I made this!

This is what I do in grad school.

I'm actually not angry this time...also not really funny...

I've started reading Watership Down. No, I don't particularly like rabbits, and, yes, I am over the age of eleven. I picked it up in an effort to fix a bit of a problem I've been having: I cannot stop referencing this book.

For years now, every time I've seen anything featuring, or even resembling, rabbits, I have had the horrible compulsion to blurt out, "Ohmygod Ohmygod -- it's totally like Watership Down you guys!" The numerous occasions that communists, furry bands of animals, or some combination of the two, have made it into conversations with friends (you'd be surprised at how often this happens...or would you?), I HAD to bring up Hazel, Fiver and the gang. It's gotten so bad that, though this hasn't happened yet, I can assure you if I saw a ship on the water go down somewhere, I would certainly attempt a pun on everyone's favorite rabbit-based novel.

The weird part (aside from, you know, all those other parts I just talked about): I haven't even seen the book since I was about nine years old.

Watership Down is, in fact, just one in a long line of classic, beloved works of fiction that I recklessly, wantonly and probably erroneously bring up in my daily conversations.

The boss leaves our relatively youthful office alone for the day? Suddenly I'm making cracks about Lord of the Flies. I rushed through that one once, in a blind dash of terror, sometime around the 8th grade.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas I have a bit more context for because I'm creepy and I've actually read the book (and seen the movie) recently, but that doesn't make it any less weird when I start growling about a trunk full of mescaline and a massive bat-fight in the desert.

Why have I let myself become this person? I think it's partly human nature - we like joining in the cultural conversation, embedding our lives into the bigger picture by picking up on things that are popular and connecting them to our own lives.

People reference stupid movies all the time. Because I enjoy getting beat up by common grade school thugs, I'm doing the same thing -- just with books. When you stand on a railing and scream, "I'm king of the world!" (or, more likely, unless you were a 14 year old girl when Titanic came out and you saw it 9 times in the theatre, some ridiculous bastardization like, "I'm on top of the world!" "I'm the king!" or "Fuck yeah!"), it's like me trying to sneak a Hemingway mention into conversation any time there's excessive drinking and manliness going on. You know what I'm going for, even if it's not dead-on.

If a book really is a cultural icon (and I hope to god that's still a possibility), is referencing one really that much lamer than quoting Anchorman for the billionth time? Sure, Gatsby may not be as endlessly amusing, but I'm betting he has many leather-bound books, and his home smells of rich mahogany.

Why I didn't major in history

There are a lot of reasons why I didn't major in history, and many of them have to do with personal preference: After living in Colonial Williamsburg for 4 years, I decided that colonists, even with their wacky butter churning parties and ale-soaked taverns, were boring. I dislike dealing with numbers of more than two digits, which makes it hard to keep track of important years. I despise the study of government, which always seems to be latching on to history's coattails, and I find the idea of competing in a class with Nora Wolf terrifying.

However much I would like to pretend, though, that I would have done excellently in a history class had I deigned to take one, my recent adventures with a certain historical mini-series have shown the situation to be otherwise.

Things I've learned from the 7-part John Adams TV movie (which, yes, I have been watching on DVD. Alone. All weekend):

1) Paul Giamatti (in the role of John Adams) has a finely-shaped skull.

The man repeatedly removes his wig, and, astute history-movie-scholar that I am, I sit up and take notice. I count this one as an important take-away lesson only because Mr. Giamatti is normally not cited for his looks.

2) Thomas Jefferson definitely went to William and Mary.

According to the great truth-disseminator that is HBO, Thomas Jefferson was painfully awkward, bookish and anti-social. When dragged into conversation with the more verbose Adams, he often directs his comments to the ground rather than to poor Mr. Giamatti. That one of my alma mater's most famous grads would act in such a way was less a history lesson than vindication; William and Mary students have not changed much (for reference, see my previous post, on my inability to interact with strangers). Still, it's one of the few things that, half an hour post-viewing, I can remember, and so I count it as a sign of my great historian-type abilities.

3) South Carolina is a douchebag.

While I have no idea who this Mr. South Carolina delegate is supposed to be, I do know that he is one of John Adams' main frenemies in the Congress, and that HBO has decided he is the "bad guy" (denoted by inordinate amounts of yelling, bitchy eyebrow raising, and a smugness that could only be surpassed by that of a true a Mean Girl).

That's it.

I can't tell you the names of any of the important meetings Mr. Adams attended (and believe me, there were a lot). I have no idea if the man attending the meetings alongside him is the famed brewer Sam Adams (though I like to believe that it is, and drink accordingly during my viewings). It baffles me why New York (the delegate, not the state nor the reality TV star) is so fat and belligerent. When I IMDB'd the show, I was astounded to see that Adams' daughter's name is supposed to be "Nabby." Really? Nabby? -- I hope she lives through episode 2 and goes through a revolution of her own, involving piercings, tattoos and a chain-smoking boyfriend.

Had I any brains for history, I might have picked up some actual facts from this, by all accounts, mostly-accurate depiction of our country's birth. I would have gotten a true picture of all the tensions, motivations, struggles and dramas of the real people of the time.

Instead, I formed snap judgments about their character flaws and pitted them against each other in imaginary dramas (SC and Regina George V. John and Nabby Adams, cage fight/bitch fight extravaganza. If this were on HBO I might actually pay for it.).

And that's why, barred from the hallowed and stately halls of history by my own inadequacies and perversions, I slunk off to the English department to receive a degree in something I was good at: nonsense.