kinkerbelle13

OKAY SO.

I am full of bbq sauce and beans and all manner of good things, and while I'm not going to do a full review of Sherlock Holmes I do have a few clarifying comments to make :D

1. Do not believe that you will like it just because I liked it. I hate 99% of all cinema so my tastes are weird. That said, I think most people who like Holmes canon and are flexible about canon interpretation will like it.

2. It definitely is a) fanfic on film and b) chock full of juicy slash. But it's awesome fanfic on film -- with nods to the canon and little quotes from it. And, at points, I am positive Robert Downey Junior was mimicking Jeremy Brett. Just to fuck with us!

3. NOBODY BE SURPRISED: Watson was always my favourite. It's nice to see, in this version, that he's a full-fledged person, a character with his own wit, skills, and desires, and the kind of person who can mentally keep up with Sherlock Holmes. It was also nice to see his flaws, from canon, made manifest in the film -- neither he nor Holmes are perfect heroes.

Not to spoil too much about the film, but a bit of a spoiler: ( 3a. )

We're only home for a few minutes before we venture back out for dinner, but I felt the need to inform you all that the new Sherlock Holmes movie is MADE OF FUCKING AWESOME.

I mean, they could have cut the fight scenes and I wouldn't have minded, but I say that about everything. Otherwise?

FUCKING AWESOME.

More later, after I am full of bourbon-glazed ribs and french fries. :D

A bit late in the day, but I wanted to be sure and wish everyone on my Flist a very happy holiday if you're celebrating such things today. Be happy, be healthy, be safe. And, hopefully, your weather is better than the snowy, blizzard-like day we're having (not that I'm complaining, it's a perfect Christmas Day if you have nowhere to drive!).

I hope Santa was generous with ya'll!

~Susan / apckrfan (who's hoping to get some writing in tonight when I'm done working and everyone's in bed!)

Happy Christmas morning, all!

We have opened presents here, though we have not a tree -- we put them under one of the hotel lamps instead. :D It's been a very domestic Christmas -- I got a sheet set, an immersion blender, and Cooking Mama for the Wii, among other things.

bluejeans07 and I also have a treat for you this morning. While we didn't finish our 24-hour-comic within 24 hours, we did keep working on it, and about a week ago we completed it. We thought we'd keep it under wraps and unveil it on Christmas, seeing as it is about the holiday spirit and all. :)

You can find the entire Winterbook under the cut, or click on each image to get larger views. Enjoy!

(Me and my friend made a comic book!)

( The Winterbook: A Graphic Short Story By Sam And Jean )

Well, here in Chicago it's wet and nippy out, while the rest of the midwest is SNOWED IN JESUS CHRIST.

It's almost hilarious how Chicago news stations are treating it; they have people stationed at O'Hare to talk about how wet it is there. Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, you can't find your car for the snow.

Emmy pointed out that the local news font for "BLIZZARD" looks an awful lot like any other font's version of "BUZZARD".

EMERGENCY BUZZARD!

BUZZARD SMASHES MIDWEST!

DIGGING OUT AFTER THE BUZZARD!

I'm afraid we're going to have to abandon BUZZARD WATCH 09 in a few minutes, when we head out for a fancy Italian dinner. Hope everyone is having a lovely evening!

little experiment with Fireworks to wish you all:

I don't know why my mum lighted on The Nutcracker as something I needed early childhood exposure to. Possibly it was the only ballet she could tolerate. At any rate, every year, no matter where we lived, no matter that I have never seen another ballet and have no interest in any other, she would find a production of the Nutcracker and take me (and eventually my siblings) to see it at Christmas.

Tonight we saw the Joffrey Ballet do The Nutcracker in Chicago, and it is still FUCKING AWESOME.

I am not a huge ballet fan, but The Nutcracker is hardcore and you can't convince me otherwise. I love Drosselmeyer and the Russian dancers and the Rat King and MADAM GINGER.

I got the awesomest souvenir ever, too; we have several nutcrackers from previous years, but I've never seen one like this before.



HOW COOL IS THAT? I'm going to hang him on my computer at work or something.

Still alive!

I have managed to get my family in a cab, through the Art Institute Museum including the Apostles Of Beauty exhibit, into Terzo Piano (the super-swank Art Institute Museum restaurant), out of the museum, back into a cab, through the line at Starbucks, and back to the hotel without breaking anything. I WIN.

My parents have no clue how to cope with the winter-mix of snow and rain we're getting. To be fair, they're not exactly used to it.

Mum: Well, we're from Texas.
Cabdriver: I bet when it snows like this in Texas, the whole city shuts down.
Me: When it snows like this in Texas, the end is nigh.

I had what I think can only be called a MEAT SAMPLER, at Terzo Piano. It's a trio of small burgers, served with fries, but the burgers vary: one is shrimp with some kind of spice sauce, one is lamb with feta cheese, and one is beef with Wisconsin cheddar. It's a surprising amount of meat, and ridiculously delicious.

We're off to get some culture in us tonight, and then tomorrow we'll be building a Christmas Tree from cookies, possibly buzzing my place to pick up the presents I left there, and generally goofing off. It should be AWESOME.

I woke up this morning and wondered why I couldn't move my arms properly. Had I slept wrong? Was I sick?

OH NO, I just took a cramp after moving a bajillion boxes yesterday. :D

We spent the evening in, watching Holstein decide that my shirt sleeves were evil and mocking the evening news. I also discovered that I left ALL THE PRESENTS I bought for people in my flat, so at some point today or tomorrow we have to go back to my flat, BRAVING THE THREE PERILOUS INCHES OF SNOW, to get my gifts for everyone.

