Stranger Than Fiction
My head has been exploding all week because I’m in that part of the book where I stop futzing around with plot and dialogue and try to make the whole thing work, try to understand the characters who’ve shown up, make sure their actions and their emotions are true and not something left over from an early draft when I was just trying to get them on the page. It’s the time when I panic, every time, because it’s the make-it-or-break-it part of the book, and sometimes I don’t make it. If I’m collaborating, the book gets done anyway, but my characters don’t quite breathe the way I want them to. So Panic Time.
Since Panic Time tends to freeze me in place because I don’t want to go over the edge, I do other things, calming things. Like crochet. And this week, videos. I’d been putting off Stranger Than Fiction for quite awhile but last night it seemed like a good movie for me: I knew there was a scene where Emma Thompson, who plays a novelist, stands on the edge of a building, ready to jump. Perfect.
Warning: There are spoilers in here, BIG ones. Don’t read on if you haven’t seen the movie because the movie is very good and should not be spoiled, and I’m going to talk about the end.
The protagonist of Stranger Than Fiction isn’t Karen Eiffel, Thompson’s character, it’s Harold Crick, who is the protagonist in Karen’s novel who is also real and who suddenly begins to hear her narration in his head. Since Karen writes in third person omnicsicent, Harold doesn’t have much say in his life, he pretty much does whatever she types. That’s disconcerting enough but then he hears her say, in the fine old tradition of the omniscient writer, “Little did he know . . .” and finds out he’s going to die. Harold sets out frantically to find his narrator before she keystrokes him out of his life, and along the way, just as you knew he would, he finds his life. It’s a film that’s amiable to the point of being slow, but everybody does such good work in it that you stick around to watch the actors and appreciate the visuals even if, like Harold, you check your watch now and then.
The slower pace gave me a lot of time to wander around in this movie, and it’s a good movie to wander in visually. I loved the sets here. The IRS offices where Harold works are the neutral cubicles you’d expect, with backlit file rooms that are nicely ominous and 2001, but the fun stuff was in the characters’ homes. Harold lives in a beige apartment, no surprise, but his best friend lives in a great Jetson-retro space that not only fits his sweetly nerdy personality but celebrates it. Harold’s love interest, the gypsy-like Ana, lives in a riot of color and Grandma-retro: crocheted rose-afghans, overstuffed furniture, and bright thirties colors, all jumbled together, the exact antithesis of Harold’s apartment. The one set that threw me as Way Too Symbolic was Karen’s apartment which was evidently designed by Frigidaire, minimalist to the point of emptiness, which works beautifully as a metaphor for writer’s block, but which told me nothing about her as a character since she was clearly not a minimalist person, so it was one place where the metaphor stepped on the character.
The other visual that caught me was the GUI (Graphic User Interface) that was salted throughout the movie, showing in images on the screen how Harold processed the world, counting and estimating things, seeing maps in his head, the visual equivalent of omniscient POV. In a less stylized movie, it would have been distracting, but this is a fantasy, a movie about ideas more than people (although the people are charming) and it fit the cleverness of the concept and made me want to do more of that in my own work. With every book, I get more visually involved–in D&G we’re experimenting with type to see what that does visually for the story on the page–and the pleasures and pitfalls of that approach are clear here: the GUI is delightfully inventive and it tells you a lot about Harold, but it tells, it doesn’t let the actor/character show you through actions. In other words, it’s great for third person omniscient, possibly not so good for third limited, since any futzing with GUI or type says, “Hey, there’s an AUTHOR here, look at this.” The key is to integrate it so completely into the story that the reader/viewer just feels it’s part of that world and doesn’t notice it as an authorial hand, pointing the way.
None of that was a problem in Stranger Than Fiction because it’s so blatantly metaphorical all the way through. When Harold tries refusing to change by never leaving his apartment, a wrecking crew puts a crane into his window and scoops out the living room. In a different movie, this would have been anvilicious, but this entire movie is anvilicious so it works. Harold’s watch as a symbol of both time-as-a-prison and time-as-a-savior isn’t hinted at, the narrator flat out tells you. Ana the Baker’s attempts to explain to Harold that she doesn’t want her tax shortage fixed, that her refusal to pay was a statement/symbol/metaphor, emphasizes Harold’s inability to see the meaning in the metaphors that the movie pelts him with. Even Harold’s best friend’s earnest statement that of course adults can go to Space Camp telegraphs that Harold must believe in Space Camp or be lost to the numbers and Karen’s homicidal typing.
