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lunasarielSo, where did I leave off last time? Oh, yeah, Valentine's Day. XD
I was still feeling fairly under the weather - sore throat, low fever, coughing, general feeling of "blech" (although I will admit, it *was* an improvement on the general feeling of "please let me die" of previous days). I had vague ideas of Doing Something with R2 - everything up until then had still been fairly neutral, romance-wise (okay, maybe not the sunset picnic in the park, but everything else) - but he did offer to come over and keep him company. Of course, I assumed that "keep you company" means "hang out with you for a couple hours, maybe watch an episode of Firefly, and then bail because you look like death warmed over and smell like phlegm"; not exactly how I had envisioned a romantic V-Day, but, whatever - J is even more Starky than I am, and was certainly known to put romance on hold in favor of practicality, especially where health was concerned. (Hoo boy, let me tell you about our first anniversary! >:D) So when R2 showed up at my door with roses, I was...what's that word where you had hoped for something, so you weren't completely surprised, but you didn't actually expect to happen? I was that. He brought me roses, chocolates from Powell's (a candytopia where we went on our second "date" - the movie[s] with his animator buddy), and this card:
That's totally a Tyrell rose on the envelope and nobody can tell me otherwise! (I could be incredibly catty and point out how he misspelled Barrayaran, but I was still mentally calling them things like Vorevil, Vorboss, and Vorawesome until well into TWA, so it's not like I can throw stones here.) Anyway, let's just say that our first kiss followed soon after. And, as the old-timey novelists used to say; let us draw a veil of discretion over the rest of the scene. ;)
So we've been goin' steady for the better part of a week now and I gotta say: I missed this. The Tyrell in me missed the chance to primp and preen and be told she's pretty, while the Stark has missed the opportunity to form a physical pack-bond. At its best, our relationship is less friends-with-benefits than benefits-with-friends, if you know what I mean; we still do all the things we enjoyed when we were Just Friends (going to movies, board game nights, and of course massive amounts of geektalk), but I enjoy them more now because I'm with him. And even better, we seem to be complementary personality types when it comes to doing stuff: he's a very active, "DO ALL THE THINGS!" kind of guy, while I'm, um, a zlug. So he gets me up off my zluggy butt to go do things I immensely enjoy but would never have the courage to do on my own (i.e. fencing), and I get him to take it easy one in a while.
That's not to say our relationship is all flowers and sunshine and Everybody's Happy in Highgarden (With Earthquakes), though. I do know that he's had previous girlfriends, but I don't think he's gotten very serious with any of them, because sometimes I'm afraid he's WAY more (over-)invested in this relationship than I am - he's already shown definite signs of the "o my lady love!!!!11!" stage, while I'm still at "you've got a cute butt and an appreciation for classic literature and you're kind of adorkable. ;)"This also translates to a certain amount of handsyness, which is another thing I could do without (and another thing that makes me think that he never really got anywhere with his previous girlfriends). It's not that I don't find him attractive (far from it!); it's just that I love actually doing things with him; and I mean "doing things" in the non-euphemistic sense. I like the way his mind works and how he frames his thoughts, so I'm happy playing laser tag or watching BtVS or just talking about the changes made in the latest Hobbit movie. But he's shown a certain preference for just hanging around and making out whenever we don't have definite plans to Do A Thing, which I've quickly found out, is actually pretty boring. IDK if I'm just not sufficiently attracted to him or what, but sometimes I just want to watch the damn movie, y'know? Plus, extended physical contact seems to only worsen his "o my lady love!!!!11!"-ness - see below on how I've been dealing with that. Basically, he'll sometimes get this sort of stunned-bunny, almost worshipful look in his eyes that I am so very not ready to return, or even necessarily accept.
