InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Conduct the smell test."

Ella Claire Gainsborough {Beauty} (bookshelved) wrote in bellumletale,
@ 2010-01-10 13:52:00

Entry tags:

beast, beauty

The book is delivered to one L.L. Quinn, in his care for Daniel Brown Webster. Accompanying it is a flash drive (properties tab shows Publishing House information only) with music and the following letter, which is on Publishing House letterhead and is typed in standard computer font. There is no signature at the bottom. The return address on the package, which is wrapped simply in brown paper, is for C. Davis at the Publishing House.

Daniel,

It was quite a challenge to find an appropriate book to send you. Should I send something very lengthy, to keep you busy since you've missed your books so long? Should I send something completely non-sentimental, so you don't further your convictions that I'm running a hostel for homeless felines? Should I choose something modern, as you are a modern writer, but everything we've discussed thus far has been 20th century and earlier? You've mentioned Christie and you've read Shakespeare, O'Connor and some Wharton, but this doesn't help me narrow down a preferred genre for you. Hawthorne and Faulkner, which were my original choices, might make it seem I was trying too hard to impress. While Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice might make you not take me seriously.

In the end, I did choose an Austen, but one less commonly read (and perhaps less sentimental, depending on how you read it), written closer to the end of her life, one that speaks to the writer in ways that are often overlooked outside academic circles, but which I find poignant. The book is not new, a fact for which I apologize, but I take you to be a connoisseur of the better-loved books, rather than the new. It's my favorite edition, and it is hard to find, which is why I chose this one instead of buying you the Oxford or Wordsworth.

The music is included because I find it calming to write to. I hope this small package finds you well and home, and I look forward to your thoughts on my little novel.

Claire, who hopes you are being taken care of at home, if you're still unwell.

P.S. You now owe me: One poem, slightly used. One paragraph, entirely new. One novel opinion, appropriately contradictory to my own.
P.S.S. Do you feel I'm entirely too nosy for the well-being of others? I am conducting a survey.

Inside the book, the following notes and passages can be found. All notes are written in a tiny and precise print font, which differs from the script she uses in other writings:

Ch 1: Elizabeth had succeeded at sixteen to all that was possible of her mother's rights and consequence; and being very handsome, and very like himself, her influence had always been great, and they had gone on together most happily. His other two children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a little artificial importance by becoming Mrs Charles Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way - she was only Anne.

- Is it Austen's age that makes her acquiesce to a heroine who isn't carved from perfection? I love Anne.

Ch 4: She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning.

- Does one who loves so easily give up?

Ch 20: "A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not."

- Truth? Or Austen's own wishes made words on the page. Frederick loves her, yes, and she deserves his love (because I love Anne), but is writing not about truth? Is this truth or fairy tale? The dreams of all women put to ink

Ch 23: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant."

- Does a woman love more than a man? ~~NO!~~ Austen seemed to wish this was not the case, doesn't she?

Ch 23: "If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred, and all duty violated."

- Harris Biggs-Wither?

On the last, blank page, there is this notation:

Persuasion Thoughts
Was Anne a fool?

Anne is delightful. She is Emma and Fanny and Catherine and Elizabeth, had their youths not turned out as they ought to have. This novel has an underpinning of sadness to it that is unmistakable. Yes, the satire is there, thick as thieves, but there is more than setting and snark happening in this work.

It is the novel of a woman who wrote about love and never lived it. It is a cautionary tale, something to learn from.

Was Anne a fool? In this day and age, I say Yes! Of course! If you have love within your reach, you grab it with both hands and hold on with all your might. But in her time period?

Was Anne a fool?

God, but the romantic in me still wants to shout Yes! Yes! from the rooftops. Reality, however, is a different story, at least it was for Anne. She was young, and we make mistakes in our youth. The sadness in this novel comes in that reality tries to crack through the words. It screams Anne wouldn't have gotten him back, and it screams it loudly.

