Downton Abbey

A good lesson in patience is holding off watching any remarkably awesome series of a television show until there are plenty of episodes to enjoy, otherwise you'll be stuck waiting nearly a year for more, like I currently am for Downton Abbey. I thought two seasons was very good, but I'm at the edge of my seat and have no recourse till season three is out, who knows when.

I adore TV. I unabashedly love it. Dexter, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, True Blood, Walking Dead, and now Downton Abbey are all favourites. I also love Game of Thrones, another one I got into far too early. The Dude introduced me to it when, unbeknownst to me, there were only two episodes. When I asked for a third and learned I'd have to wait, I cursed his name.

While watching Downton Abbey, you can't help but wonder what life would have been like. You see the older generation put off by innovations like indoor electricity, a motor vehicle, a telephone and gramophone. It seems quaint. But thinking on it, until all those things which took place roughly in this decade of time, people could only see by candle or sunlight, write letters or send telegrams to communicate long distance, ride long distances by horse and buggy or train, and listen to music when people were actually singing and playing instruments.

That's a significant improvement in modern day convenience, isn't it? I mean, I'd feel hard up without my laptop. I'd be bored without a TV. Modern transportation and portable phones and music, never mind electricity are kind of not be done without.

I read Jane Austen from time to time, and thoroughly enjoy the BBC's Pride and Prejudice. Best adaptation there is out there. And watching Downton Abbey against Pride and Prejudice is incredibly interesting because they're set 100 years apart and have so much in common with very notable differences.

Downton Abbey begins with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, whereas P&P is set roughly in the early 1800s. The households are both in England, both involve families of the gentry, though the Bennets in P&P aren't aristocracy like the Crawleys are in Downton Abbey, but rather landowners.

What's amazing is that other than some modern conveniences, life between these two eras of time seems very similar. Women try to marry well, first sons inherit, other sons make their way how they can and try to marry well. Help is hired to live in the house, and there is no moving between classes. Then suddenly along comes a war and whamo, social change comes afoot.

Women are needed to be more useful and rise to the challenge and don't feel like going back into the shadows. North America becomes a land of opportunity and escape from a class system, whereas before it was developed it was a harsh and brutal landscape to consider running off to. And the fashion gets amazing.

And comparing the two reminds me a lot of the movie Midnight In Paris, where the leading man goes back in time to the '30s and experiences the amazing creative forces of Dali and Hemingway. It's funny to be nostalgic for a time that you never belonged to, especially a culture you're not a part of, but I get it. I feel it when I watch Downton Abbey.

No doubt I come from a line of seamstresses or maids or something. The likes of me wouldn't have had a chance for the prettiness of the time. And the sanitation issues would have been problematic, not to mention inadequate maternity care and the lack of equal rights for all. But it's hard not to romanticize a time when people dressed well for dinner, enjoyed tea and took pride in at least trying to speak their piece politely.

People get nostalgic for other times, too, and I can appreciate the glamour of the '20s, the charming fashion of the '50s, the excitement of the '60s, the sexual revolution of the '70s... skip the '80s. Bleh. And I miss the music and pre-digital-age days of the '90s, which is something I have a right to because I lived it.

I look around and wonder if in 40 years anyone will reminisce for now. The fashion is okay here and there, but is vulgar or boring in far too many pockets of society. Equal rights for all has never been better, though there's an attack on women happening now and it's shocking and makes me sick. I can only imagine in the future things will have greatly improved, so I can't see why someone would look back fondly on what is clearly a work in progress.

The digital age has pushed hardcore porn into the mainstream consciousness, and frankly I think the abundance of it is warping young men. Back when it was harder to get, one could hardly immerse oneself with it without paying through the nose and getting embarrassed at the video store. Now one can view it all day if they want to. Softcore pornography has invaded our streets, to the point it's been normalized and people don't even think it's softcore anymore, and I think it's warping young women and contributing to eating disorders.

Cell phones, although convenient, have created new atrocious social habits. People will go out with others and rather than talk and interact, will get out their phone and text people who aren't even present. On Facebook or Twitter, people will call out others and have inappropriate conversations online in front of everyone they know. A technological explosion has made electronic devices common and mainstream, nearly indispensable. As exciting as that is, it feels unsustainable. Probably because in its current state, it is.

There's politics ongoing now that are serious problems. Starting with the ill-advised war on terror in Iraq of all places, economic downturns and increased poverty and unemployment, Europe sinking financially, a fanatical religious right trying to scare people into an everyone-for-themselves way of thinking, while religious zealots breed and expand in record numbers during a time of overpopulation when our Earth has reached 7 billion.

Income and wealth disparity is on the rise, celebrity news and infotainment has never been hotter and people care less and less about even so much as voting. And no wonder because the political system is broken and no one is repairing it.

Actually, is it any wonder I love TV so much? TV's frankly never been so good. It certainly is an escape. It's possibly the best thing going on these days.

My mom used to say, "If you remembered the '60s, you weren't really there." She was a teenager back then and I mostly think she was joking around. But it shows a fondness for an era. I wonder what I'll say about the '90s when I was a teenager. Will it be fond? And the--What? The Zeroes? The Naughts? The millenium? Whatever it is, those are my 20s. What will be said about them? Will I be fond retrospectively? Hard to say. These are hardly romantic years in the 21st century.