In our family it's been a tradition since I was tiny that on Christmas eve you get to open two gifts, which are invariably a book and a pair of pyjamas, so you can read yourself to sleep waiting for Santa, and on Christmas morning you're in nice new pjs for present-opening. Last night, despite it not quite being Christmas, Mum gave me fancy new flannel pyjamas, and instead of a book I got a stuffed sock monkey.

Oh family. Never change.

WELL THAT WAS AN AFTERNOON.

My family arrived at my place and I told them, and this was my mistake, "You're going to have to go down the street, turn around, and pull up to my place so we can unload."

They got stuck in the snow at the end of the street.

Three inches of snow.

In a four wheel drive pickup.

I MIGHT HAVE LOLED. And then spent forty minutes helping push them out.

Anyway, we got my new hideous chair and my bookshelf up to my apartment, took the rest of my stuff to storage, dropped off the U-Haul trailer, and made our way downtown to the hotel. It took us two trips to get all the luggage to the hotel room, because everything my parents brought is in tote bags. Apparently they've sworn off luggage? I don't even know.

But we are here in the hotel now, safe and warm and awaiting room service. We were upgraded, which rocks the house; it means that the room I'm sharing with Emmy is just a room, but if we go next door my parents have a PALATIAL SUITE we can all hang out in.

And, obvs, the internet works.

I'm so glad we have no more moving to do.

I kept meaning to make an LJ entry today, and then things kept happening in my brain, you don't even want to know. So instead, you get a list!

1. While my knee is healing rapidly (I'm a good healer, to make up for tripping on NOTHING, ALL THE TIME) I've had to shorten my gait, so it takes me like, five minutes longer to get EVERYWHERE. This is improving my balance however.

2. The slow-walking thing is why I'm glad that the mailman came to see me today and took the last of my Christmas mailings, because omg I did not want to walk to the post office.

3. Which in turn means I can get a cab home. Ooooooh. And clean the kitchen in preparation for The Arrival Of My Family.

3a. Five bucks says that the first thing Emmy says to me when she sees the collage I made of images you guys sent me is, "Why is there a naked man with a frying pan in the corner?"

I'm going to just have to tell her "Art is its own explanation" or something equally ridiculous because I often ask myself the same question, and have yet to find an answer beyond "It was there."

So, my parents and sister are driving cross-country to Chicago for the next two days, in order to bring me the stuff I left in storage with them when I moved here. They're also bringing me The Best Chair Ever, which my mother acquired sometime in the 70's. It has bright-orange nubbly upholstery, and is almost unbearably comfortable. I am very excited to own a hideous comfortable chair.

What I had not anticipated is that my parents would not pack things with which to entertain each other while they are on the road (I have no doubt Emmy is glued to her headphones and hopefully struggling through the last of The Great Gatsby for school). As the dog -- who they're bringing along, apparently in a padded box mounted on the dashboard -- is asleep, mum's primary source of entertainment is texting me.

I love them. I just have to remind myself sometimes.

I've been wrangling this post over and over in my head for about a month now, perhaps a little longer, and it's still just plain messy, so I'm going to plow through and see what I can make of it.

At the start of November, a friend of mine died. Her husband's wishes are that there be no memorial post, so I'm not going to talk about who; if you knew her, you've heard by now, and if you don't know who, then you needn't worry.

K and I met via the Whofandom earlier this year, while I was working on Nameless, and we shared an interest in digital publishing and its effect on the wider world. Not to make this all about me -- though grieving usually is about the survivors -- but she was instrumental in opening my eyes to some things about writing, and my writing in particular, that I hadn't considered.

She sent me an essay on Nameless that she'd been working on, examining the use of geography and space in the novel. It was a brilliant piece of work standalone, but it brought home to me the fact that this story wasn't just being read by the Cafe or talked about it amongst people I knew. It was out there, in the world, and people were reading it and forming opinions that had nothing to do with what I thought or felt. People were analyzing what I did and finding things in the writing I hadn't consciously put there, but which were there anyway -- the same way I did in school with books I read and plays I worked on. To be the subject of that focus is at once thrilling and frightening, but endlessly educational.

She made me feel -- as the VOYA review and many people have done since, but with her, it was the first time -- like a Real Published Writer.

I've since learned through a mutual friend (to whom I am indebted for maintaining communication when K's eyesight failed her, and sharing in the mourning) that she had a wide array of literary interests and that I was in extremely respectable company under her eye. I'm glad to have known her and the thoughts she had on my work. She had notes on The Dead Isle too, which I expect to have in due time, when the sorting and sifting and other work is done. I'm very much looking forward to hearing what she said about it.

Um, there's no real point to this post, really, except to say that K did this thing for me, and was a friend. I want to put out there in the world that I miss her, I wish I'd known her better, and I wish I'd known her longer. Grief is natural and fades, and I'm okay; but I wanted to say it, so that it's there.

Things what I have done today:

Cleaned the bedroom and living room
Vacuumed the bedroom and living room (technically the Roomba did this)
Made reservations for the whole family to see Sherlock Holmes on Christmas Day, followed by fancy dinner downtown

(That last one is remarkably difficult. Most restaurants aren't open, and those that are have a Prix-Fixe menu that's a little out of our league, or serve food that one of us won't eat. I finally triumphed, however!)

Things what I must yet do:
WRAP CHRISTMAS PRESENT OMG
Mail two cards
Clean and vacuum the kitchen
Clean the fridge
Cook rice

I cannot wait till my family arrives, in part because they are bringing me A RICE COOKER. \o/

Now I venture out into the snow, to mail a card and buy a hamburger. :D