All of this makes for a movie with a very shiny surface that is opaque until the last few minutes; you watch Harold and you sympathize with him but you don’t engage until he goes knowingly to his death. By then the GUI has disappeared because Harold’s living his life, and you see him winding up his affairs, taking care of the people he loves, and you think, “But he can’t die, I like him.” The lit professor Harold goes to for help reads the book and tells Harold that he must die because the book is brilliant, and if he doesn’t die, it will be ruined: Harold must die for Art. Harold reads the book and agrees. And it’s here that the movie turns in upon itself and becomes an even more complex metaphor because Karen stops before she types the last two letters of “dead” and changes the ending from her longhand draft, and Harold lives. It makes the book only “okay” instead of “brilliant,” and it trivializes everything that’s gone before by giving Harold and everyone else in the story a happy ending; if Harold had died for Art, this would have been a tragic little film about how we’re all really pawns in the hands of a great Author and can only try to live our lives to the fullest before the Author types “The End.” Or something like that.
But instead, like Karen, Stranger Than Fiction chooses “okay” with a happy ending instead of “great” with a tragic ending and becomes a big, popular movie that people can enjoy without wanting to cut their throats at the end. It’s not Incisive and Illuminating–that Carpe Diem thing has been around for awhile–nor is it a commentary on the sterility of modern life or our need to break free of the numbers that rule our lives or . . . It’s just this movie about a man discovering that his life has been smothered and trying to do the right thing with his limited imagination and his unlimited sweetness. Ultimately, I think that’s what this movie is: sardonically sweet. It tries to do the right thing within a framework that clearly screams “film-of-ideas” almost stopping its own pulse with aren’t-we-clever writing only to ultimately reject cleverness for heart. The movie makes the same journey that Harold does, and I think that’s brilliant.
I was happy at the end and intrigued by the ideas beneath the Ideas and inspired by the visuals, so I definitely recommend Stranger Than Fiction, but it still remains for me a movie of ideas, not a movie about people. It couldn’t be, no matter how brilliant the actors are at inhabiting this world, because this film has too much it wants to tell you. It’s the curse and blessing of the omniscient narrator: you never get out of the Author’s grasp. So in the end, this is a movie I’ll probably watch again to see exactly how the foreshadowing and the structure worked–which is pretty much standard for me with any story I enjoyed whether it’s film, novel, TV series, graphic novel–and I’ll go back to Stranger Than Fiction in particular because I want to see how the GUI works again, but I won’t go back for the characters or the story, as pleasant as they are. I got the Idea, so I don’t need to.
But it’s a great Idea and well worth a viewing.
Now I’ve got to make a trip to Borders and find it.
Curse you. Now I can hear Emma Thompson’s voice narrating my life (she thought as she typed.)
I think it’s interesting that you responded to all the visuals in the movie but what stuck with me is the weird sort of modern-y music with the sound of the typewriter keys and Emma Thompson’s voice narrating over the top of it.
And don’t you want to make chocolate chip cookies now so that you can eat them warm with milk?
You know, I heard the music because it was so inventive, mixed in with old stuff, but the typewriter keys didn’t really register, and if the narration went on too long, I shut it out. I had to replay the end three times because I kept ignoring it and that was clearly where the Message was coming in. I just got lost in all the happy ending visuals. I loved Thompson’s voice but if it went on too long, it just evaporated for me.
Of course, I also can’t listen to audio books because my mind wanders, so take that into consideration.
ANVILICIOUS???????????????????????????
I really enjoyed the movie when I watched it, and thought Ferrell really showed his stripes in that movie, but it was fun reading all the things you just pulled out of the movie for me. Some of it I got, and some if it I just did a head slap.
I enjoyed your take on this movie, esp. your thoughts about the ending. I wasn’t sure what I felt about that part when I saw it. Have you seen “Science of Sleep”? I thought it was amazing, esp the visuals and imagery of the character’s imagination.
I wonder if it’s only authors who think the ending is a cop-out? I’m a reader, and my thoughts about the ending can be summed up as, “Killing imaginary people is literature. Killing flesh-and-blood people is homicide.”
(I discussed this some in this post. “papersky” is novelist Jo Walton.)