I've been trying to derail this by planning as many activities, outings, and other ways of keeping ourselves occupied as possible, and next on our list is: dancing! This is another one of those "wow, never thought I'd be doing this" kind of things - when I was about 12, EVERYBODY'S parents were signing them up for ballroom dancing classes, but I was almost pathologically uninterested. I seriously think I was the only person in my entire grade (okay, my entire grade had maybe 50 kids, but still) who managed to escape, but the thought actively terrified me on so many levels that I got to stay home and read Tamora Pierce on the Wednesday afternoon everybody else had dance class. This has apparently set up some sort of weird association in my head, since dancing in general is right up near public speaking, book-burning, and seafood-tasting on my list of least favorite things to do. Like, the last time I danced was at H&C's wedding (and that only because H specifically asked me to); I lasted the requested 30 seconds and then fled, spending the rest of the evening glued to the wall. But, anyway, I find myself actually wanting to dance with R2! I guess Steve Rodgers was right - all it takes is the right partner. ;) There are some local Friday night ballroom dancing classes that look promising, in theory if not in practice: R2 works Friday nights (so we couldn't stay too late), and I have Pathfinder (so we REALLY couldn't stay too late), so it may come to nothing, but it sounds like so much fun!
As I mentioned last time, I've been noodling around with perfumes. I guess this is just an extension of my ongoing re-girlification, but now I'm sure my family and R2 are thoroughly sick of suddenly being lunged at, as I thrust my wrist under their nose and demand what they think of this perfume or that. But they smell so pretty! I've been dropping in at Sephora (there's one in Santa Rosa now, squee!) every few days to pick up a new sample vial or two, since I'm NOT going to drop anywhere between $50 and $100+ on even a small vial of perfume. (Even the rollerballs, by far the cheapest format, run between $20 and $35 - not atrocious like their full-sized counterparts, but I'd still feel cheated if I blew the cost of two secondhand books and a small grocery run on something I ended up hating). Thankfully, though, Sephora offers teeny-tiny little sample vials - they only contain enough juice to last last a few days, but they're the perfect size for what I want to do: let them sit on my skin for a day (refreshing as necessary) and see how they develop. One of the biggest discoveries I made, back when I was just getting into perfume, was that what you smell immediately upon spraying it on your wrist (or wherever) isn't necessarily all you're going to get. Most scents evolve, so you get a blast of attention-getting "buy me!" top notes, which calms down into the "heart notes" (which are what's used to classify the perfume - if it starts out smelling like lemon drops but settles down into roses, it's a floral; if it's the other way around, it's either citrus or a "fruity gourmand"). The base notes, which last the longest, are usually some sort of wood or musk. The only problem is, clearly perfume bloggers/salespeople have run into a hell of a problem describing something as complex and personal as scent, and have attempted to solve this problem with WILDLY HYPERBOLIC DESCRIPTIONS!!! No, srsly, with some of these I kinda feel like there's a movie that's supposed to start playing as soon as I spritz it. For example, Viktor&Rolf's Flowerbomb (one of my favorites) is described on their website thus:
This floral explosion releases a profusion of flowers that has the power to make everything seem more positive. Magically evocative notes immediately awaken your deepest senses, giving you the impression of living life in your own secret garden, away from reality. Sambac jasmine, centifolia rose, cattleya orchid, and ballerina freesia bloom on a base of patchouli.
And perfume blogs (which, it turns out, there are about a zillion of) say stuff like:
It starts with lots of sugar candy and a bit of citrus, and dries down to a sweet, slightly vanillic dessert of amber and patchouli. It is very smooth and creamy, with no hard edges. There are some flowers along the way, but they are not assertive. I should not think you would have to like flowers to like Flowerbomb.
I, meanwhile, am just stuck at "it smells pretty and kinda sweet and makes me happy." English major FTW! XD But while I enjoy smelling pretty, this all seems kinda overblown to me. Like, if you just sat me down and said "review this perfume," I definitely wouldn't use words/phrases like "undulate," "magically evocative," or "no hard edges" (of course it doesn't have hard edges! It doesn't have edges of any kind! Once it's been applied, I don't think it exists above the molecular level!). But, hey, maybe I'm being too harsh; maybe it's just a question of familiarity. I mean, I don't look at Yeats' "The Second Coming" and immediately think, "hmm, clearly the author is attempting to grapple with the socio-economic changes of WWI, particularly rampant industrialism and a perceived inability to connect with one's cultural/mythical/literary past." So it's entirely possible that this is just the sort of thing that requires training in order to distinguish the distinct notes and then describe them accurately. But for now, the latent snoot in me is coming out to roll her eyes at descriptions like, It's kind of a like a grown-up tea party in cotton candy clouds, where you're wearing your finest pearls and silk gloves while eating cupcakes and truffles as flower petals fall from the sky. Or the delightful smell of a morning tea latte sprinkled with sugar crystals and a single flower waiting for you on a Victorian tray by your bedside. (Now if only every bottle of Flowerbomb came with a pair of silk gloves, tea latte, box of cupcakes, and Victorian tray!)
