The Time I Was Mixed Up in the Regency Era

Last night I dreamt I was in some kind of Sense and Sensibility situation. It was summer, and my younger sister (who wasn't my real younger sister) and I (who wasn't me) were visiting our aunt on the seashore, which was like at Lyme or something (and that's from Persuasion). It was really fun to walk along the seawall and smell the sea air.

My younger sister was like Marianne, and I was like Elinor. (After I woke up, I realized it would be impossible to be Marianne. No one reads Sense and Sensibility and relates to Marianne. People like Marianne are only experienced by outsiders.) There was this Colonel Brandon character, except he was also like Edward Rochester (okay, not Regency) because he had rich skanks running after him, and he was madly in love with my sister but it was hopeless because he was too old and she was too depressed about something to pay any attention to him.

Anyway, my sister and I would stroll around town arm in arm, I pointing out everything I saw to try to cheer my sister up and she brooding and staring into the sea spray. The Colonel Brandon guy would ride his big black horse just beside and behind us. We went to a dance. The rich skanks made fun of our plain green (mine) and pink (my sister's) calico dresses. (The colors were the same as in the 2008 Sense & Sensibility, but the cuts were much simpler and had long sleeves.)

Another day, my sister and I got into a carriage accident or someone tried to rob our carriage or something and Colonel Brandon was there to save us. He lifted my sister (who was wearing blue) up on his horse to sit tight against him, and I (in sea green) had to ride in front of her, practically flung across the horse's neck. When we got into town, the rich skanks made fun of how my dress kept creeping up my legs when I sat in this awkward sidesaddle position. Some of the young men in the town also came out to laugh at me.

My sister was embarrassed and depressed and decided to go home by herself without telling anyone. She boarded the stagecoach, which inside looked like a short charter bus. Colonel Brandon found out and ran onto the coach to find her. During all of this, I'd developed a crush on Colonel Brandon mostly because he was so manly and so devoted to my sister. No one developed a crush on me. And then I woke up.

An Addition to My Favorite Movie Lists

I can't believe I forgot to include Gone with the Wind in my list of the top ten romantic movies! I mean, I love this movie! It definitely beats either The Phantom of the Opera or Dear Frankie, which got on the list because of some weird Gerard Butler fixation I was experiencing last year.


The only question is whether to put Gone with the Wind in the romantic or serious movie category. Even though the movie is romantic, I'm not sure the romance is why I love it. I love it because it is like a Greek tragedy. I love how Scarlett's greatest strength—the determination that got her, her sisters, her servants, and the Wilkes family through the war and the immediate postwar period—also is her greatest downfall because she cannot show the vulnerability that comes with love. I love it because Scarlett acts as I acted as a girl and probably would still act if acne and a weight problem had not humbled me in my teens. I love it for the catharsis I experience when Scarlett and Rhett's failure to communicate rips them apart. I love it for how much it makes me wish I were Vivien Leigh—beautiful, deeply unhappy, and unhealthily attached to Lawrence Olivier. I love it because I both love Melanie for her own sake and hate her for Scarlett's sake.

I also really love the pretty dresses.

Egypt is Free!

BBC News video of the celebrations


Yesterday afternoon I sat glued to CNN, watching millions of people shout and sing and dance in the street. It was beautiful. I heard them shouting and catch a word here and there—kicking myself for losing my ability to speak Egyptian Arabic.

"But," the American commentators warned, "what if the government the people elect does not favor the United States as Mubarak did?" We had a good thing going with Mubarak, as we do with the Saudi royal family. For longer than I like to admit, I considered this possibility. Oh, no, I thought, buying into the worry, what if we lose our friend, the most populous country in the Arab world?

Then I realized—the United States was not the primary beneficiary of Mubarak's friendship, Israel was. My country supports Egypt's military not to protect ourselves from danger but in order to protect our overgrown child to the north. I realized this was what the CNN reporter meant when she said, "Israel, which has long been the only true democracy in the region, is very nervous tonight." WHAT?! WHAT?! How can a country that considers a huge portion of its citizens a "demographic threat" (Netanyahu, 2003) be democratic? How can a country that denies citizenship to four million people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip simply because Arabs would become a demographic majority be a democracy? Israel is a lot of things, but I would hardly call it a beacon of democracy. Oppression is oppression whether an autocrat orders it or a fairly elected parliament orders it.

So whatever, commentators. I hope Egypt opens its border with Gaza now that it doesn't have to do what my country orders it to do. And if Egypt wants to go further and put some pressure on Israel, I'm okay with that too. Israel kind of deserves it.


Let's just be happy for the Egyptian people. How many stand up to autocrats and win without a war or a coup? I'll end with something Alaa Al-Aswany (author of The Yacoubian Building and a 2010 book titled, roughly, Why Does Egypt Not Revolt?, among other books) said in 2005 about his vision of Egypt in 2055:

After living away, I go back to Egypt. . . . After praying at the mosque, people spill out onto the streets to protest. I see police and I ask someone, "Will they beat us when we get to the end of the street?" . . . He tells me, "No, they are here to protect us." . . . There is a picture of a woman without a veil. . . . He tells me, "She is our candidate for president. . . . Times have changed. Things were very bad, there was a leader who ruled for 30 years, but when he tried to make his son president, there was a revolt." "What was his name?" I asked the man, and he said, "it was such a terrible time, no one dares to utter his name." (Vivan Salama, Daily News Egypt, 8 December 2005)

Egypt is free!