You know I’m a sap for happy endings. I would have yelled, “You bloody killed him you bastards.” And would have felt I wasted my time. But those are my expectations from books and in movies. You can write the happy ending you can’t always get in life.
And I love it when you get all scholar-y(is that even a word)it makes me think. The only connection I made in the movie was the Death and Taxes bit (the two things in life you cannot avoid.)
Either way I loved this movie and was surprised at Ferell’s performance.
I recall I had written a slightly different ending in my head and was surprised with how they finished it. Still, I did enjoy it and found it rumbled around in my thoughts for a few days afterward. Now I want to revisit it after reading your post. Thanks.
I loved that movie. Great article, Jenny.
Anvilicious is another Lani-ism for beating the reader over the head with obvious metaphors and meanings. I believe it comes from Wile E. Coyote. Most great literary terms do.
this sounded like a thesis paper. I do commend you on liking to write long analytical pieces.
I loved Stranger Than Fiction. Not many people I know who saw it did. I just love how Harold gets a life. His life was so vacant and my heart ached for him. Maggie Gylenhall(sp?) was amazing. I’m with Julie B. I must watch movies in a complete vaccuum - I like them or I don’t. I doubt I could analyse them so thoroughly.
My fav scene is where Ana made him the cookies and she’s trying to feed them to him and he keeps telling her he doesn’t want them but he eats them anyway while she’s telling him why she became a baker and what’s so great about cookies, seducing him with her words and her food and its raining outside and the sexual tension in that scene is amazing!!!
I totally agree with DownUnderGal about loving the characters , I think that this movie is sheer greatness character wise, but I really liked reading your analysis of the movie Jenny, you made some awsome points.
I’ll admit I cried at the part where Howard brings Ana ‘flowers’, so obviously I was completely won over by Howard from then on, and am extremly biased because I think that I would propose marriage to any man who was that considerate on my behalf.
Lastly, I cannot allow the overlooking of Dustin Hoffman’s character to go on any longer. I think that Hoffman did an amazing job as Hilbert. After this film I can only hope to have a prof half as cool as Professor Jules Hilbert as I face University.
What a huge coincidence. I just saw the movie, for the first time, two days ago; and I enjoyed it immensely. I liked it so much it made me think of writing a formal review too (even if I have no blog). But then I thought to myself, “Nah. Too much work.” But learning that you just saw it yourself, Jenny, and reading your review made me smile. I was nodding while reading through the post. Thanks, Jenny!
P.S. I am a lurker but love your books and blog!
You know (well, you don’t, and I hate it when people say that to me…), I have a BA in Theatre, and to get it, I had to analyze any number of scripts, stories, etc. But the process didn’t stick. I hardly ever analyze books or movies, and for an author-wannabe, that is probably a bit shallow.
Thanks, Professor Crusie. You’ve made me question my own literary habits yet again. I need a kick in the pants every now and then.
“a movie of ideas, not a movie about people”
I liked the ideas, but it fell over for me because of the book. It didn’t sound like a very interesting book. I didn’t think anything of the author’s writing style. Can’t understand why a teacher would venerate her writing. So the film didn’t work for me because of that one thing.
Thanks for being so articulate in your breakdown of it. I was on the fence about whether to see it or not; now I definitely want to watch it on DVD, but I’m glad to have those warnings ahead of time.
I just had to gut a whole section of my novel in revision because it wasn’t working. I was trying to see it through, and it wasn’t, so I hit the point where I cut my losses and now I’m back on track. It felt good once I was through the icky part and it started making sense again.
And I had to change a conflict in generation making it closer rather than farther to keep the emotional impact I wanted.
Now I’m tired, but I feel like I can see it through.
Happy writing!
And now, Jenny, I find myself wondering if, after watching that movie, you found yourself dreaming about your own characters coming to life. Of course most of them get HEA so they wouldn’t have too much to complain about.
I loved your take on the movie. Another one that plays in similar ways with perspective and omniscience is Fight Club. Perfectly cast and played. Except for Queen Latifah. And I usually like her a lot.
Thanks for clarifying anvilicious. I use them to pound things against; force, meet unmovable object.
What strikes me most about Ms. Crusie’s fascinating analysis of this film is the underlying assumption that the omniscient narrator is generally a Bad Thing. I just want to raise the point that some readers (maybe only really old ones like me?) like to be conscious of the author’s presence. A fictional story, to me, is not an independent entity, an alternative reality into which the reader enters: it is a story told by a storyteller. I like to be aware of the storyteller. I am often frustrated by the deliberate avoidance of overt authorial presence in contemporary fiction. I love those ‘little does he know…’ asides, the reader being taken into the author’s confidence, and knowing something the characters don’t know.
