Are you a Regency Buck or Belle?

These days it can be so hard to tell whether you're the hero of a shoddily researched romance novel or actually living in 1813.  Luckily, as a historian, I am well qualified to help you establish your exact circumstance.  Are you ready to take the quiz? Good.

For Gentlemen:
A. You are wearing a coat tailored by Weston, skin-tight inexpressibles and Hessians polished to a mirror-like shine by your valet, with whom you fought in the Peninsula, Rawlins.

Assessment: Tough call, but the fact that in your inner monologue you referred to trousers or breeches as "inexpressibles" suggests you are a figment of Georgette Heyer's imagination.

"I'm searching for just the right word to describe this. Imagine something moving with an aura of controlled power and radiating confidence.  It ripples like a stallion's heaving flank after a bruising ride.  Okay now think of an article of clothing that would cover something like that.  No, not my sleeves.  Nor my cravat, which I have tied in the Mathematical Waterfall, though I appreciate that you've noticed my puissant neck.  Golly this is hard.  Let's just call them 'inexpressibles.'"

B. Ask an honest friend from the 21st century to assess your body odor and rank it accordingly:
1. You smell like a wrestling camp locker room
2. You smell like an outhouse that has been dumped with Axe body spray
3. You smell of brandy, leather, and something inexpressibly male.
4. Your odor is unique to you, yet intoxicating
5. You smell of soap and a hint of, what is it, lemon? Cinnamon? I don't know but I want to kiss it.

Assessment: 1-2  Definitely 1813.   3 -- difficult to say.  Press you friend for details.  If the inexpressible odor turns out to be related to bodily fluids, you're probably really in the regency.  If you're just ineffably and olfactorily desirable human you're likely in a novel. 4-5 You're a work of fiction, mate.

"Oh my Lord, I'm shrinking from you for reasons of maidenly modesty, and definitely not because you smell like an open sewer. Etiquette forbids me to inhale unless we are separated by ten feet, what would Mama say?!"

C. In the past 24 hours have you: Made a magnificent leg, made a bet about a gently born lady's prospects on the Marriage Mart and recorded it in the betting book at White's or proposed marriage to a woman you scarcely know in order to secure an inheritance?
Assessment: Novel.

"It shall be strictly a marriage of convenience, at least until we are snowed in at my hunting lodge and the firelight plays tricks with my resolve!"
"Fine.  But my dead dog rug comes with me."

D.  Are you grotesquely disfigured from your presence at the Battle of Talavera?
Assessment: Really in 1813.  You might score a bit role as the impetus for an affecting scene in a novel wherein the heroine demonstrates her awareness of current events and sensibility, but you're definitely not the hero.

E. How many teeth do you have, and are they straight and gleamingly white?
Assessment: If the answer is not "all of them, and they are incandescent" you are in 1813.  No gap toothed swains need apply.

F.  You find yourself accumulating demonic nicknames.  Perhaps it is your saturnine good looks, or how you have the devil's luck at cards, but many call you "Lucifer" Beresford, the Dark Duke.
Assessment: In a novel, unless you are in fact the eminence of evil and your legal name is B. Elzebub.  In which case you might be Ol' Scratch in 1813.

For Misses Scarcely Out of the School Room

A.  Your honesty and frank innocence is refreshingly entrancing and a hardened rake has forsaken his gaming hells, claiming to find you fascinating and swearing he could never be bored by you, despite evidence that you are overwhelmingly bland.
Assessment:  Novel.

B. You embark upon the Marriage Mart determined that your head will rule your heart and you will make a marriage that will please papa.  You accomplish this.
Assessment: 1813.

C. A gentleman who reads aloud well has found favor with both you and your family, who are all greatly diverted by the distraction from the inexpressible boredom of living in the countryside in 1813.
Assessment: You're really in the Regency.  Novel heroines spend their evenings at Vauxhall or being kidnapped by dastardly roués who want to ruin their reputations in return for a handsome dowry and humiliating the once proud Lord Wrexham.

"Great.  He's reading Fordyce's sermons from the beginning.  Mama is charmed and says I must accept. Why cannot I have your happiness and freedom?"
"Take my advice, Lucy dearest.  Always wear pink satin, and never leave home without a dead dog."

 D.  When you go to a play, your gentleman escort is completely absorbed in watching your innocent wonder and emotional attachment to the spectacle, even as the rest of jaded London preens and spies upon one another.  You do not notice him staring fixedly, so wrapt is your gaze.  You are able to hear every note despite the lack of amplification and the raucousness of the audience.
Assessment: Novel.  Expect him to offer you a monogrammed handkerchief as a single crystalline tear slides down your porcelain cheek when the last note dies.

E.  You know adult women who affect baby talk or a lisp in order to entrance a man. And it seemingly works.
Assessment: Novel.  Slap that woman next time you see her.

"Ow you wead so weww! Widdow me could never manage!"
Can I get any further away from them while still keeping in contact with my dead dog? Edge carefully, don't wrinkle your only dress, self.