But Flowerbomb really is my favorite out of the three non-samples I own so far - it always makes me smile whenever I smell it, and it has a way of working its way into all sorts of nooks and crannies; so even days after I last wore it, I'll be, say, taking off my necklace to take a shower, and I'll catch a whiff of it on the pendant, which will just make me smile all over again. The other two are Stella by Stella McCartney (yes, Paul McCartney's daughter), The Body Shop's Japanese Cherry Blossom, and I'm thinking of picking up Narciso Rodriguez's For Her and/or Gucci Guilty. Stella is a sort of warm, spicy rose scent, Cherry Blossom is exactly what it says on the tin (although somewhat more intense than I'd expected - sakura have always been such a visual experience for me, and hardly ever an olfactory one; I'd never really thought about what they smell like until now), and For Her and Guilty are both sort of "your skin but better" musky scents.
My nerdly intake has been much-decreased of late (you can thank R2 for most of that), but the two things I have managed to work on are the new season of Sherlock and Agatha Christie.
I'm up to thesecond third (see below) episode of Sherlock s3, which was basically one massive d'awww from beginning to end. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop - any time Sherlock shows John any kind of consideration or affection, he's always got some ulterior motive in mind; there's always a bit of a sting hidden in there somewhere. So I spent the entire episode holding my breath, waiting for Sherlock to do That Thing He Does, but it never happened! Of course, I still have one more episode to go, but for now, it looks like Sherlock has, for once, eloquently and sincerely expressed his abiding admiration of John. Which is a sentence I never thought I'd be typing, but there you go. I mean, canon!Holmes has his affectionate moments, but BBC!Sherlock hardly ever seems to lose that sardonic edge. So to see him go, essentially, "LOOK AT MY JOHN HE IS THE BEST he's smart and brave and saves people's lives and puts up with all my bullshit wow he's great. Much brave, such hero, very doctor," added an element of "well, *finally*!" to the overall emotional punch.
The heart of the episode was definitely Sherlock doing his best to actually express a human emotion (and succeeding most triumphantly), but there was actually, y'know, a mystery and stuff, too. I feel like "The Sign of Three" has actually been the weakest episode of Sherlock so far, at least in terms of plot - it's really just a series of vignettes, and the whodunit really took a back seat to the big emotional climax that's been building, more or less, since the first episode. That's not to say that HLV is a *bad* episode, though - far from it! Because it stands out so far from everything that's come before, it has this sort of dream-like feel. It's clearly meant to be a very atypical episode in all respects, so in that sense, it really works. It's funny (I definitely should NOT have been drinking tea when Lestrade calls in the cavalry in the opening), it's heartfelt, everyone gets their moment to shine, and we get an excellent "aw, look, they really do love each other (and not entirely for crazy dysfunctional reasons)!" moment. Although the plot technically ties together at the end, it still has a certain disjointed feel. So this episode was exactly what we needed right now, I hope they won't try to duplicate it in the future.
Oh, and it looks like I never reviewed the first episode, which honestly I found a bit meh. The ending was pulse-pounding enough, and John decking Sherlock (multiple times even!) was satisfying as all hell, but mostly I found that I didn't have an awful lot to say about it. Oh, I guess I could say that Mary was nice - Moff and Gatiss had a hell of a job in getting the Johnlock shippers to not hate her on first sight, and they've done a good job of making her competent and likable. Clearly, her relationship with John isn't meant to replace Sherlock's, or even compete with it - it's on a completely different level. It's much healthier/more functional, and maybe a little bit less interesting because of that? I mean, I still consider myself a fan of Steven Moffat's writing, but some of the things he's said (at least, as they appear on tumblr, which seems to be the primary aggregator of nerd news these days) reveal that he can be kind of a severe dumbass with regards to women. So I guess it makes sense that all the strong emotion and dynamism is funneled into Sherlock&John (or Sherlock/John, if that's your bag), while John/Mary is the "safe" relationship. But then again, Holmes&Watson is pretty much the ONLY relationship with any emotional significance in ACD, where it's pretty much the foundation of the whole series... And now I'm just going in circles. Moving on!
