On Lucy Maud Montgomery's Tortured Life, The Tragedy of Tauriel and Endings

L. M. Montgomery's birthday is today (I'm sure Google told many of you this also). For those of you who don't know, she wrote the Anne of Green Gables series.

I am surprised(ish) at how tortured she was and how she *may* have committed suicide. She seems to have had a fascinating life though was born in the wrong era.  Apparently she is quoted to have said that she got married because that's what women did in Canada during that time (Early 1900s).Though her husband was a "winner" who suffered from religious melancholia or essentially depression.

Interestingly and not intentionally, I wrote a main character in a now-defunct zombie novel whose name was Lucy Morgan Monroe. I wonder if somewhere in my subconscious I was channeling my inner childhood lit experience? Who knows...if I could go back in time, dress all fancy (especially if I can wear a fancy hat) and have tea with Ms. Montgomery, I would totally do that. If only time machines were real...

L.M. Montgomery was a strong and influential woman of her time, in a time when women were not really able to be strong and influential. They had a path and that path was through marriage and children to inevitable death from a broken heart - broken at their wasted opportunities. Broken as their spirit was, crushed by a society ruled by men and a very few influential, yet narrow-minded women.

Speaking of ruled by men...I saw this meme today on Facebook that initially made me chuckle but ultimately made me sad.

First of all, I totally support the addition of not-in-the-book female characters to the awesome LOTR world. However, if you're gonna do it, FOR GOD'S SAKE PLEASE DON'T MAKE THEM SUCK! You had one job, PJ, ONE JOB! And you blew it.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, my rant is twofold.

1. She SUCKS at fighting. I mean, she keeps slipping up or falling and one tiny orc overpowers her to the point that she fucks over Killi because she can't keep her shit together.  Up until this point, she's been relatively badass, fairly succeeding in everything she tries to do. But in this last battle scene, she jumps on an orc's back and gets flung of like a squirrel on a T-Rex.

Meanwhile, you've got Legolas over here, hopping off monsters and rubble like some type of coked-up mountain goat, using his dagger as a sort of grappling-hook-cum-emergency brake to slow his fall... OFF OF A TROLL. I mean, even the dorky elven foot soldiers fighting with the dwarves do magical elf-dwarf vaults to embed their impossibly short swords into wargs' eyes. ALL OF THEM DO THIS. Why can't Tauriel stay attached to ONE angry orc?

2. Love. Fine - everyone loves a love story. Especially if it's a love story between the second hottest dwarf (c'mon, you know Filli was the sexier of the two with his bad-ass blond flavor savor) and a hot elf chick (not as hot as Arwen, but you won't find me complaining).  Love makes things interesting. Gives us that "aw" moment we don't get in real life, and  lets us have ALL THE FEELS when one of them tragically dies. Fine. I'll bite. This is Hollywood afterall.

But for chrissakes...did she have to be such a whiny baby about it? And worse yet, come crying to a MAN to explain her feelings involving men (dead dwarf-men in this case. *sniff* poor Killi)? And, true to form, it takes the man-elf to say "love is soooo worth it" for her to be like "ya ok sure. gotcha. I'm good now." *double sigh* Fuck you Tauriel and your "love".

This was probably the only (and most) disappointing moment in all the Hobbit movies for me. I can forgive non-book embellishments, silly dwarves, 9 hours of movie, and even the cheesy romeo-juliet/dwarf-elf love story, but could you have at least made Tauriel fight well? Oh, and not be a total baby who runs crying to a man when she needs to solve  her problems?

Stay with me here, people...She's an effing elf! They are magical! And if orc-shield-surfin', three-arrows-at-a-time Legolas is any indication of the species, they kick severe amounts vof evil ass.

Unfortunately, #everydaysexism still applies to girl elves in the made-up, fantasy world of Middle Earth. Peter Jackson, how could you have failed me so? I thought our love was true. Why does it hurt so much.

And lastly, in other new. My novel, Insignia, is finished. Did you hear that? Let me say it louder...

***My novel, Insignia, is finished!!!***

And I don't just mean finished in the "got to the end of the words" way. I mean, like I have edited it ad nauseum, spell checked it, consistently spelled all my made-up names and removed comment bubbles.That kind of finished. And ok, you got me, the formatting needs to be proofed by someone who knows what they're doing. AAAAAND it should probably have a 3rd party grammar check.  And xInfinity, It needs cover art. But content-wise it is done. No major revisions unless one of my grammar nazis decides that something is total crap. But holy shit you guys...FINISHED!

I'm putting this "NANOWRIMO Winner" badge up as I used the rampant writing-energy of this month to ride through the remaining edits. And as I probably put in 50k + worth of editing hours, and accomplished my goal, i feel like a winner. 

