cold, distant, first explored by scandinavian sailors...remind you of anyone?

Today I read approximately 80% of a book called 'Sex in Georgian England'. It's v. amusing, mostly because the author (who holds a doctorate from Cambridge) writes about sex with the same dry, dull sobriety that I've seen in traditional college textbooks. It's one thing to fall asleep reading about Russian intellectuals or second-order desires or thousand-page bios of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It's another thing to fall asleep from boredom while reading an analysis of 18th-century artistic portrayals of women's nipples.

However, since I'm a good little researcher, I persevered. There were some good pieces of information, such as the number of murderers prosecuted in England and Wales from 1805-1818, the average number of divorces per year (ranging from 3 to 4.3 per year, due to the fact that divorce in England required an Act of Parliament), the going rate for streetwalkers, and an amusing anecdote of a man in Edinburgh in 1760 who accidentally set his wife's pubic hair on fire with a candle while shockingly attempting to see her private parts. Ah, the good old days. I don't think I'll be reading the book again anytime soon, but it was worth the purchase.

In other news, I demonstrated exceptional self-sacrifice and went to a secret society meeting tonight, when I really just wanted to sit at home and watch 'Big Brother'. After the meeting, when we were eating cake, it was clear that several other women had wanted to do the same thing, since the conversation turned to how stupid everyone in the Big Brother house is, and how much we all wish that Ozzy hadn't been ejected from 'Survivor' last week. But, I suppose I'll recover from the disappointment.

The only other thing worth reporting (sort of) is that I washed my car this afternoon. I was about ten minutes away from the car wash when a bird shat all over my car. I thought it was just the windshield (which I was able to use the wipers on), but when I got home, there was shit all over the hood of my car as well. I've never seen that much bird shit from a single bird -- it must have been a buzzard, or perhaps an emu that had been selectively bred to enable flight. But I suppose I should be grateful -- my sunroof was open, so another foot farther back and it would have been in my passenger seat. Ugh.

Okay, that's all you get tonight -- it's time for bed!