I won't listen.

(Post a new comment)

E-mail.

labete
2010-01-13 05:57 am UTC (link)

Claire,

I have not read any Austen for a very long time. I read a handful of her books when I was young enough to assume that I had absorbed everything there was to know about them, and duly tossed them aside for more exciting material. I have never been overly interested in British history, since a short summary of it generally goes, 'and then we took over everything,' but Austen's social observations and her understated wit appealed to me upon second reading in college. Considering the distractions I had in college, I'm still in awe that my younger self bothered to read anything that lingers so much on the quotidian--but then again, it helped me get a date with several English majors. (Not at the same time, I assure you.) College students set high value on date-getting literature.

I'm sorry for the delay in my reply. My memory of Persuasion was very vague, and Austen's language required an excess of attention and presence of mind I haven't had lately. Thank God, I've relocated at home, which is, at least, familiar, even though I thought I hated familiar, I don't know what to think now. The place is a goddamn train station, and people will insist on bothering the hell out of me. I am not to be trusted to take care of myself, apparently, and I'm beginning to suspect the plan is to drive me mad so they can lock me up in a mental hospital and be done with it. Who needs enemies...?

Before you ask, I'm not getting any work done, either. And that's for you, Quinn, if you've got the goddamn nerve to go through my mail, for which I will fire you, if I find out.

Where was I? Oh, yes, Austen. I don't think Persuasion can possibly be any less sentimental than any of her other works. The woman is pining, for God's sake, through the entire thing. I'm not sure whether it's the resignation or her stubborn insistence to make the best of it that's more pathetic. I don't see why she should deserve (see your observation in Chapter 23) to make the captain pine over her as well, though he does a better job of denying it than she does. Occupation as distraction. Part of the problem is that these women had no occupation, and nothing better to do but pine. You have to hand it to Austen for making a romance out of only a handful of meetings, three or four horrifically awkward conversations--and no sex.

I'm surprised at your idealism at the back of your book, and would like to hear more of it.

Daniel

P.S. Here is your poem. Do you think Anne would have liked it? [Transcribed, without notations.]

P.P.S. Yes, you are nosy. But you get away with it.

P.P.P.S. Who is Harris Biggs-Wither, and why did he not change his name?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: E-mail.

bookshelved
2010-01-13 07:08 am UTC (link)

Daniel,

We're using greetings in our e-mails? I admit to finding it charming, almost as if it was the traditional method of such things - I almost said the traditional method of getting to know someone, but I refrained, as I cannot be sure you would term this correspondence we have struck up to be that, or to simply an extension of your work and mine.

On the subject of date-getting literature, I'm positive that your knowledge of the world 'quotidian' alone would have shocked most of my graduating class into accepting any outing you might suggest. Woe and betide if you didn't have a collection of other such words at your disposal on the evening in question, however.

I am glad to hear you're home, as that must mean you have improved. Or am I being foolishly optimistic? I hope not. Hope is the thing with feathers, after all. These people you mention, are they there to care for you? If so, I must come down on their side in this fight. You can consider this a wholly selfish demand, if you'd like; there might be some truth in that.

Ah, Anne does not deserve to have Frederick pine. In fact, she deserves to lose him completely, and I think we'd both agree that in reality, she would. Were Persuasion a real tale of the modern world, Frederick would find another, more loving partner, one not so easily swayed. And Anne would end an elderly spinster copy editor. But as it is not reality, Anne ends up with a man who pines for her eternally; a man who waits for her. He is in sharp contrast to Benwick, who does not pine for Fanny eternally.

I shall quote my favorite line from Anne: "The one claim I shall make for my own sex is that we love longest, when all hope is gone."

I do not believe it, but it does sound beautiful on the page, does it not? Do you believe the quote, Daniel?