Nope, there is no underlying assumption that omnsicient is bad. See this:
“It’s the curse and blessing of the omniscient narrator: you never get out of the Author’s grasp.”
Omniscient, like every other POV, had pros and cons. I love omniscient done well, the way it’s done here, or in Pratchett or Tolkien or Austen or pretty much any fairy tale or myth. What I’m interested in isn’t Bad or Good, it’s How It Works.
I just thought that ‘the Author’s grasp’ sounded a bit negative… I can just see the Author, holding the hapless reader firmly by the scruff of the neck, and occasionally shaking her sharply if she doesn’t react as she should.
But I am glad to hear what you say, and sorry that I read something into your words than you had not intended. I do have the impression that both first-person and third-omniscient points of view are rather actively discouraged by publishers/editors these days, and I think that is a pity. Certainly they all have their distinctive pros and cons, but it would be a shame if the limited 3-person position were to become so standard that no new writer ever dared to attempt anything else.
I just re-read the post and have to say again how much I enjoyed it. BUT don’t panic about your writing. This is the part where you have to trust your subconscious because the story is in there. Tonight, ask your heart specific questions about any part of the work that concerns you. You’ll have the answer before Friday.
That’s the thing about omniscient: there’s a clear Author in control of the narrative, so it’s much harder to participate in shaping the story as you read it. The good news is, you just sit back and take the ride. If the author’s voice is great–say Practchett or Wodehouse or Austen–then you want to be in the Author’s grasp, giving him or her total control of the story.
I think publisher preference depends a lot on genre. Romance has traditionally been third limited, although there have been very fine first person romances, too. Fantasy is often omniscient.
McB, I did wonder what my characters would say. I think the ones in the earlier books might have more to complain about. I really do try to give everybody a fair voice in the later work, try to show their side of it . . . even if they’re homicidal loons. It’s part of that love all your characters things.
As for the WIP, it’s always darkest before the last draft. Argh.
Omniscient to me is a lot like letting someone else plan your vacation. When you are in really good hands it’s one treat after another. In the wrong hands, you try to remember that it’s the thought that counts and there’s always next year.
Best romantic/thoughtful scene was when Harold says “I brought you flours.” Loved it.
Movie was fun too. A little slow in spots, but that was ok.
‘Omniscient to me is a lot like letting someone else plan your vacation’.
Interesting way of seeing it. But the author is both omniscient and omnipresent, whether the reader is aware of her presence or not. The 3rd-person limited POV is merely a conscious device in which the author is deliberately standing ‘out of our sightline’ as we read.
In withholding information that would not be known to a given character whose point of view is being presented at a given moment, the author is pulling the strings to no less a degree than she does if addressing the reader directly in an aside. I don’t see how one can read any work of fiction without being conscious of the author’s presence - nor, surely, would one wish to do so. The characters are inventions: the author, even if long dead, is another real person, and we make contact with his or her mind as we read.
” I don’t see how one can read any work of fiction without being conscious of the author’s presence …”
The best fiction draws me in to the point where I stop being aware that I’m even reading. The author’s voice disappears and my mind’s eye is seeing events unfold as if I was observing. I once missed a subway stop because I was afraid I would miss something if I closed the book before the scene finished.
Yes, I realise that there are people who are drawn right into a story in that way, perceiving it as though it were reality, so I should not have made that flat statement in the way I did. Mea culpa. I am not drawn in in that kind of way - ever. But this does not compromise my enjoyment of fiction in the least.
This is actually an important issue for both readers and writers: we do not all experience reading in the same way, and this is one of the many reasons why books that some people love leave others unmoved. That’s fine; we are all different, and that’s as it should be, but these differences do mean that some of the ex cathedra statements we are all inclined to make, just as I did in the blunt sentence of mine that you quoted, need to be examined and modified. I should have said that I, and other people like me (since it is highly unlikely that I am unique in this respect), can never read a story without being conscious of the author’s presence. In the same way, I can never watch a film or a stage play without being aware that the people in front of me are actors, and in the case of a film, that I am sharing the viewpoint of the cameraman. I ’see’ the invisible camera with one part of my mind just as I see the action. This is probably why I do not get upset by ‘horror’ scenes in fictional films. I sure as hell get upset by them in newsreels, because that is real life.
