One of the reasons why I try to hold my tongue in public is because I have this tendency to harp on about things that don't matter for half an hour and irritate the people around me. Since I am not a venerable silver-haired Jesuit or a very small child, people don't indulge me with this so I have learned to stop.
     Most of the time.
     I'm a loon. But I am old-fashioned in a lot of ways. Whenever I would feel overwhelmed or sad in college I would go down to the basement of the library and read La Morte D'Arthur. That's where they kept all the books, in the basement, because not that many people check out books anymore. But I would sit there and read and I would understand what people talked about when they talked about reading the Bible. It gave me deep solace. It's not that I thought, oh, this world is better, because it's not. Everyone in those stories is a bad feminist, absent fathers abound, and all those knights they killed they could have just arm-wrestled to make a point. No, I would think, I would fit better in this world. I guess the relative simplicity and the innocence appeals to me. I never imagined myself as one of those ladies of the court, demanding dragons killed for me and halls razed for me and grails sought for me and fainting all over the place. I always saw myself as Galahad's sidekick, riding out with him in chain mail, sleeping on the margins of forests at night and giving food to the homeless. We would rescue orphans and widows in their distress. We'd have a secret handshake. I would trick him into incorporating several gang symbols.
     But I have to live in this world, where there are no dragons or knights. And it's a mess because I'm trying to get back to the other one anyway, subconsciously, no matter how hard I try to be hip and trendy. This is why I care about etiquette and why I love vintage style, old movies, and old books, but also those old ideals of honor and love. I am completely unironic about this, to the bewilderment of jaded hipsters everywhere. The world may have broken my heart (as it does everyone's, in the end) but I am still longing for honor, love, and justice. I'm longing for them like they are lovers who got away.

     Oh also--that Guy Ritchie adaptation of King Arthur with (my husband) Charlie Hunnam that's coming out next year? You know I'll see it. I just don't fucking get why they're leaving out Lancelot. He's ninety five percent of Arthur's problem. Without him there is no story! Everyone can go home! But when a movie gives you Charlie Hunnam in his rough-trade swashbuckling prime, you say thank you and God bless America.