(ETA: Final episode now seen [I found it...oddly unsatisfying]; review up next time because I want to get this out while I can.)
Clearly, I've been in a mystery sort of mood, so I've picked up Agatha Christie once again. I had to read a Miss Marple in junior high for an assignment, but that was at the height of my high fantasy/Tolkien obsession, so a murder mystery set in a sleepy English village sometime in the 1930s just didn't appeal to me that much. But recently, my mother flung Evil Under the Sun at me, and I found I really enjoyed it! There ended up being much less victim-blaming than I thought there would be in a novel where the blurb reads: "When lovely Arlena Marshall was found strangled at the Jolly Roger Hotel, her fellow guests at the posh English resort were shocked - but not surprised. After all, the notorious beauty had lived for passion. what was more natural than that she should die for it?" I'm used to being able to guess the surprise culprit in mystery TV shows fairly easily, so I guess I was a little cocky going in. But the real murderer(s) here really surprised me! The Redferns were literally the only people I genuinely didn't suspect of anything at all. Agatha Christie isn't called the best mystery writer of all time for nothing, I guess. XD I'm told that Evil Under the Sun isn't Christie's best work, so my mother has gleefully become my Christie dealer, and hooked me up with The Murder at the Vicarage and The Body in the Library.
My increasing friendliness towards Agatha Christie has certainly been helped by the fact that I've started watching the Poirot TV series starring David Suchet, which is fantastic. Suchet is now my one and only mental image of Poirot (the "flamboyant moustaches"! The way he walks!), and Hugh Fraser is oddly attractive as Hastings. I'm less than halfway through, but it's exactly the sort of episodic, fairly brain-lite thing that I enjoy, where I can watch an episode here and there and enjoy it, but I never risk falling into the "it's 3 AM and I need to be up at 6 but just one more episode WHAT ARE MY EMOTIONS DOING" trap. *cough*Babylon 5*cough* This is definitely a case of the actor making the show - Poirot is just so damned enjoyable to watch go about his work that stuff which might otherwise bother me (for example, the fact that Hastings can sometimes border on Jam Watson levels of stupid) just roll right off, and I can sit back and enjoy the glorious 30s-ness of it all. 'Course, given that pretty much the only contact with Christie I've had between eighth grade and now is that one episode of Doctor Who, so I keep half-expecting the Doctor and Donna to show up and fangirl over Poirot. But, alas, they never seem to...
I was still feeling fairly under the weather - sore throat, low fever, coughing, general feeling of "blech" (although I will admit, it *was* an improvement on the general feeling of "please let me die" of previous days). I had vague ideas of Doing Something with R2 - everything up until then had still been fairly neutral, romance-wise (okay, maybe not the sunset picnic in the park, but everything else) - but he did offer to come over and keep him company. Of course, I assumed that "keep you company" means "hang out with you for a couple hours, maybe watch an episode of Firefly, and then bail because you look like death warmed over and smell like phlegm"; not exactly how I had envisioned a romantic V-Day, but, whatever - J is even more Starky than I am, and was certainly known to put romance on hold in favor of practicality, especially where health was concerned. (Hoo boy, let me tell you about our first anniversary! >:D) So when R2 showed up at my door with roses, I was...what's that word where you had hoped for something, so you weren't completely surprised, but you didn't actually expect to happen? I was that. He brought me roses, chocolates from Powell's (a candytopia where we went on our second "date" - the movie[s] with his animator buddy), and this card:
That's totally a Tyrell rose on the envelope and nobody can tell me otherwise! (I could be incredibly catty and point out how he misspelled Barrayaran, but I was still mentally calling them things like Vorevil, Vorboss, and Vorawesome until well into TWA, so it's not like I can throw stones here.) Anyway, let's just say that our first kiss followed soon after. And, as the old-timey novelists used to say; let us draw a veil of discretion over the rest of the scene. ;)
So we've been goin' steady for the better part of a week now and I gotta say: I missed this. The Tyrell in me missed the chance to primp and preen and be told she's pretty, while the Stark has missed the opportunity to form a physical pack-bond. At its best, our relationship is less friends-with-benefits than benefits-with-friends, if you know what I mean; we still do all the things we enjoyed when we were Just Friends (going to movies, board game nights, and of course massive amounts of geektalk), but I enjoy them more now because I'm with him. And even better, we seem to be complementary personality types when it comes to doing stuff: he's a very active, "DO ALL THE THINGS!" kind of guy, while I'm, um, a zlug. So he gets me up off my zluggy butt to go do things I immensely enjoy but would never have the courage to do on my own (i.e. fencing), and I get him to take it easy one in a while.
