Yeah.... It's time for a blog post. I have been getting back in the swing of them lately, and I shouldn't give myself a break. I don't deserve it. Not yet. Not really.
I just wrote a whole bit about retirement, then decided it was rubbish and deleted it all. So sorry, but you're not going to see it. I'm sure you're not that choked up about it though, because as I said, it was rubbish.
I have decided that eventually soon I will dread my hair. I have been claiming to want to do this for years and years, but have always skirted around the actual doing-of-it. I think I put too much stock in opinions given when I said I'd like to do it. There have probably been equal parts negative and positive response, but it can be hard even for relatively self confident people to knock out appearance-related criticism. But in the end, I think dreadlocks are beautiful, so I'm just going to do it.
I am reading a book called Shooting Victoria by Paul Thomas Murphy.
I think that the author only decided to write the book because he identifies with the tedious, repetitive names 19th century England.
Okay, so not really. I only wrote that when I googled the book to remind myself of the authors name for the purpose of this blog post and saw how truly mundane it was, and no wonder I didn't remember it.
It is quite a good book so far, though. I got it from the library about a week ago. I don't think I really looked to see what it was - it looked like a biography of somesort, and I will pretty much read any historical biography about anyone, and particularly about the British Monarchy or the American aristocracy. Some call this preference Masterpiecefever. It causes those inflicted with it to hungrily devour anything with a title or an accent. Or better yet, both.
Anyway, I picked up this book, and after I'd read two or three chapters I realized that it was about the many assassination attempts on Queen Victoria. It quickly became a disturbing book. It is what I would identify as a historical narrative. It's information taken court transcripts, police reports, letters, diaries, newspapers, etc., and strung together as a an unfolding story so that it makes it bearable to read. The fact that it was not literary embellishment on the characters parts made it unsettling. After the first part of the book - some 100 pages in, and having covered the entirety of the first assassination attempt made on the young Queen and her husband and the trial that followed, and a good few nightmares later, I decided that I would not finish the book. I put it down and continued The Hobbit. Then last night, for whatever reason, I picked it up again. And I have nearly not put it down since. Besides the sometimes gruesome details of this murder or that one, and the very, very sad circumstances and outcomes of at least the first three would-be assassins, it is a most enjoyable book. It is very sad in more ways than it is happy, but it is well told and informative.
It does not really satisfy the Masterpiecefever's hunger for a good drama, though - because those ideally end with cousin Matthew getting over his absurdly morbid I-don't-deserve-to-be-happy whine-fest and finally snogging Mary at the end of the Christmas special, and not with three stupid, sad boys being deported for life or rotting away in an asylum.
On that cheerful note, I love Charlie McDonnell.
Goodnight, y'all.
-The Optimist
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