“we do not all experience reading in the same way, and this is one of the many reasons why books that some people love leave others unmoved.”
Very true. Every book is not for every reader. And I know that not everyone experiences books the same way I do.
From a writer’s standpoint, though, there are very real differences. When I write third person, I’m really careful to leave white spaces for the reader to move into and write her half of the story. I don’t describe the characters in detail, I don’t make all the connections between what is said and what is meant, so the reader in a very concrete way becomes a collaborator.
The very best omnsicient, I think, takes all the white space away–a drawback–but paints a much more complete picture–a benefit–so that the scope of the story can be much larger. Epic even. My fave omnsicient on film is Pushing Daisies. Every aspect of that is controlled by the author/designer/director. They demand that you go into their world and just receive the story as told, but the telling is so brilliant you understand why they want control.
Speaking of “Pushing Daisies,” did you watch the two deleted scenes? They’re both extended versions of the author interviews that Prof. Hilbert has on his TV-and the marvelous Kristin Chenoweth is the interviewer. The extra talking about the g.u.i. is also very interesting. The g.u.i. felt very natural to me-strangely organic, and it dovetailed nicely with the wristwatch as a character.
I adore this movie-in much the same way I adore “Pushing Daisies,” now that you mention it. Can’t wait to read the new book. Hurry up, already.
Yes, I understand perfectly that the writing process has to be different according to the point of view taken. But this is moving towards a discussion of how to write different points of view well or badly, which was not my point at all. Most of the readers who dislike first-person POV on principle feel that way because they have read only poor examples of the technique, but if we are going to compare the conventions of varying techniques in writing fiction, we must compare a similar standard of achievement in all of them.
My point is simply that for some readers, the apparently misty and self-effacing position of the author is merely a challenge that may make us every bit as acutely aware of the author’s presence as any ‘dear reader!’ interjection. If we can’t see the author, we go looking for her.
I have worked out some of the reasons why I experience reading in the way I do: it is connected both with the generation to which I belong and the fiction I read as a child, and with the traditional, pre-feminist rules of academic writing, in which the writer’s aim was to be utterly invisible, writing as though objectively reporting observed fact (lots of use of the passive), while the critical reader’s aim was always to shine the spotlight on him, to winkle out the personal attitudes that had shaped his opinions, and to show up the ‘objective’ statements as being subjective and personal.
In academic discourse today, it is perfectly acceptable for the author to write, ‘in my view, Haverfield’s approach fits the evidence better than Collingwood’s’: up to the 1960s, that would have had to read, ‘it would appear that Haverfield’s approach fits the evidence better than Collingwood’s’; ‘I’ and ‘me’ and ‘my’ were forbidden words. So I am in the habit of reading as a process of communication between me, the reader, and the author. I don’t care if the author is hiding behind a screen; I don’t care if I am apparently being asked to ‘help shape’ the story (after all, I am going to bring my own experience to bear on that story, whether invited to do so or not). The author is the creator, and I am viewing the product of her imagination, through the filter of my own experience and imagination. That remains true whatever POV is used, and whatever techniques the author uses to disguise herself. Good heavens, her very style and voice are going to announce her presence, loud and clear, if nothing else does!
The issue of how well the author presents her story within the conventions she has selected is another matter altogether.
Sorry this is so long. It could have been longer.
anvilicious
is that a real word?
geez. Must have gotten some literary degree or something.
I’m going to have to agree with Talpianna’s comment of “ANVILICIOUS???????????????????????????”
I looked it up in my Dictionary widget. It could not be found.
And I definitely did not watch the movie closely enough or recently enough to think about your analysis, but I remember I liked the movie, so it works for me. =)
The Tigress and I have had many “frank exchanges of opinion,” as the diplomats put it, about this and similar subjects. Someday there should be a really analytical study of different ways of experiencing texts. Our latest argument was over alternate-reality fantasy; most of us couldn’t understand why she finds it actually OFFENSIVE, above and beyond her basic dislike of fantasy. And there is the difference between readers (and writers) with strong visual imaginations, like her, and those with poor ones, like me. (She has a hard time getting puns; I miss clever tricks of description, like the farmhouse in COLD COMFORT FARM.) There is also the fact that a work of fiction for her is like a framed picture on the wall, complete in itself, while many of us think of it as one square of a quilt–hence the desire for sequels and prequels.
