Amiable?

Happiness is...curling up with my husband Friday night, with a long productive day behind us and watching Pride and Prejudice while eating homemade pizza. He liked it enough that Saturday night we stayed up until two watching all the rest of the movie. By the way, I had to look for a while to find a picture that wasn't huge Colin Firth, tiny everyone else. Not that I mind, but I liked this one better...

I've just been a fan of Jane Austen books and movies for the past two or three years. I thought they were romantic fluff for fluffy girls. This movie is won me over completely, and I've been just a tad bit obsessive in the last year, especially with Hen Day encouragement and Masterpiece Theater's excellent Austen-fest. The appeal is...well, the characters are so real and engaging. Elizabeth has a sense of humor about almost everything, Darcy is really a decent guy despite his arrogance. I love how Mr. Bennett maintains a steady laugh about all going on around him, from his silly wife to his shady son-in-law.

I've always had some difficulty accepting that the highest praise of character in Jane Austen novels is amiability. It compliments a sort of dull-witted, cow-like contentment in my mind. Of being too nice to cause any trouble. But I've been thinking about happiness a lot lately, because I think I am. Toby and I spend all day every day together, working at making corsets for Damsel In This Dress. And we're far from having nothing to talk about even though we don't have the conversations about how the day was spend at the end of it. Life is not easy or slow-paced. We've been putting in long days for the past month or two. Ivy is in that belligerent stage where amiability suddenly seems like a very desirable trait. And maybe some Regency dresses and tailcoats on the side!