That's not to say our relationship is all flowers and sunshine and Everybody's Happy in Highgarden (With Earthquakes), though. I do know that he's had previous girlfriends, but I don't think he's gotten very serious with any of them, because sometimes I'm afraid he's WAY more (over-)invested in this relationship than I am - he's already shown definite signs of the "o my lady love!!!!11!" stage, while I'm still at "you've got a cute butt and an appreciation for classic literature and you're kind of adorkable. ;)"
I've been trying to derail this by planning as many activities, outings, and other ways of keeping ourselves occupied as possible, and next on our list is: dancing! This is another one of those "wow, never thought I'd be doing this" kind of things - when I was about 12, EVERYBODY'S parents were signing them up for ballroom dancing classes, but I was almost pathologically uninterested. I seriously think I was the only person in my entire grade (okay, my entire grade had maybe 50 kids, but still) who managed to escape, but the thought actively terrified me on so many levels that I got to stay home and read Tamora Pierce on the Wednesday afternoon everybody else had dance class. This has apparently set up some sort of weird association in my head, since dancing in general is right up near public speaking, book-burning, and seafood-tasting on my list of least favorite things to do. Like, the last time I danced was at H&C's wedding (and that only because H specifically asked me to); I lasted the requested 30 seconds and then fled, spending the rest of the evening glued to the wall. But, anyway, I find myself actually wanting to dance with R2! I guess Steve Rodgers was right - all it takes is the right partner. ;) There are some local Friday night ballroom dancing classes that look promising, in theory if not in practice: R2 works Friday nights (so we couldn't stay too late), and I have Pathfinder (so we REALLY couldn't stay too late), so it may come to nothing, but it sounds like so much fun!
As I mentioned last time, I've been noodling around with perfumes. I guess this is just an extension of my ongoing re-girlification, but now I'm sure my family and R2 are thoroughly sick of suddenly being lunged at, as I thrust my wrist under their nose and demand what they think of this perfume or that. But they smell so pretty! I've been dropping in at Sephora (there's one in Santa Rosa now, squee!) every few days to pick up a new sample vial or two, since I'm NOT going to drop anywhere between $50 and $100+ on even a small vial of perfume. (Even the rollerballs, by far the cheapest format, run between $20 and $35 - not atrocious like their full-sized counterparts, but I'd still feel cheated if I blew the cost of two secondhand books and a small grocery run on something I ended up hating). Thankfully, though, Sephora offers teeny-tiny little sample vials - they only contain enough juice to last last a few days, but they're the perfect size for what I want to do: let them sit on my skin for a day (refreshing as necessary) and see how they develop. One of the biggest discoveries I made, back when I was just getting into perfume, was that what you smell immediately upon spraying it on your wrist (or wherever) isn't necessarily all you're going to get. Most scents evolve, so you get a blast of attention-getting "buy me!" top notes, which calms down into the "heart notes" (which are what's used to classify the perfume - if it starts out smelling like lemon drops but settles down into roses, it's a floral; if it's the other way around, it's either citrus or a "fruity gourmand"). The base notes, which last the longest, are usually some sort of wood or musk. The only problem is, clearly perfume bloggers/salespeople have run into a hell of a problem describing something as complex and personal as scent, and have attempted to solve this problem with WILDLY HYPERBOLIC DESCRIPTIONS!!! No, srsly, with some of these I kinda feel like there's a movie that's supposed to start playing as soon as I spritz it. For example, Viktor&Rolf's Flowerbomb (one of my favorites) is described on their website thus:
This floral explosion releases a profusion of flowers that has the power to make everything seem more positive. Magically evocative notes immediately awaken your deepest senses, giving you the impression of living life in your own secret garden, away from reality. Sambac jasmine, centifolia rose, cattleya orchid, and ballerina freesia bloom on a base of patchouli.
