Duchess

so staying true to writing every day...we'll see how I do over the weekend.

So last nights movie that I stayed up too late watching, was The Duchess with Keira Knightley.

This experience was two fold for me:

1. Unlike my mother who hates "costume dramas" I love them. I get so into them that I want to live in them and be one of the women. This movie for me proved no different. It was an interesting film. I like Keira-I usually do. Bend it like Beckham was a good one and she was clearly somebody even though at the time she was nobody. I don't love how rail thin she is, but that is another topic altogether... Sticking to point: I obsess over costume dramas. I become completely fascinated by the clothes and start to imagine myself as a Queen, Princess, or in this case a Duchess. Lets be real here: clearly the Baroque era was for me. wearing some elaborate outfit with a white or, even better!- pink hair do taller then most buildings and adorned with feathers and jewels is seriously a dream come true!

Don't even get me started on the hoop skirt dresses and pointy shoes! This brings out my deep inner 15 year old Goth girl self to an extreme.

Not to mention the titles of these women with 4 or 5 names and the "her grace" in front of that. Oh My God! I would have some really fabulous name like: "Her Grace: Black Dahlia velvet feather of Van Nuys Chrystal Cathedral" and in I would traipse in all my wigged out glory. Oh Goodness, sigh... how the heart sores just dreaming of such things....

2. The second part of my love and fascination of movies such as these, would be more the inner bookworn-nerd side of me. The moment the movie is over and the credits are rolling I am immediately immersed in every website available about the historical facts of said heroine. I want facts and I want figures. I want names and dates. I want to know what is real and what is just dramatic writing. I want explained how old she was when she died, how many kids she had, who her relatives were, and who her children's children were. I want to know where I can find the letters that they wrote to each other, I want to know every detail possible! I spent the next hour of my evening researching these things. This story was particularly fun because of its odd relationship between the Duchess and the Duke and this third woman; Elizabeth Hervey Foster- who appears to have been the live in mistress of the Duke, and the Duchess best friend? It seems unclear weather this was a menage a trois or a hellish purgatory for the Duchess.I obsess over the details. I love weird relationships between people of power and authority. It absolutely fascinates me. Royalty is always interesting to learn about. Their bizarre behaviors and lavish lifestyles. I can sit for hours just thinking about this stuff.

...anyway that's where I'm at....I leave you with a visual list of Duchess portraits to ponder over..