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

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

1. Plan and schedule so that you know you have enough time (and enough burner/oven/fridge space) to make all that awesome feed you are planning to feed your guests.

2. Multiple choices per course are the way to go if you possibly can, to give people a choice and to cater for people's food preferences/allergies/intolerances. That was the only way I could cope with a dinner party which involved a vegan, a vegetarian, a low-carber, two people with dairy issues and one who couldn't eat vegetables at all. This does increase the risk of leftovers, but that's not necessarily a big issue in our house, they will get eaten.

3. Make sure that at least one and if possible two of the courses are make-ahead. Doesn't mean they can't still be in the oven just before serving, but needing to do last-minute prep get stressful (and long).

4. Make sure people know what time food will be served, and then do your best to stick to that. We've got a lot of friends who need to fit their schedule around others (babysitters, elderly parents) and making sure they've got time to eat and relax a bit before needing to dash off is important.

5. Try to relax :)

We host a big bash for friends each year on Boxing Day (26/12). Lunch is a cold buffet and dinner is generally a whole bunch of different types of sausages, which has the advantage that there exist plenty of nice veggie sausages, and that you can cook sausages in the oven without requiring significant human intervention.

It was interesting the year I'd lost my voice, though. I had a bunch of flash cards saying "Hi! I've lost my voice!" "Would you like another drink?", "Dinner's ready!" etc....