Ah, but that was not very idealistic, was it? I was younger when I wrote the notes at the back of the novel, and not quite as jaded as I am in my old age. I shall remedy this immediately, lest you return my e-mails unread in the future. Though your choice of poem speaks to something of the same, does it not? I will speak to that in a moment; I get ahead of myself.

Anne does not deserve Frederick. Logic tells me this quite surely. But do I wish to believe that a love could be so strong that is traverses time and braves oceans and stomps on all adversities. Oh, yes. I do. Have I seen it happen? I have not. But it does not mean I'll stop hoping for it, and it does not mean I'll stop thinking it exists.

You realize I must demand your opinion on romance, given the above paragraph? Consider this a request. Or shall I consider your poem your final word on the matter? The Yeats is lovely. It's amazing that a poem so unexceptional in all its individual parts should create such an exceptional whole. As for the meaning behind the eight simple lines - young love is about passion and no thought, while age and experience turn love into something more vital and pulsing in friendship. Do you think sexual attraction is a detriment to true love? Do you think love is that thing that happens once sexual attraction is no longer at the forefront?

I think Anne would have wanted both - the friendship and the attraction and mad frenzied love combined. Or perhaps that is me; I can never tell.

I am going to be terribly bold and request a book in return. Anything of your choosing, and it can be sent to the Publishing House. I am feeling daring.

Claire

P.S. You still owe me a paragraph, but I shall go easy on you, since you are convalescing.

P.S.S. I'm afraid my nosiness has been getting me quite a bit of trouble lately. Someone recently told me that not everyone feels comfortable having questions asked of them. That the better thing to do was to try to find things out without asking. I always assumed it was better to be honest. I respectfully request your opinion on the matter.

P.S.S.S. Harris proposed to Jane Austen in her youth, and she turned him down. Rumor was that he was not smart enough for her, and I wonder if she regretted it all her days. Persuasion was written just before her death, and I see it almost as a lament. Should he have changed his name to Daniel, do you think?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: E-mail.

labete
2010-01-14 08:14 am UTC (link)

Claire,

As for the greetings--you started it. You have a very interesting hand, by the way. Not what I would have expected, but no less impressive than my own that I use for note-taking, which is absolutely horrific, and practically the angular definition of chicken scratch.

I don't recall 'quotidian' getting me any play, but Philosophy 101, name-dropping, and dandyism certainly did. Whether or not I understood what I was repeating had absolutely nothing to do with it--it worked. I don't say it to impress you (far from it), but I look upon that particular version of myself with a sort of fond hilarity. I did enjoy my own idiocy in those days, even if I had the vocabulary to hide it.

I'm improved, since I can make myself a goddamn cup of coffee, which is the absolute highlight of my life right now. Hospitals have absolutely no concept of a good cup of coffee. Even British tea houses serve coffee. Why American hospitals can't cater to that particular social addiction when they're so damned set on getting rid of the rest, I don't know.

Now, Anne. You said, I believe, that Anne deserved Wentworth's love, somewhere, if I'm not mistaken. I naturally followed that assumption to assume that you approved of his distant life-endangering pining, too. I don't think that Anne would suit the work of a spinster copy editor, I think she would find it too challenging for her--but I also don't think Wentworth found her the same Anne when he returned, and when he falls for her a second time, I don't think it is the same love they had before. They are not the same people. Whether or not they deserve it is beside the point entirely.

Do I believe that women love longer than men? No, I don't. Nor do I have a colorful explanation for the opinion, it is just mine, and I've given it. I think there are certain people suited for love, like your Anne, who I think possessed enough character to deserve it by the end of the book, idealistic as it is. There are still more who don't deserve love, and those are the kind of people, my dear Claire, that you are better off avoiding.

As for Romance: I am a fan of Yeats, which tells you much, I imagine. Sex is not love, and love is not sex, and you can have one without the other, though it's not as much as either could be together. Part of the appeal of young love is that line which blurs when sex is embodied in that single apple of your eye. When we grow older, and lovers instead of lines blur together, that passion is gone.

