Three reasons to be cheerful

...meme from e_juliana

I like this idea. Never hurts to find some reasons to be cheerful, after all. Therefore, my list:

1) It's almost Halloween. Which means it's the season for ghost stories, costumes, fallen leaves, haunted houses, jack'o'lanterns, and candy. No bad there. I've been saving The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton to read and The Haunting of Hill House to reread especially for October.

2) It's almost sweater weather. I love sweaters. Especially turtlenecks.

3) My newly very!short hair takes about one minute to fix, and shows off all my dangly earrings, which my longer hair masked. This is a pleasant thing.

Anyone can play. You know you want to.

Interests meme from jonquil

You are to pick ten LJ interests (every fifth, every seventh, whatever) and explain why they interest you.

Looking at my list, I realize I need to add some interests that aren't represented. Most of what I've listed here isn't specific. Anyway.

1) Biographies of women: I'm happy to read about almost any woman's life, from any era, as much for the daily trivialities as the social importance of the era, or the woman's contribution to it. I have biographies of everyone from Elizabeth I to Margaret Mitchell.

2) Edith Wharton: One of my favorite authors, ever. And yet, I realized thanks to invisible internet friends recently that I've missed some of her stuff that hadn't been in print for a while.

3) Gilded Age Manhattan: See above, for one. This is the setting for a lot of Wharton's work. New York has always been the city of my heart, and imagining it during that era -- the luxury juxtaposed with the poverty, the idea of "society" and its rules, the sense of discovery as the city grew and new "technology" became available, fascinates me.

4) Sylvia Plath: Yes, my favorite poet. Or one of, anyway. What interests me about her, given her confessional work, is how modern her thinking was about marriage and being a working mother, and how sadly old-fashioned it was at the same time. She wanted so much, and achieving it ended up being beyond her for so many reasons.

5) Cake: All kinds. Every kind. I read cookbooks for recipes and descriptions. In another life, maybe later in this one, I'd like to spend most of my time baking. Oh, and yeah, I like to eat it, too.

6) Maxfield Parrish: When I need to get my fairy tale on, visually, this is the guy I go to. I love what he does with light and color.

7) ESP: Short answer, it fascinates me. I don't have it, though.

8) Lupus: My mom has lupus. It's also one of those diseases that tempts me into thinking if I'd had any scientific aptitude whatsoever, I would have gone into medical research.

9) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The first show I was obsessively devoted to. Inspired me to write fanfic, is the reason for most of the friends I've met online, and two communities I really value.

10) I Love Lucy: My go-to show when I need to laugh. I know most episodes by heart. The first season is my least favorite, but it does the trick in a pinch. Give me Ricky's babyhood, the Hollywood and Europe trips, and I'm a happy girl.