Another thing that occurs to me is how often you make your points by referring to films rather than books, and your use of collages, both of which are pretty much lost on me. Dunno how the Tigress feels about it, but she’s not a film buff.
‘Dunno how the Tigress feels about it, but she’s not a film buff.’
I respond to visual references instinctively, considering that I think almost entirely in pictures - as long as I am familiar with the reference. If a passing reference in a novel is made to, say, Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’herbe, or the Pantheon in Rome I see that image immediately, and therefore ‘get’ the connection that the author is subtly suggesting. If the reference is to a film… shrug. It’ll normally whoosh right past me. Which brings us to the other question of culture-specific references, but I suppose this is not the place.
Somehow this was more fascinating than usual, which considering the usual fascinating-ness (ahem, definitely not in dictionary) of the discussion here is pretty amazing.
I really really enjoyed the description of the film which I am unlikely to ever watch. I “see” the point of the visual metaphors as described by Jenny and would never have seen them in the film. Probably I wouldn’t see them if I had the film here and went and put it into the dvd-player and watched it right now. But I get it when it’s in words. And I seldom if ever think about the author when I’m reading. I guess that puts me in the Talpianna side of the discussion. I don’t get collages. I don’t think I ever noticed which person knew what in a book before reading a Jenny (or perhaps Bob) bit about something-person-omniscient. And I even knew what omniscient meant
Because I’ve read a lot now from Jenny and Bob (and Laura and Eric and …) about how things are done, I’m more likely to notice how things are done than I used to be. But I remain an uncritical (in the lit crit sense) reader — I am a critic in terms of I do like some books more than others.
Once upon a time, in a far away life, I took a ’speech’ course at work on effective communication. One of the things I learned in it was about how to make sure when trying to convey a message that I put in something for each “type” of learner (visual, aural, kinetic). That’s when I figured out I’m the type that learns by doing and I give it away when I say “I feel …” Aural and visual learners give different clues and cues.
Isn’t it interesting that all of us, who perceive and learn and think and enjoy so differently, can gain so much from the work itself (the story) and do it in ways that may or may not have been the reason/purpose/goal of the creative act itself or its creator?
More books, more points of view, more “good” stories. I’m ready. Bring ‘em on. I am ready to be anvilled.
‘Our latest argument was over alternate-reality fantasy..’
Not least about the jarring use of ‘alternate’ rather than ‘alternative’ in that now-standard term. However, the genre generally lives down to its name, as far as I am concerned…
WHERE are you guys discussing this? Frankly, it sounds fascinating.
“Another thing that occurs to me is how often you make your points by referring to films rather than books, and your use of collages, both of which are pretty much lost on me.”
I use films because it’s easier to find a lot of people who have seen a film as opposed to a lot of people who have read a book. Even in a place like this where a lot of us have shared faves, I can’t assume that everyone knows Carrot’s real identity or why Mary shot the Marquis. Even giving those examples shuts people out.
But I think you’re on to something with the collages. I’m really going a lot more visual in my writing process. Lani and Krissie are coming next week and we’re goig to make a model of the coffee shop in D&G so we can see where everything goes. I’m such a geek, I’m looking forward to it. Maybe we’ll do the temple, too. With the bas reliefs and . . .
Glee, I knew that about the different kinds of learners from my ed courses, but I’d forgetten it. Applying it to readers . . . . Hmmmmm.
Shoshanna, I haven’t the faintest idea where Tai and Ag hang out, but I’m sure the tea is hot and the discussion is lively.
Shoshana, we mostly do it on Yahoo! IM, but I’ve saved some of the stuff and plan to use it in my blog when I bring it back to life. (Real Soon Now) We’ve also had a good deal of it in e-mails and on the dictionary.com.forum on Delphiforums, but it was a bit of a digression there. That forum and Teach Me Tonight are where we mostly hang out together online at present.
When we chat, it’s usually afternoon here in Arizona and late night in London. Her beverage of choice tends to be alcoholic, and she sneers at my choice of chai lattes. Only the real thing will do for a British Tigress!
Honestly, you make me sound like an alcoholic, Tal! Quite often I am drinking something like green tea with lemon.
Yeah, sure, and chocolate bikkies spring out and attack you when you enter the kitchen for something healthful to snack on. And I am the Staten Island Fairy!