We might be stuck watching period pieces if romance is what we're after. That and a more sustainable population. But there I go, romanticizing again. Can't be helped.

Almost 29

I'm 29 years old in about two weeks. I've been blogging about my impending 30 years of age since I was 26. 26 is when it hit me that it was actually going to happen. I was so excited to turn 20 because I felt that was real adulthood. But 30 is different because that's actual real adulthood.

20 is nothing. 20 is time to make mistakes and be silly and figure out how to pay rent and buy your own groceries, which is adult, yes, but it's more of a starter challenge, something to master before you really take on some responsibility. Eventually, you get a job with some level of permanence, or take on a career that builds on past jobs. Maybe you get a pet, or even a child, or barring those two you at least take on some houseplants or a garden.

You get an apartment you plan on staying in, or if you're financially sound you get a condo or a *gasp* house. Maybe you buy a car, if you're not an urbanite, and keep up with all the maintenance that entails. You have to sort out your own vision, prescription and dental plans, and generally manage your own health concerns.

You plan vacations that don't revolve around a school schedule. Your evenings are free because homework and assignments are no longer a part of your life, and so you have to really figure out what it is you like to do with yourself. Meeting people is now much harder because you're out of school and so you actually have to put yourself out there or nurture your existing relationships in order to have friends. Socializing doesn't just happen on its own anymore, you must make it happen yourself.

I spent my 20s in a few relationships and making new and re-energizing old friendships. I took up belly dance, did some travelling, got my job, some pets, an apartment I finally plan on staying at awhile, and I've begun gardening and baking. I'm going to enter my 30s married, childless, kitties in tow in a homey apartment with a decent job.

When I was a teenager, I envisioned an artsy existence for myself. I thought I'd be working and living in a studio space, managing motherhood with my art in the city. Or something. Then I thought I'd be a journalist in the city. Then I toyed with living in the country and actually learning to drive. That didn't last long.

Like I said in my last post, I've always looked to the past. Looking ahead and planning my future was never something I did. I had vague ideas, but generally I just tried to focus on things that happened and otherwise meandered through my life, making choices as needed without too much direction. I sort of let my inclinations and heart lead the way.

Turns out I hated going to bars and concerts. I don't like high-powered work or too much stress. I need alone time and I enjoy opportunities to be creative. I like a small circle of friends that are tight-knit and welcoming. Big parties are not my thing, most of the time. I like having cats and I enjoy trips. I don't care much about having a great body, only a reasonably decent one.

These are the things I've figured out about myself and the way I like to live. I'm not living a dream life, per se. It's not exciting or dynamic. It's not the sort of life people dream of. But what I am living is an authentic life, authentic to myself. My life makes sense. I don't worry. Freedom from worry is something I haven't always had.

I'm turning 29, I'm almost 30. Three years I've been writing this blog and who I am has changed a little, in ways I'm okay with. More self acceptance, I think that's the key.

Free

I have not stopped coughing for days, roughly 8 days. It wakes me up from a dead sleep at 5:00 a.m. I am losing my mind. I've been taking Buckley's before bed, and yes it tastes awful and it works. Until it stops working and I jolt awake to a hacking cough that sounds as though it belongs to a 70-year-old smoker.

I'm supposed to see a movie tonight, but I'm afraid my cough will strike and I'll annoy people and have to leave. I've been dousing myself with remedies to bring on the cough so I can get it over with already, but it drags on and on.

The week has also been spent feeling very introspective. I'm almost always a reflective person. The Dude catches me staring into space, deep in thought, and usually has poor enough judgement to snap me out of it to ask what I'm thinking about, to which I never give him a good answer. But with my alone time I've been really digging into some old memories that pop up. But not really memories, more like old feelings associated with the past.

I've thought a lot about my childhood. And while I think I had a reasonably good one, suddenly and abrasively I'm grateful it's over. I've thought about my teen years, which had its moments, but was mostly a painful and anxious time for me, and I remember the sense of dread I walked around with almost all the time. And it's weird because I'd forgotten about it, I'd forgotten the real way it felt. I intellectually know I hated high school and felt trapped there, but the actual feelings were long gone and I couldn't feel them again.

And then suddenly there they were. A sense of isolation, feeling misunderstood, mild despair and frequent self-loathing. And childhood was confusing and lonely. I always felt trapped. I needed so much alone time, which I was rarely given, and yet when I needed companionship I often didn't have any, courtesy of being someone who liked being by myself.

So here I am, at my desk during work hours, and I'm suddenly hit by a wave of feelings I'd forgotten about, and then all sorts of gratitude it was no longer something I was feeling. And this all happened the week after I got married. I think I experienced the emotional residue of a major life milestone. Like an aftertaste of past experiences that are officially over.

It's weird. My day to day life is the same. I'm the same person and my relationship is unchanged. But there's something in the air, a sense that the future is now more important than the past. I've always looked to the past. That's what being a reflective person is like. You always look backwards to try and understand where you've been. Now I'm looking forward and now that those random waves of past emotions have stopped coming over me, I feel really done with them.

Nothing in my life has changed, except the way I think, which actually might be an incredibly large change, and a good one. I'm excited to think about the future, I mean, to really think about it. And I feel free.