The House of Mirth

I admit, I was a pretty big X Files fan back in college. This largely was because of the presence of Foxxxy Mulder, but Scully was cool too. She was smart, didn't take any guff because of her gender/youth, and, like the famous line about Ginger Rogers, did everything Mulder did but in heels.

So when Gillian Anderson (aka, "Scully") starred in a movie version of "The House of Mirth," I was all over going to see it. Big mistake. It hit far too close to home. For those of you who, like me, had never read the book, here's the bare-bones plot: during the Victorian era, a 28-year-old woman ("Lily") struggles with her finances and sees her social stock decline until she overdoses on laudanum. Ends with Eric Stolz - sigh - stroking her face and crying. The whole story is really supposed to show how even intelligent, spirited women were broken by the way society was structured at that point, but really for me it was the money part that had me wincing. Not that I was heading toward a morphine-ridden end, but I also spent money like water and was constantly watching it flow away from me.

I don't know why, but I even bought and read the book, which was even worse. It's so sad! She tries so hard! Once, I spent an entire trans-Atlantic flight sobbing about poor Lily's plight. Even though I can't pick the book up again, I also can't make myself get rid of it (kind of how I feel about John Dollar. shudder).

In completely unrelated news, I have to go pay my bills now. I brought them in - reverse telecommuting, thankyouverymuch - so I could be wacky and get my mortgage payment in *before* it was due. Hell, I'll try anything once.

And for those of you who think that astrology is pure bunk, I give you this: yesterday, the Marine's cell phone got temporarily shut down because of problems with his account, which necessitated the immediate remittance of a whoppingly ginormous payment. Aaaand his horoscope yesterday said he'd have money problems. See? See? Oh, shut up.