There, I told you I was a cynic.

I am trying to decide on a book. When I do, I'll send it along, and yours back to you.

Daniel

P.S. Too kind.

P.P.S. That depends entirely on what kind of things you're trying to find out.

P.P.P.S. I doubt anyone as observant as Miss Austen would regret such a decision. Was your last question a barb?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: E-mail.

bookshelved
2010-01-14 05:10 pm UTC (link)

My greeting to you came on a piece of paper within a book, hence it took the traditional form. However, I will concede to liking the greeting, even in the electronic medium. Hence:

Daniel,

Most importantly, I am glad to know you are home and that you have coffee that is to your liking.

This e-mail will be brief for two reasons: 1) To prove I can send an e-mail that does not rival War and Peace for length and 2) Because I am on my morning break. Since a certain author has not given me anything to work on, I am working with a new authoress that specializes in vampires of the teenage variety. She is a lovely segue for your commentary on love, which is what I will dedicate my fifteen-minute break to.

You sway from saying it does not matter if Anne deserved Frederick's love, to saying you feel she did. I have found you out, and I approve of your opinion. Your language around the Yeats, however, is what drew my attention most in this, your latest correspondence.

What if past lovers have not yet blurred together, but the misconception that a touch of bare skin can bring eternal bliss has faded? If you're old enough to realize that love is much, much more than sex, but if you still long for the press and comfort that comes from being intimate with someone you have a strong connection with? I confess to imagining as much pleasure derived from the exchange of thoughts on a couch on any given Sunday, as I imagine from nights spent writhing in pleasure.

I suspect that my elderly spinster facade is irreparably cracked and shattered?

Claire,
who is about to return to fangs and brooding teenage love, but who does not think you're quite as cynical as you claim to be.

P.S. I do not barb. Daniel is a much better name than Harris Biggs-Withers.

P.S.S. I encountered an old lover recently, and I found that my hurt had faded to something akin to caring pity. A result of distance and time, do you think? And I realized that all my imaginings of the happily ever afters he lived after we ended were falsehoods. Why do we torment ourselves?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: E-mail.

labete
2010-01-14 08:32 pm UTC (link)

Claire,

I'm both grouchier and more alert today, which I think has to do with the amounts of various medical chemicals floating in my system, and the more alert I am the more I try not to read anything I've sent you already, since much of it is so confusing I don't even know what it was I meant to say, much less what I actually said. I cannot figure out when is the right time to stay awake, and I keep dropping off, only to have extremely strange dreams in which you are garbed in some strange yellow cloud of material with an empire waistline, arguing with me about an idiotic plotline written on the dance floor. I don't know if it's because I won't dance or because the plotline doesn't make sense, but you're in a state about it. Too much Persuasion in my free time, probably, and serves you right for siding with the circus show that keeps parading through the door and doing the most absurd things, like cleaning and putting on soup.

I don't remember saying Anne did or did not deserve anything. I just assumed that you did. I stick by what I said about the question being superfluous, however. The Anne at the end of the book is not the Anne described at the beginning of the book, who isn't the same Anne described before the book began. Persuasion is about changing view points, and moreover it is about getting old, which is probably why it is so ridiculously grim, and every relocation is utterly joyless.

As far as your comparison between thought and body, I think your imagination needs work. My cynicism allows for the suggestion of better experience, perhaps, to feed it.

On that note, I won't consign your last note to a postscript, since it seems to deserve more dicussion, especially since the appearance of an old lover while reading Persuasion is almost too good to ignore. Again I have to say that rather than time having anything to do with it, your former beau probably isn't the same person you knew nor the person you imagined he would be without you. I'm impressed you do not congratulate yourself on his fallen state. (I assume he must be fallen, in some way, or you wouldn't feel sorry for him.) I can think of a great many people who would not be sorry to meet me as I am, since I left the better and surely don't remain so. The dandy I told you about was personable, but hardly generous.

