Voice Mail Archives

So I was sitting in my local coffeeshop today, scrolling through the Facebook and the Tumblr and trying to arse myself to write the next chapter in This Thing I'm Writing.

When you live in your home town, you learn that some days are just more dangerous than others.

At the beginning of October, my friend Susan Scott invited me to join her on one of her frequent trips to Colonial Williamsburg. Always game for an unscheduled frolic through the past, I naturally agreed.

I pretty much always go on vacation in October. Which makes sense really, since Fall is my favorite season, and I tend to travel to places that do Fall extraordinarily well.

We ended our vacation by spending one long, glorious day and most of an enchanted evening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Curling up with some friends I met today in Tarrytown.

I'm a cheap date, let's face it. Gardens, great houses, and museums can pretty much keep me happy for days. Throw in a few historical sites and some old train tracks, and I'm the happiest little tourist you ever did see.

I'm off tomorrow for a long, uninterrupted week of meandering aimlessly around the Hudson River Valley on my annual Autumnal vacation.

When I was a kid, I used to play some epic games in the bathtub. You did too, don't try to deny it.

All those silly little storytelling games you made up while the water slowly cooled?

One game I remember playing in particular was the one in which I was a daredevil spy for the British Crown, and my codename was Lady Ada.

I thought at the time that I had totally made this name up, that this combination of letters and sounds simply hadn't existed until I had come along to devise it and claim it as my own.

Also, I thought it kicked all kinds of ass.

Imagine my surprise and amazement when, later in life, I discovered the awesomeness that is Ada Lovelace! While my high opinion of my own creative powers may have taken a blow, I consoled myself with the fact that my namesake was so undeniably kickass as to render the point moot.

Yeah, I was forever rendering points "moot" when I was a kid. I bet I was pretty freaking annoying, when it comes right down to it.

So Ada Lovelace, as you surely already know, was Lord Byron's only legitimate child. Born of his extremely misguided union with the unfortunate Anne Milbanke, a very serious-minded young woman who had high hopes of reforming the mad, bad, seriously dangerous Lord Byron.

Oh, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

"Reform" Byron. Honestly. That one never gets old. Excuse me while I wipe the tears of hilarity from mine eyes.

So anyway, the two mismatched turtle doves stayed together long enough to produce a child, who was born just before Anne decided Byron was well past redemption and that she was better off prosecuting him -- in excruciating detail -- for all of his admittedly beastly behavior.

Look, I know Byron was a jerk on an absolutely monumental scale. But honestly, Anne, could you not see that one coming? Just one teensy little bit?

No, I guess one never really does. Alas.

So Ada turned out to be a right sharp little nut, despite the unalloyed nuttiness of her forbears. In fact, her story is so phenomenal that I honestly think it can only best be told in a dramatic black and white webcomic format, by the altogether delightful 2D Goggles, AKA Sydney Padua.

Seriously. Click on the picture to read the comic. You will not be sorry.

So yesterday I was chatting with an MBA student at my old school about what kinds of books we like to read.