Incurably Nocturnal

It seems no matter what timezone I travel to (with the possible exception of France) I quickly adjust, if "adjust" can be considered to be consistently going to bed after midnight and waking after noon. For a time here I would wake consistently around 7am for unknowable reasons since that would be 10am in my original timezone. Of course, by "wake" I mean I would become conscious, look blearily at the clock, and choose not to get out of bed on principle. This is also why I shall generally provide yesterday's news since I write my blog posts earlier in the day but my brain generally doesn't warm up to anything useful until closer to evening. This also probably why I generally detest calling people because it usually requires me to call earlier in the day when my brain isn't up to much more than a vegetative state. (For those wondering, writing, when it's not for a novel, is a vegetative state for me).

All the same, because I hate doing one thing at a time while trying to jumpstart my brain I'm also watching/listening to Mansfield Park on YouTube, the newest version with Billie Piper, and a thought has occurred to me. It has always been said that Mansfield Park was Austen's favorite book which is quite mysterious because it's generally despised by most Austenites due to its prudish heroine Fanny Price. But what if Austen did not like it for Fanny? It has often been remarked that the dashing villainess of the book, Mary Crawford, is more like Austen than Fanny. What if Austen wanted to write a tragedy? People often assume that Mansfield follows the same happy-ending formula of Austen's other romances because Fanny and (the insufferable) Edmund get together at the end while Mary Crawford, for all her wit and cleverness, is left to be alone. Just as Austen was. What if, in truth, Mansfield Park is actually the only Austen book without a happy ending?

Of course, I am no Austen scholar, simply the average fan, so I'm sure anyone who has really studied her life could poke a dozen holes in my theory. But it is nice to at least to pretend to have profound thoughts this early in the day.

Not much for news since I've not done anything today, but I finished reading the first volume of Fruits Basket last night (actually this morning), and I've started to read, Machiavelli's The Prince. I'm not actually past the introduction, but it's an interesting introduction. It posits that Machiavelli may have have been being practical rather than amoral, but I think it's more fun to think he was simply amoral (it does not follow this means he was impractical since in politics it is often practical to be amoral).

Friend of the Week: Dejah (I'm still waiting for punishments from the rest of you but for now it seems my punishment--if I do not post--will be to go to a place I've never been, take a picture of me in that place, and then blog about it).