I still haven't the slightest idea what you might want to read, except that I have no teenage vampire vitriol in my collection, so you can rest easy on that point, at least.

Daniel

P.S. You should stay on the clock to write at me. I can afford it.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: E-mail.

bookshelved
2010-01-14 09:18 pm UTC (link)

Daniel,

You are not quite as confusing as you imagine yourself to be. At least, confusing is not the word I would choose. You come across in your letters as someone who is unhappy and jaded and displeased with his world, despite having been dangerously charming once upon a time. You also seem as if you have a healthy dose of self-loathing. (I would go so far as to assign this as the reason you feel you do not deserve the care you are receiving from your friends, family, lovers. They must care about you, if they are caring for you, and I will hear no argument to the contrary.) It makes me wonder what you feel is so bad in you that isn't there in equal measure in the rest of us. I think you'd find you are not alone in your flaws, if you but looked.

I do apologize, however, for tormenting your dreams. I recommend you choose your return book selection as punishment. And you should know better than to refuse to dance in a Jane Austen related dream. I am certain that is why I was put out and not the argument. I like arguing literature with you, and I cannot imagine that would change in a dream. Also, I own at least one empire waist dress; are you terribly frightened?

Persuasion is partly about changing points of view, yes, but it is primarily about the writer's struggle to justify her life. It is very biopic, as all of Austen's novels are. You can almost trace her own personality changes through the timeline of her work. Or do you feel authors write nothing of themselves in their works of fiction?

Your comment about my imagination demands that you offer your own opinion of the stage I mentioned.

My former lover, who we have upgraded from his post-script status, is little changed since we were together. He is sadder, older, and still hiding behind the vices he hid behind when last we met. I'll admit, with unrequested candor, that he cheated on me and, subsequently, left me. (Am I now an elderly spinster anew?) His fallen state had nothing to do with me, and so I do not congratulate myself; nor do I take any joy in it. I would have liked to find him happier, his demons exorcised, perhaps with the aid of someone more suited to help him deal with them than I was.

I can help you decide what to send me, if you wish: Send me what you feel the most in this moment. I am ever curious, and I will spend the entire read trying to figure out why you chose it.

Claire,
who thinks people who clean and make soup are an outrage.

P.S. Are you going to call my employers and tell them that our e-mails are conducive to your literary endeavor, in order to save me from the brooding vampire children?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: E-mail.

labete
2010-01-15 12:07 am UTC (link)

Claire,

I know that some writers write what they know. I am not so sure Austen wrote of herself, and it seems a grand, sweeping generalization to say that her pretty tales of romance are the result of personal experience, or even idle hopes. There is something of everyone in tone and what editors call fictional 'voice,' but that isn't to say everything is, in some sense, a biography, or make every Fitzgerald a Gatsby. I divest my novels of any personal information for just this reason, people are too free with the personalities they assign to their heroes, and worse, their writers. I can only imagine what kind of person my readers might think me, if they only rearranged the order in which they've read my work.

I think I will answer your paragraph on my personality. You have what the journalists call timing, Claire, and for that and your own combination of charity and inquisitiveness, have managed to wring more from me than I intended. Here it is, then.

It would be easy to say that I assume the rest of the world to at least be bad off as I am, and they just hide it better. I could go on to tell you everyone has some dark depressing fear that they kick under their beds every night, and that humanity, when not eating its own tail, picks up speed toward the edge of the cliff and the long fall that immediately follows. I would start describing large historic trends in cultural clashes and scientific evolution, and then draw erroneous conclusions about how the atom bomb must mean that man doesn't deserve any of his gifts. I might even wrangle you into a Descartain discussion about how there's no God, just some Pavlovian need for someone to ring the bell and tell us everything will be alright in the end--or misquote a biologist about how our ecosystems are collapsing and how we're hardwired to fight or flight, and not think or talk.

