jane austen, unfortunate pants, and more pop culture references than an episode of gilmore girls.

On this day in 1817, Jane Austen died.

Now, I love me some Jane Austen, but that woman has screwed up my life.  Granted all the romantic comedies and other chick lit books I own haven’t helped.  But without Jane Austen, I don’t think that the movies and books would be the same.

So I learned some things last night: 1) My Blackberry can withstand my clumsiness, even when I (soberly) spill beer on it, 2) Some boys are absolute morons, and a few wear really unfortunate pants, and 3) I put WAY too much stock in coincidences.

You can best bet that number 3 is the important lesson from last night and is the poor way in which I’m connecting this blog.

Just because someone shows up unexpectedly in entirely unexpected places (like my front door) does not mean anything.  People have to have a job, right?

Rereading that, I realize it sounds like I ordered a hooker.  Meh, I’m too lazy to explain.  Think what you will.

But, because I’ve polluted my brain with stories of Darcy and early 90s Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movies and Mr. Rochester and Michael Moscovitz and, hell, the character of Riley that I made up for my debut novel, available now on Amazon (What? You’re surprised that I’m trying to make a sale at a time like this?), I have this high hope for moments on top of the Empire State Building or finding out that the guy made a robotic arm to prove his worth or would fight a passionate (read: crazy) singing man who lives in the river beneath an opera house for me.

I mean, I know there’s a better chance of monkeys flying out of my butt than any of those things happening (especially the “Phantom of the Opera” scenario, but my God, how cool would that be?), but still, a girl can’t help but want to live out a fairy tale at least a little bit at some point in her life.

So, maybe Jane Austen fucked up my life a little bit.  But I would never give up the story of Elizabeth and Darcy or Emma and Mr. Knightley for perfectly normal aspirations.   Besides, if we didn’t have Emma, we wouldn’t have Clueless, which means that the bulk of the world would never have been introduced to Paul Rudd.

And that, my friends, would be a true tragedy.