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

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

1) Clean the space from top to bottom, then bottom to top.

2) Use fresh ingredients in your food.

3) Ask about allergies ahead of time.

4) Accept all compliments with, 'thank you.' (In other words, never say things like 'this old thing' or 'I didn't spend any time on it' or 'I thought it was terrible'. I read an article years ago that said when someone attempts to be modest in this way, by playing down compliments, it actually insults the taste of the person giving the compliments.)

5) Pay attention to the wants and needs of your guests, asking if they'd like more food and drink, but try not to be a pest about it, :).

I love "Sherlock" too. Unfortunately I've only managed to see the first two episodes - it's running on PBS here and it's been spotty finding episodes, :(.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

RE #4: Yes, yes, yes, gods yes.

"Thank you", "I'm so glad you like it" and even "Oh, good! I swiped the recipe from [wherever]!" are fine. "Oh, I don't like the way it turned out." is not. It's such a downer!

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I'd never thought of it that way before I read the article, but after that I started absolutely training myself to only say 'thank you', :).

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

It was Elder Monster who slapped some sense into me about that. He was probably 10 or so? I dunno. But everyone was raving about the roast, I was kind of miffed about the gravy and was all "Really? I'm not really happy with the way things turned out.", and he YELLED AT ME.

I got a ten minute lecture about how I'd been cooking forever and worked really hard to learn how to do it well, and I should stop getting myself worked up over little things that no one notices and just say "Thank you", because anything else was really annoying.

(Elder Monster is now 18 and a Culinary student. I should have known he'd land in that field.)

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

That story is made of awesome win.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

He's a good kid.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

#4 is a bit culturally dependant, I'd argue. In some cultures, it's just considered polite to be self-effacing, and it's understood to be no real insult either to yourself or the person complimenting you. Obviously, there are limits, but "oh, this old thing" type remarks are well inside the boundaries of polite modesty by my perception.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I should have said, "In the US..." and I have to disagree.

When someone says, "This old thing?" I really do feel as though they're insulting my taste in having complimented it. It's saying that I don't have the perception to realize that it's something old from their closet that really isn't worthy of being noticed.

The only time I tell anyone that I've had something for years is if they ask where I got it in the hopes of getting one themselves.

But we can agree to disagree, :).

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Well, sure you can disagree about what the remark means to you, but that was kind of my point, that it's a cultural thing rather than an absolute :)

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

:)

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

They're available to stream from the Masterpiece Mystery! website, if that's an option...

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! :)