And perfume blogs (which, it turns out, there are about a zillion of) say stuff like:
It starts with lots of sugar candy and a bit of citrus, and dries down to a sweet, slightly vanillic dessert of amber and patchouli. It is very smooth and creamy, with no hard edges. There are some flowers along the way, but they are not assertive. I should not think you would have to like flowers to like Flowerbomb.
For that matter, you won't necessarily need to like patchouli. It apparently uses a "purified" patchouli that is exclusive to IFF, the company that developed the fragrance, and in fact it smells very clean, and largely devoid of the earthy notes that tend to conjure up 1960s head-shops. I am not a patchouli fan, but one of the lessons that Flowerbomb taught me is that I like it even less without the earthy part.
and
and
The composition is constructed to allow the accords to undulate gently, revealing one delicate floral note after another. Sheer freesia is folded into the sweetness of jasmine, touched by the subtle anisic notes and layered with creamy vanilla. …
On the scent strip, the spicy green notes provide an interesting counterpoint to the creamy sweetness, however on the skin, they immediately vanish into the gourmand richness. The woody amber in the base enveloped by musk hides the soft streak of patchouli.
I, meanwhile, am just stuck at "it smells pretty and kinda sweet and makes me happy." English major FTW! XD But while I enjoy smelling pretty, this all seems kinda overblown to me. Like, if you just sat me down and said "review this perfume," I definitely wouldn't use words/phrases like "undulate," "magically evocative," or "no hard edges" (of course it doesn't have hard edges! It doesn't have edges of any kind! Once it's been applied, I don't think it exists above the molecular level!). But, hey, maybe I'm being too harsh; maybe it's just a question of familiarity. I mean, I don't look at Yeats' "The Second Coming" and immediately think, "hmm, clearly the author is attempting to grapple with the socio-economic changes of WWI, particularly rampant industrialism and a perceived inability to connect with one's cultural/mythical/literary past." So it's entirely possible that this is just the sort of thing that requires training in order to distinguish the distinct notes and then describe them accurately. But for now, the latent snoot in me is coming out to roll her eyes at descriptions like, It's kind of a like a grown-up tea party in cotton candy clouds, where you're wearing your finest pearls and silk gloves while eating cupcakes and truffles as flower petals fall from the sky. Or the delightful smell of a morning tea latte sprinkled with sugar crystals and a single flower waiting for you on a Victorian tray by your bedside. (Now if only every bottle of Flowerbomb came with a pair of silk gloves, tea latte, box of cupcakes, and Victorian tray!)
But Flowerbomb really is my favorite out of the three non-samples I own so far - it always makes me smile whenever I smell it, and it has a way of working its way into all sorts of nooks and crannies; so even days after I last wore it, I'll be, say, taking off my necklace to take a shower, and I'll catch a whiff of it on the pendant, which will just make me smile all over again. The other two are Stella by Stella McCartney (yes, Paul McCartney's daughter), The Body Shop's Japanese Cherry Blossom, and I'm thinking of picking up Narciso Rodriguez's For Her and/or Gucci Guilty. Stella is a sort of warm, spicy rose scent, Cherry Blossom is exactly what it says on the tin (although somewhat more intense than I'd expected - sakura have always been such a visual experience for me, and hardly ever an olfactory one; I'd never really thought about what they smell like until now), and For Her and Guilty are both sort of "your skin but better" musky scents.
My nerdly intake has been much-decreased of late (you can thank R2 for most of that), but the two things I have managed to work on are the new season of Sherlock and Agatha Christie.
I'm up to the
The heart of the episode was definitely Sherlock doing his best to actually express a human emotion (and succeeding most triumphantly), but there was actually, y'know, a mystery and stuff, too. I feel like "The Sign of Three" has actually been the weakest episode of Sherlock so far, at least in terms of plot - it's really just a series of vignettes, and the whodunit really took a back seat to the big emotional climax that's been building, more or less, since the first episode. That's not to say that HLV is a *bad* episode, though - far from it! Because it stands out so far from everything that's come before, it has this sort of dream-like feel. It's clearly meant to be a very atypical episode in all respects, so in that sense, it really works. It's funny (I definitely should NOT have been drinking tea when Lestrade calls in the cavalry in the opening), it's heartfelt, everyone gets their moment to shine, and we get an excellent "aw, look, they really do love each other (and not entirely for crazy dysfunctional reasons)!" moment. Although the plot technically ties together at the end, it still has a certain disjointed feel. So this episode was exactly what we needed right now, I hope they won't try to duplicate it in the future.