Disloyal, Inconsistent, Unstable?

This photo was recently posted on my 29-yo cousin's Facebook page. Initially, when I saw it, I automatically had a litany of snarky responses:

- "Yeah, because love, finding the right person(s) and happiness are so overrated."
- "So what does that make me, disloyal, inconsistent and unstable?"
- "Nah, I'm still looking for the one(s) who are disloyal, inconsistent and unstable. That's hot. Everyone love a bad boy/girl."
- "Wait, when did you get older than me?"
- "That thinking is how late 20-somethings end up in unhappy marriages and early 30-somethings in happy divorces."
- "Yeah, everything goes downhill after 30. If you don't catch them now, you never will."
- "It's good to have goals.  I mean, mine are happiness, success and self-love. But whatever floats your boat I guess."
- "Right, because no one over 30 dates anymore. Yuck."
- "Well, I'm too old to be stuck in an unhappy marriage with a man that's loyal and stable.  At MY age happiness, self-sufficiency and love is the goal now."

I'm sure there were more but I think you get my point.

Instead I said "Just don't be loyal, stable and consistent with someone you don't love or who doesn't make you happy....."

However, underneath all those snarky comments, I have to say that her post really bothered me.  It made me sad.  I mean, is this the type of thinking of my age group?  I know as many of my friends near and surpass 30, they are ALL caught up in "adulting". I swear, in the last couple of years this word has SKYROCKETED in popularity.  Like, if I had $1 for every time I heard this word, I'd probably be able to buy a case of craft beer or something. Probably actually stock my fridge or buy a kegerator....

What bothered me the most about this saying were two things:

1). "I'm too old to jump from person to person" - as if dating around is a). something only young, non-adult-type people do and b). not an ideal life-choice.  Both of these assumptions are demeaning to people who choose to live an "alternate" relationship style even if she doesn't consciously say so.  This is what I have started calling a passive put-down.  You are implying that to really grow up, you need to stop doing certain things.

I mean, ok fine, there are some things you can be too old for: "I'm too old to wear 2T clothing."  Or "I'm too old to stay up all night drinking and go to work @ 9AM without feeling like death warmed over." "I'm too old to go skydiving because my bones are brittle now." But these are all related to ACTUAL physical limitations - size, body makeup, constitution etc.  And hey, if you're 70 years old and can still safely skydive - go for it!

But to be too old to have lots of sex, date lots of people, refuse to settle down?  That doesn't actually happen.  I mean, maybe SOME PEOPLE, just choose that they no longer want to do these things but it has NOTHING to do with being a certain age.  It has to do with their place in life and that's fine.  But don't impose misguided generalizations onto your relationship choices!

Also..too old  @ 29? Dayum girl, it's not the middle ages.  You're not even middle aged yet.  People live past 40, y'know.

 2).  "At this age loyalty, stability and consitency are the goal." At what age? 29?  At 29, you probably shouldn't be saying "at this age" to anything TBH.  But ok, let's just pretend for a second here...I'm 31, does that mean that I'm NOT interested in those three qualities? OR does that mean  I'm NOT those 3 qualities because I "jump from person to person".  Again, this is another passive put-down implying that people who do #1 cannot be #2,  Which is totally narrowminded.

And what's worse, she probably didn't think this hard about this when she posted.  That means that she didn't even stop to consider that other people (on her friends list) might have a different life path than her.  And if she didn't consider tthis about her FB friends, does she consider this about other poeple in teh world? Or does she just assume that every late-20-something girl has the same relationship checklist:

• Get a boyfriend.
• Big trip together
• Move in with boyfriend
• Move somewhere with boyfriend
• Buy a house
• Get engaged
• Get Married
• Kids
• Kids
• Kids

So, bottom line, I'm not really mad at my cousin - it's not like she's actively being a bitch or being judgy. At least not in this exact instance.  She is just a product of her society where an "alternative" lifestyle is not her choice, therefore it's easier to not think about it.  And unfortunately, it's this passive sharing of narrow-minded ideals that has caused feminism and gay marriage etc. to take forever to catch on and REALLY be established.  AND, because MANY people share this unconscious, judgmental value system, those who support feminism and to an extent gay marriage (in some circles to varying degrees) are considered dramatic "feminazis" and the like.

I haven't quite decided how to approach my cousin (if I should) about this comment because I don't want to be the marriage non-believer pushing my beliefs on someone.  However...I would like to push my beliefs onto her to an extent that she just understands (and maybe even recognizes?) that others out there are not like her but they deserve respect and consideration none the less.

Now...where's my kegerator?