sundries

[rm]

My jet lag always gets worse before it gets better. Oh god.

Am I a bad person because when I see a headline that reads "Romney takes swing at Palin" it takes me a minute to realize that there wasn't actual brawling in the streets?

Isaac Mizrahi has five rules for a good dinner party. Since I suspect most of us have never hired a waiter, what are yours?

Has anyone else been following Disunion on The New York Times? It's a blog on the Civil War period, and it's pretty interesting. I thought their piece on Lincoln and Joshua Speed was particularly good for not introducing anachronistic labellings of sexuality and acknowledging the different physical and emotional lines of the period, while also not doing the "of course the president wasn't gay!" thing either.

Argh, one day I will get to see this production. Why is it that the only opera that does this televised at the movie theater thing is opera I have access to right here? Argh argh argh.

So Sherlock... Thank god I found Torchwood (among other things) between this and Harry Potter, or else I know who I'd be identifying with.

I'm not, thankfully, like Sherlock at all. I'm not that smart (and I'm pretty fucking smart). My propensity for pattern recognition, while extreme, makes me creative, paranoid and really clever, but not so much with the accurate. I don't have (nor want) the type of focus Sherlock demonstrates. I'm not that mean. Or petty. And connecting to other people is a reflex for me, even if sometimes I wish it wasn't.

But....

But, but, but, but....

The way my brain works does make it sometimes more than a tiny bit hard for me to live in the world the way I'm supposed to. I blurt out weird things at weird times, their relevance clear only to me. I get frustrated with others. I can be petulant and childlike. I can demand that people play not just at my speed but in my way. I can be pretty fucking hard to be around, and the diplomacy I do have is a cultivated skill because of just how awful I think I can be.

And I adore Sherlock because even if I am not remotely that guy, it gives us someone who struggles in the world because of the ways in which they are exceptional. Someone who doesn't apologize for it. Someone who is weirdly vulnerable, but isn't interested in that vulnerability, because of it. Someone who is funny-looking, magnetic, joyful, inappropriate, and challenging enough that other people like to try to shove him in boxes that aren't quite right. He is ambiguous and contradictory, with a face that both seems not fully formed and too sharp.

I watch Sherlock and I honestly feel better about the ways I'm not so good at people, the ways people misread me, the brutalities I inflict on myself, and the fact that no matter how smart I am, I'm not nearly as smart as I want to be and that's probably a good thing.

I'm not Sherlock, and Sherlock's not me, but I feel a little realer for this portrayal of him. Most others have been so much colder and so much more assured (this one is certain, but not so assured), so even if people tell me (not infrequently) that I should cosplay one of the older portrayals (because I'm thin and sharp and, I suppose, unsettling), it's this one that I feel like I actually get.

And the coat is amazing. Maybe I have a thing (Snape, Jack, Sherlock... there's a pattern, ne?)

Comments

[random-girl.livejournal.com]

We usually host between 8 and 25 people for our parties; we're planning one for the 18th this year (annual gift exchange among friends).

1) Think about seating and make accommodations. A lot of tips involve having fewer seats than party guests to encourage mingling, but my house is TINY and people like to gather and chat and will sit on the floor. So we will often re-arrange the living room to make room for more chairs (even if people are sitting in our office chairs) and we have three plump, soft floor pillows for the traditionalists. For 8, our living room does fine without re-arranging. For more than 12, we usually push the couch back, move the bar (its on wheels) and a few other tricks to clear traffic areas. It sounds unromantic, but it's been a clear winner for guests and us.

2) Have quiet areas. We open several rooms to our guests; typically folks with little ones hang out in my office, where I've set things up so the little ones can play, watch TV, etc. Adults who need a breather from the party can wander into our master bedroom and get away from the main room where there are a lot of people.

3) Schedule the food and drinks. Hubby has a schedule for purchasing items (so they're as fresh as can be), a schedule of prepping them (he makes as many as can be made in advance, but on party day he likes to have a few hot items that are done at the time the guests arrive), and include any alcoholic mixed beverages in your planning; hubby likes to make up two pitchers of common mixed drinks that our friends like; then he can either make them a drink at the bar or they can serve themselves during the party.

4) Label stuff. This sounds disturbingly anal, but my friends appreciate it so much. We have vegetarians, vegans, and people with various allergies. It takes maybe 20 minutes to print out what each thing is (and if its safe for vegetarians, vegans and if it does or does not contain allergy items), and our guests do not get sick or require going to the emergency room.

5) Decorate. We don't have tons of cash, and our house isn't huge, and we usually spend all our dosh on the party supplies themselves, but I try to keep funny napkins in the house (purchasing after major holidays helps with this a lot), paper plates that can match for Halloween or Christmas (or mix the two themes, I'm not proud to mix paper plates...anything to avoid dishes), and two shelves in our hallway closet that contain various decorative gear that I can haul out and use to make things look nice; from table cloths to spider web candle holders. I am also not above printing funny signs from my printer and hanging those in obvious and not-so-obvious places.

We throw a massive 4th of July party each year (yay for being able to use the outdoors on those most times because our house can't easily fit that many people inside it), a holiday gift exchange party and typically one more random bash throughout the year. I would say that if I were writing a number 6 helpful hint, it would be to make sure there are things/activities to do, but sufficient in their own right that not everyone has to do them, or they can be skipped entirely if people prefer just to eat and talk. This year's holiday party will feature a showing of one of our favorite movies, "The Thin Man," but we may put it on and turn the volume off depending on how interested the participants are.