Oh, and it looks like I never reviewed the first episode, which honestly I found a bit meh. The ending was pulse-pounding enough, and John decking Sherlock (multiple times even!) was satisfying as all hell, but mostly I found that I didn't have an awful lot to say about it. Oh, I guess I could say that Mary was nice - Moff and Gatiss had a hell of a job in getting the Johnlock shippers to not hate her on first sight, and they've done a good job of making her competent and likable. Clearly, her relationship with John isn't meant to replace Sherlock's, or even compete with it - it's on a completely different level. It's much healthier/more functional, and maybe a little bit less interesting because of that? I mean, I still consider myself a fan of Steven Moffat's writing, but some of the things he's said (at least, as they appear on tumblr, which seems to be the primary aggregator of nerd news these days) reveal that he can be kind of a severe dumbass with regards to women. So I guess it makes sense that all the strong emotion and dynamism is funneled into Sherlock&John (or Sherlock/John, if that's your bag), while John/Mary is the "safe" relationship. But then again, Holmes&Watson is pretty much the ONLY relationship with any emotional significance in ACD, where it's pretty much the foundation of the whole series... And now I'm just going in circles. Moving on!
(ETA: Final episode now seen [I found it...oddly unsatisfying]; review up next time because I want to get this out while I can.)
Clearly, I've been in a mystery sort of mood, so I've picked up Agatha Christie once again. I had to read a Miss Marple in junior high for an assignment, but that was at the height of my high fantasy/Tolkien obsession, so a murder mystery set in a sleepy English village sometime in the 1930s just didn't appeal to me that much. But recently, my mother flung Evil Under the Sun at me, and I found I really enjoyed it! There ended up being much less victim-blaming than I thought there would be in a novel where the blurb reads: "When lovely Arlena Marshall was found strangled at the Jolly Roger Hotel, her fellow guests at the posh English resort were shocked - but not surprised. After all, the notorious beauty had lived for passion. what was more natural than that she should die for it?" I'm used to being able to guess the surprise culprit in mystery TV shows fairly easily, so I guess I was a little cocky going in. But the real murderer(s) here really surprised me! The Redferns were literally the only people I genuinely didn't suspect of anything at all. Agatha Christie isn't called the best mystery writer of all time for nothing, I guess. XD I'm told that Evil Under the Sun isn't Christie's best work, so my mother has gleefully become my Christie dealer, and hooked me up with The Murder at the Vicarage and The Body in the Library.
My increasing friendliness towards Agatha Christie has certainly been helped by the fact that I've started watching the Poirot TV series starring David Suchet, which is fantastic. Suchet is now my one and only mental image of Poirot (the "flamboyant moustaches"! The way he walks!), and Hugh Fraser is oddly attractive as Hastings. I'm less than halfway through, but it's exactly the sort of episodic, fairly brain-lite thing that I enjoy, where I can watch an episode here and there and enjoy it, but I never risk falling into the "it's 3 AM and I need to be up at 6 but just one more episode WHAT ARE MY EMOTIONS DOING" trap. *cough*Babylon 5*cough* This is definitely a case of the actor making the show - Poirot is just so damned enjoyable to watch go about his work that stuff which might otherwise bother me (for example, the fact that Hastings can sometimes border on Jam Watson levels of stupid) just roll right off, and I can sit back and enjoy the glorious 30s-ness of it all. 'Course, given that pretty much the only contact with Christie I've had between eighth grade and now is that one episode of Doctor Who, so I keep half-expecting the Doctor and Donna to show up and fangirl over Poirot. But, alas, they never seem to...
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Date: 2014-02-23 11:16 am (UTC)But he's shown a certain preference for just hanging around and making out whenever we don't have definite plans to Do A Thing, which I've quickly found out, is actually pretty boring. IDK if I'm just not sufficiently attracted to him or what, but sometimes I just want to watch the damn movie, y'know?
