

So where to go from here? I know what I would tell Reese to do, but as I’ve mentioned above, that’s not exactly an option. Instead, I’m going to learn from her mistakes and if she’s the person I thought she was, then she will too.

I held Reese up to a high set of moral standards; but did I hold myself up to them as well? It’s easy to hold a celebrity, a larger than life character, up to unrealistic ideals, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It doesn’t matter that she let down the public. What matters is that she let down her family, friends, and staff. So in turn, I’m going to hold myself up to the same set of high morals and strive to be a better person. I’m asking myself a couple of questions: what made me like Reese so much in the first place? What exactly are those qualities that made her America’s Sweetheart? She was (still is?) smart, respectful, successful, hard-working, funny, down-to-earth, the list goes on. I may never be America’s Sweetheart, but there’s nothing that says that I can’t possess those same qualities that made America love her so much in the first place. And that’s the lesson I’ve learned from Reese and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Editor’s Note: You can find information about Gone Girl here.

Once Again to Zelda

I’m loving this resurgence we’re currently having of the Lost Generation. Without a doubt, the Lost Generation is my favorite literary group. Sorry Bronte Sisters! There’s something so beautiful (and haunting) about this group of talented Americans who worked hard, played even harder, and managed to make history in the City of Lights.

The revivial seemed to have started two years ago with ‘Midnight in Paris.’ Thanks Woody! Ernest Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, and Gertrude Stein all make appearances in the film. In the two years since, we’ve seen the HBO film ‘Hemingway and Gellhorn’ starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman as Ernest Hemingway and his third wife Martha Gellhorn, respectively. Hemingway also stars in Paula McLain’s novel ‘The Paris Wife’, but this one is about his first wife, Hadley. The Fitzgeralds, F. Scott and Zelda, are certainly making a comeback this year. Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby remarke is (finally!) coming out in May and Therese Anne Fowler’s just debuted Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and R. Clifton Spargo’s novel, out soon, Beautiful Fools: The Last Affair of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald.

So in my free time today, I searched online for an essential Lost Generation reading list. Nada. I found nothing, not even some professor’s reading list. So what’s a girl to do? I’m going to create my own! Please note those listed below are films and books that I have yet to see or read. Obviously, the Great Gatsby is vital to any Lost Generation list, but I’ve already read it and there is so much else that years to be read for the very first time!

The Blonde Bronte Lost Generation Reading & Movie List

Films:

-Hemingway and Gellhorn
-The Great Gatsby (1974) starring Robert Redford as Gatsby
-The Great Gatsby (2013)

Books:

F. Scott Fitzgerald:
-This Side of Paradise
-Tender is the Night
-Any short story collection

Zelda Fitzgerald (Apparently she was a writer herself, although I’ve heard not a very good one)
-Save Me the Waltz

Ernest Hemingway
-The Sun Also Rises
-A Moveable Feast
-In the Garden of Eden (Based on Gerald and Sara Murphy, another Lost Generation couple)

Gertrude Stein*
-The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

Paula McLaine
-The Paris Wife

Therese Anne Fowler
-Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

Nancy Mitford
-Zelda: A Biography

*Might skip Stein; I read her in college and even wrote a paper on her and Picasso. She’s not an easy read.

Obviously, this list is not set in stone (especially with all the new material coming out), but I think it’s a good start. I look forward to getting started!

Up first: The Paris Wife.

Grad School: To Go or Not to Go

Today I posted a comment to a blog I frequently read.  I never do this.  EVER.  Sure, I like reading people’s comments, but never EVER do I write my own thoughts.  You can read the post and my comment here.  (If you can’t figure out which comment is mine, then we need to reevaluate our relationship stat).

The post was on the topic of grad school, a concept that I’m currently wrestling, or shall I say flirting, with myself.  In the 4+ years since I graduated college, I did not know what I wanted to study: politics?  public administration?  law?  literature? creative writing?  art history?  Now, four years later, I do know what I want study: communications/journalism.  But the biggest thing standing in my way?  Money.  It’s not time; I’ll make time.  It’s not my general enthusiasm or dedication; I have that in spades.  No, the question is, is racking up debt going to get me the career I want to have?  Am I going to be happy?  Only in the past year or so has my career gone completely off track from where I wanted it to go; so what’s not to say that’s going to happen again after grad school?  (I’m not sure if I can blame the economy and the current job market, but who’s to say that’s going to change?)  And to my understanding, at least, it seems like communications is a field where, instead of quality over quantity, it’s experience over education.  And at least for me, I tried getting the experience and was unsuccessful.  I tried, knowing I still had a lot to learn, getting that entry level job.  Nothing.  Nada.  So that being said, do I do what I can control (minus the whole admission committee) and go to grad school?  And what’s not to say that in the long run, it will be cheaper and smarter for me to up and quit my job and get an unpaid  internship in my new chosen field verses getting my masters part-time.    

I have a lot of soul-searching to do.  Stay tuned.   

 

 

 

 

Why, Hello There!

I want to be honest with you: I really have no idea whether the Bronte Sisters were blonde. Or brunette. Or even red heads or gingers as they are commonly known in the Brontes’ home country of Britain. But going by what I’ve seen and what my imagination has conjured up in my head, I’m fairly certain that they were brunette. And although I am blonde, by no means, I am by no means comparing myself to the ever so talented Bronte Sisters. (I also don’t want to die young and I especially don’t want to die young and alone). I just figured that this is my one and only opportunity to be associated with such greatest. I am also a fan of Jane Austen (very much so), but alas, The Angry Austen just didn’t have the same ring to it. But I figure (and oh so hope!) by association alone, I can fling myself and my writing into greatness. She says to herself, crossing her fingers.

So as an introduction, I want to share with you all, who ever you may be (Hi Mom!) that this is my first foray into blogging. I’m like the BIGGEST Hunger Games fan like ever, but only after I saw the movie. (Obviously I’m kidding, this blog is named after 3 literary heroines). But do you get my point? I know, I’m a little late to the party. So here’s hoping my entrance is only fashionably late as opposed to arriving just as the cops have pulled into the driveway.

I have no idea what I’m going to write about on this blog, but I certainly hope you are along for the ride or at least dark, cold walks through the English moors.