F.  The fact that England has been at war for your entirely life time has been personally devastating.  You have lost loved ones in the conflict.  Your dislike of Bonaparte is based on personal tragedy, rather than a pettish desire for a trip to Paris.
Assessment: 1813.  Hang in there, Lucinda.  Just a couple more years.

"Let me sing you a warm tune I learned in the Peninsula, which sounds a little like penis if you're drunk enough!"
"Oh la sir! You put me in the blush!"
Dog rug wishes he could be left at home for once.

G. Your ability to dance is dependent entirely on having a partner who commands you to maintain eye contact.  He glides expertly, with the grace of leonine panther, around Alamacks as the ton gazes on with disapproving jealousy, you suddenly discover that you move with the tender grace of a willow or a snowdrop or something that doesn't move under its own power.

Assessment: Novel written by high schoolers who were bored in class.

H. You are forced to feign interest in poorly executed music.

Assessment: You could be anywhere.

"I sat down first when the music stopped! Fair is fair, I get the dog rug as a prize!"

"Your mama told me you had an ear for music"
"She didn't mean you should attempt to lick it"
"Fido is asleep, he will not wake your duenna!"
"I wish I were as dead as Fido."
"What my dearest?"
"Nothing." 

La, sir! You caught me idly strumming my lyre and flattening my dog pelt. I know how men love a lady who is accomplished AND a skilled manager of the home!

Special credit goes to painter Vittorio Reggianini and to his dead dog, neither gone nor forgotten. RIP Fido.

Better know a Pip

Pip has ruled our kingdom with benevolent despotism for nineteen months and we feel we know him pretty well.  But how well do YOU know your overlord? Take the quiz to find out!

1. When picnicking in the back yard, Pip's favorite food/beverage is:

A) Sucking rain water out of a dish rag used to clean tables at our barbecue a month ago

B) Sucking rain water out of a sock that I took off and left in the mud, so it is sweaty, moldy and soaked

C) Sucking rain water out of a used paint roller that I set outside to dry three months ago and then never brought in.

Answer:  Trick question. I get off on being withholding and snatched each one away before he could do a comparative taste test.

2.  We watch the skies because:

A) We hope to see a plane dragging a banner on game day.

B) We're hoping to see the Geese Blue Angels do a fly past

C) We are aiming to spot a tiny plane scarcely visible to the human eye

Answer: Geese!!! When you see them, scream and point with glee!!! Planes will do when no geese are available.

3. "Brrzzz" means:

A) The sound bees make

B) The sound cars make

C) Grapes

D) That tickles

Answer.  Grapes.  He replaces g with b, doesn't really get the letter p, and s becomes z.  It's fairly simple. Also he demands them in lieu of other food items at every meal.

4. When mom reads "The Gruffalo" the fox speaks with what accent?

A) Mr. Renard parle français, bien sûr

B) A faintly eastern European patois, with a hint of Spanish influence

C) He's from Louisiana, obviously

Answer: The fox learned to speak English by listening to NPR interviews with people from the former Soviet Union.  But he has a little Zorro in there too.

5. "Eh eee!" Is a common phrase in our house.  It means:

A) I want cheese, pronto.

B) I want to be on the couch along with this very large ungainly toy.

C) I do not wish to have my diaper refreshed.

Answer: B.  Remove all the consonants from "help please!" and you have his pronunciation.  I respond to his whining by using that phrase in the hopes that he'd learn to ask for help instead of sniveling.  It has kind of worked. 

6.  When a varlet goes to get Pip out of his crib in the morning, it is customary to:

A) Have a stuffed animal peer around the door and hop about greeting him

B) Send a truck in as an advance emissary

C) Sing the good morning song which involves a number of "tra la la las" 

Answer: C.  The puppets usually aren't up for a show until after nap time.  Trucks are downstairs friends, obviously.  The song is a thing of beauty and poetry.

7.  Pip's favorite music is:

A) The songs in the public domain that his annoying battery operated toys drone endlessly.

B) Specifically, "Mary had a little lamb" which inexplicably is what his train engine produces, accompanied by cheerful train toots

C) The first cabinet meeting from the second CD of the Hamilton soundtrack, because he likes debating debt plans with Mommy.  We take turns with who has to be Jefferson.

Answer: C.  Obviously.  Hamilton is basically the only music to which my son has been consistently exposed.  Answers A and B technically fall into the category of noise, not music.  Mom knows where the off switch is.

8.  When out and about, Pip frequently removes his socks and flings them with wild abandon, never to be seen again.  The reason for this is:

A) BORN FREE!!!

B) Need to find out what the piggies have accomplished

C) Chris taught him socks are the devil.

Answer: Could be A or B.  Chris has taught him that socks are our friends because they protect us from the true evil, which are shoes.

Literary Quiz: Damon Snow and the Nocturnal Lessons

My childhood bestie Laura and I have long exchanged literary quizzes.  The premise is that you find the most absurd blurb on the back of a novel you can, then invite your reader to dissect it.  Actually reading the book is strongly discouraged.  Today's selection:

Damon Snow and the Nocturnal Lessons

Damon Snow thinks he has the world figured out. As an incubus demon and male prostitute, the world is a cruel, dark and lonely place where men only want one thing. When his long-time patron Byrne discovers he's dying, Byrne offers to leave his entire fortune to Damon. There's only one catch: Damon has to investigate and write about the reason another patron Price visits him. Easy – the same reason as all men. But what starts as an easy assignment turns into an impossible secret, the last thing Damon would ever suspect. If men only want one thing, how can one possibly fall in love?