I could do all that. But I won't.

I don't feel that just because there are worse human beings breathing, it means that the kind of person I am, and the amount of pain I cause, is somehow materially lessened simply by comparison. I don't think the larger question on whether or not there is a higher power makes much of a difference on my personal merit (if I had merit, then it wouldn't matter if there was or wasn't, and if I don't, whose fault it is doesn't matter either). You, by nature, are a very charitable person, as evidenced by the fact you're reading this at all, and your doings with that unfortunate former lover of yours and even with that awful bully, Quinn, who it must be absolute torture to work with, if he rages at you the way he rages at my inbox. (I notice you have not told him I was away. Very charitable of you, you see?) You're inclined to think the better of me, but I have known myself longer. Not so very long, but at least longer than you have.

I've pondered the strange behavior of my acquaintance, and I can explain all but the actions of one, a neighbor, who is at least as sour as I am but persists on involving himself in affairs that could only bring him unnecessary grief and, if nothing else, continual disturbances of the general peace. There is one who feels sorry for me, another who convinced herself in love with me, though I like to think she's grown out of it, and yet another who is bored with idle indulgence and here for the show. There was lately another, gone now, and I am waiting for the others to follow her example and find affairs more worth their time. When it gets quiet, I might write again.

Daniel

P.S. As for your stage, I have already given my opinion, unless you have a more specific request.
P.P.S. You're going to need to find another white knight to save you from my more prolific colleagues. Just buy him a few cloves of garlic.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: E-mail.

bookshelved
2010-01-15 02:50 am UTC (link)

Daniel,

Let us begin with the trivial, as I find that sometimes makes hard conversations easier. (Is it strange that I consider this to be a conversation?)

I refuse to concede that Austen is not autobiographical. Throughout her novels there is a spattering of the true instances of her life. She was Elinor to Cassandra's Maryanne. She was Elizabeth to Cassandra's Jane. Her niece was Emma, and she was Fanny. She, herself, was Anne - later in life, after the fates of Elizabeth and Elinor had passed her by. She writes from life, and therefore her life is in her works.

Your novels may not draw from life, but they most certainly draw from you. Do you want to know what I see in your words?

I see a man whose first novel is cockily confident, snarky in its language, the certainty in the words jumping off the page, the intent to irritate clear and crisp. I see a man whose mid-point novel is sardonic and mock-thick. A novel written by someone whose view on life had altered in the interim, who had become derisive, skeptical; a cynic. I see a man whose most recent novel is grim and dark; hopeless and empty. I see Persuasion without the attempt at a happy ending.

And in you, in these e-mails, I see a man who was once charming and elegant, whose words still evoke those days, even if he isn't aware of it; a man brilliant and witty and engaging. And I see a man who hates himself.

I do not think you are a saint, Daniel, and I am under no delusions. Whatever else you take from this, take that fact. I am not a young girl who is starstruck by your fame and your money and your words. I want nothing from you to further my own career. I write to you because I enjoy your company. It is as complicated and as simple as that.

As for your neighbors, I challenge you to ask them. And when they answer, I challenge you to take them at their word, instead of finding all the reasons they must be lying to you - especially the one that confuses you the most. I challenge you to ask him first, before fear takes the urge from you. And if he is at all like you, I recommend you do not let him give you a reason that is outside of himself. Those reasons are always false, in my experience.

When you write again, when it's quiet, I beg the tale of the one who left. Consider this my paragraph and your debt will be fulfilled.

Claire,
who hopes she has not pushed too far with this e-mail, but who is not sorry for the words it contains.

P.S. Clarification, I am asking you to define what constitutes a 'better experience.'

P.S.S. I look forward to your e-mails from the time I hit the 'send' button.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. labete 2010-01-15 03:29 am UTC (link)
	Claire, With respect--and affection, because I like you, you old spinster--that was a bit too far, yes. The novels are just novels, with my name on them. They are each separate. I'm not trying to start a genre, and certainly not an œuvre. That's not why I wrote them. I'll send another book along, when I find one. Daniel (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: E-mail.

bookshelved
2010-01-15 03:55 am UTC (link)

Daniel,

The novels are extensions of the writer, as all novels are on some level. Yours are particularly good, because you are particularly good.

I am sorry to have pushed; it is my way, I'm afraid. But I am not sorry for the sentiments; I stand behind them. I am, however, sorry for any vulnerabilities exposed. I am also saddened by the possibility of not hearing from you in the future.

Remember, I am but an elderly spinster copy editor, anonymous down to the thick taupe of my stockinged toes; insignificant in all things.

Claire

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: E-mail.

labete
2010-01-15 04:00 am UTC (link)

They're not, Claire. They are what they are. There isn't even a 'they.' Each one is... is each one. You can't make me out of them, just like you can't make me into them.

And if you were just that--stockings and spinsters and insignificant things--I don't think I'd like you so much. At least you get a salary, and you do what you do because... you can, I suppose.

Don't be sorry.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: E-mail.

bookshelved
2010-01-15 04:05 am UTC (link)

Of course there is a they, even if it isn't the sense that you mean. They were written by one person, that makes them a grouping, even if they have nothing else in common but the writer, but you.

Can you elaborate on the comment about my salary, so I can refute it?

I am sorry for hurting you with my cobbled together truths. But I am very glad you responded again. I admit to sitting her sadly when I thought you would not.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. labete 2010-01-15 04:09 am UTC (link)
	No, I don't want to say anything else about your salary because I don't ~~think I can handle~~ want to hurt your feelings about it. I have a headache. Don't worry, I'll probably keep answering emails until I'm dead. Bad habit.. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. bookshelved 2010-01-15 04:11 am UTC (link)
	Can I convince you to tell me what it is that I 'do because... [I] can?' (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. labete 2010-01-15 04:14 am UTC (link)
	[Obviously, with the emails so short, they're both sitting at the computer by this time.] Talking to me? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. bookshelved 2010-01-15 04:18 am UTC (link)
	I talk to you because I want to. It is as selfish and as simple as that, Daniel. And, moreover, I'm not even being paid to do so at present. I'm sitting at the office, well after my shift has ended, because I like your company - even if your literary theory is sometimes flawed. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. labete 2010-01-15 04:21 am UTC (link)
	You like to argue with me, that's all. You might get tired of it eventually. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. bookshelved 2010-01-15 04:26 am UTC (link)
	And you might get tired of me and my epic e-mails. There are no guarantees in life, Daniel. Even living isn't guaranteed. I know that right now, in this moment, your e-mails are the reason I refresh my inbox while I'm sitting on my lunch break, and they are the reason I am sitting here, shoes kicked off, in an office that is entirely dark and quiet. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. labete 2010-01-15 04:27 am UTC (link)
	You should go home. Are you keeping someone waiting? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. bookshelved 2010-01-15 04:28 am UTC (link)
	Are you asking if I'm seeing anyone? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. labete 2010-01-15 04:36 am UTC (link)
	That's not what I meant. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. bookshelved 2010-01-15 04:39 am UTC (link)
	What did you mean? And you, who is with you at present? Which of your companions? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. labete 2010-01-15 04:40 am UTC (link)
	I meant I hope I'm not detaining you ~~from something better.~~ How do you know that someone is here right now? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. bookshelved 2010-01-15 04:44 am UTC (link)
	I'm the one who lingered in the hopes you would e-mail back, Daniel. If I was elsewhere, then that would be detaining me from you. My inference is that you aren't ever left alone; is it an incorrect one? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: E-mail. labete 2010-01-15 04:45 am UTC (link)
	[Pause.] No. That's right. Are you going to draw brilliant assumptions from that, too? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)