1.  Do you think Damon's demon parents gave him that name? It seems really unoriginal, bordering on cruelty.  This is my demon son, Damon.  I bet he got teased in Imp school.  Are the Snows an old demon family, or a bunch of nouveau fiends on the make?  Expand on Damon's family background, exploring the potential impact on his life choices and the trajectory of the story. (10 points)

2. An incubus is a male-form sexual demon that preys on women in it's spare time.  How does this fit with his occupation as a male prostitute, given the contextual suggestion that his primary clients are men?  Is it really fair to say that the world is "cruel and dark" when, as a incubus demon, he's the one prowling around being shadowy and evil? Discuss the inherent paradoxes that set up the central psychological conflict of this piece. (15 points)

3.  The author asserts that men "only want one thing" but then fails to inform the audience what that might be.  What is the effect of this ambiguity? How might readers be misled? Create a list of the one thing men might plausibly want. Possibilities include: Some freaking peace and quiet for once, to finish the game without being bitten by a toddler etc. (10 points)

4.  Who is dying?  Parse the grammar. (5 points)

5. Given that Damon is a demon, suggest likely occupations for Price.  A salesman? A checker?

6.  Who is the intended audience for Damon's investigative journalism? Byrne the voyeur? People perusing the back page of Eugene Weekly to see the proclivities of local lonely weirdos? The Daily Male, the gossip rag for demonic prostitutes?  Write a sample article in Damon's signature style.  (20 points).

7.  Return to pondering question #3.  What is the one thing that is totally incompatible with also falling in love?  Pooping publicly? Very unattractive and does not promote romance.  Or does it.... happily married for seven years, yo. (10 points.)

8.  How much would you have to be paid to read this book?  Would you do it to ensure your candidate wins the presidency? What would your price be? Asking for a demon friend.

Off hiatus

Hello blogstalkers!  I haven't blogged in nearly two years, and I set the ol' spot on private.  Somehow it didn't seem to fit my life anymore.  The old blog was about grad school, a chapter of my life that has mercifully closed.  Now I'm the new me! Except increasingly I've kinda missed ye olde blog.  I have filled the void somewhat with Facebook status updates but it isn't the same.  So I'm baaaaaack.

Did you miss the first seven years my blog existed? Here's a quick recap:

• Went to grad school.  It was really hard.  Somewhat rewarding, but mostly hard.  Ambivalent feelings about that life choice.
• Married Captain Handsome.  He files my taxes in return for sexual favors.  And meals.  And companionship. And being a team.  But my I'm confident my personal magnetism plays a big role (and the fact that we file jointly anyway).
• Started teaching.  Originally found it terrifying and a miserable slog.  Now me likey.  
• I have the world's least reliable internal plumbing.  Remember that one time I blogged about pooping in the park?  "One time?" you say. "No, I don't remember one blog post on that subject. I remember you blogging about pooping in a stranger's house so you could avoid pooping in a cemetery.  I remember the time you pooped in front of a homeless woman.  I remember the time you pooped your pants in the car.  I remember the time you invited yourself into another stranger's home to have diarrhea.  I remember the time you squatted between the highway and the river.  So I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific."   Yeah.  You're going to need to prepare yourself for poop tales.  Though I don't like to brag, but I haven't lost bowel control in over two years.

What have I been up to the last two years?

• I had a baby.  Specifically, I had the King Baby.   He is not to be trifled with.
• During pregnancy, I was the puke queen.  If Captain Handsome and I every produce another darling homunculus I am going to diligently track my vomiting in the interests of statistics.  I know I just bragged about not pooping publicly recently.  Would you like to hear some of the places I vomited?  Good! The parking lot of: Winco, Safeway, Market of Choice and Café Yumm (I'm also counting places where I emptied my puke bucket from driving).  I vomited in my car, obviously.  I kept a bucket so that if the urge came while driving I would be prepared.  But I also puked into a hastily emptied kleenex box one time.  I also puked in produce bags in the grocery store, in the grocery store bathroom, in church, during a concert in which I was performing (I managed to get out of the room but still), in the sink, the trash, the toilet, on my daphne bush (several times.)  I puked seven times on Thanksgiving.  I vomited so much I was dehydrated and weak to the point that seven up actually felt deeply nourishing because it had calories.  I puked while I was in labor.  People who say they love being pregnant are either lying or in league with the devil. The grossest things to vomit are: popcorn, rice, green onions and roughage that doesn't break down quickly.  The best thing to vomit is a fruit smoothie because it looks and tastes about the same in each direction. The best thing about vomiting is nothing.  The worst thing about vomiting is when it splatters into a toilet and splashes back up into your hair.
• I'm also teaching, but I think I'll keep that on the back burner in the interests of professionalism.  I'm super duper professional.  Like, the most professional.  I wear makeup for at least the first week of every term to set the clear tone that I am professional.