Yeah, I can totally relate to that. It just gets boring after a while! I remember with my ex we'd be talking and then he'd want to make out and I'd be thinking "oh... I'd rather keep talking." I don't think it necessarily means you're insufficiently attracted to him, unless you never want to make out at all! (I think in my case I kind of was insufficiently attracted to my ex, though). Making plans seems like a good way to counteract it though.
I'm interested to hear what you thought of the third episode of Sherlock! I liked the first one and loved the second, but I do agree with you about the plot in the second one... it was really all about relationships, which isn't normal for Sherlock episodes. But it was funny and Sherlock showed his love for John and I just loved that!
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Date: 2014-02-25 08:09 am (UTC)Exactly! I'm glad to know it's not just me. :) Talking is just so much more interesting.
I liked the first one and loved the second
Ditto. I'm fully willing to admit that I loved the second episode because it was so atypical - like I said, I don't think the show would work if every episode was like that, but because Sherlock actually got to unabashedly praise John to the skies for frickin' once, I was basically one big puddle of schmoop by the end.
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Date: 2014-02-23 11:00 pm (UTC)I was still mentally calling them things like Vorevil, Vorboss, and Vorawesome
Haha, I think I remember that stage! But, yeah, minor spelling mistakes can totally be forgiven at this stage :) And that is totally a Tyrell rose on the envelope, and any Valentine's card that incorporates both ASOIAF and Vorkosigan Saga is perfectly awesome.
I'm glad to hear you guys are continuing to have fun together, but can also empathize with a lot of what you say about the "o lady love!" thing awkwardness. This especially:
he'll sometimes get this sort of stunned-bunny, almost worshipful look in his eyes that I am so very not ready to return, or even necessarily accept.
is something I found very awkward to deal with when it kept happening with a couple of guys who were definitely much more interested in me than I was in them, and there's just no elegant way to deal with it. But some people are just faster to that stage than others, I guess? And geeky guys seem preconditioned to want to play Prince Charming, I guess, without necessarily stopping to check whether the "o lady love!" performance is actually being appreciated :P But it sounds like R2 is quite well tuned into your actual preferences in other regards and pays a lot of attention, so hopefully the besottedness is something he will work through as the relationship goes on, or it will equalize, etc. -- that can definitely happen too, and did with me and B.
But he's shown a certain preference for just hanging around and making out whenever we don't have definite plans to Do A Thing, which I've quickly found out, is actually pretty boring. IDK if I'm just not sufficiently attracted to him or what, but sometimes I just want to watch the damn movie, y'know?
I don't think it's necessarily a lack of sufficient attraction or anything -- I find making out qua makind out pretty boring after only a little while, and, well, talking about geeky things is a much better way of getting to know someone than macking on them :P Your approach of planning things to do definitely seems sound to me, especially since it should harness his "do all the things" energies. (Dancing! I'm also a person who only dances at weddings, once, and B is the same way, but my parents really love dancing, and certainly look to be having a blast whenever they're dancing, whether it's at parties or at classes they've taken as empty-nesters.)
Your perfume rant was a lot of fun to read, especially:
(of course it doesn't have hard edges! It doesn't have edges of any kind! Once it's been applied, I don't think it exists above the molecular level!)
It sounds a lot like snooty writing about wine, actually, which I find similarly ridiculous -- but I think you're right that a lot of it is probably convention of trying to describe something that doesn't lend itself well to verbal description. The cupcakes and Victorian teaparties and undulating magic or whatever definitely one-ups the wine writing.
I haven't watched Sherlock s3 yet, but it definitely sounds like everyone likes the second episode best.
And, I like Agatha Christie's mysteries, though it's been a while since I read them -- I think my latest binge was something like 20 years ago.
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Date: 2014-02-25 08:38 am (UTC)My thoughts exactly - geeky *and* heartfelt Valentine's card? My life is so hard. *sigh*
And geeky guys seem preconditioned to want to play Prince Charming, I guess
Mmm, this sounds about right. It makes sense that guys who read a lot of genre fiction, where courtly love is still sometimes a thing (and big romantic gestures are DEFINITELY a thing), would internalize a lot of it, and apply it to IRL relationships.
I find making out qua makind out pretty boring after only a little while, and, well, talking about geeky things is a much better way of getting to know someone than macking on them :P
Just so. :) Glad to know I'm not alone in this! I always feel kinda bad for being so un-into it, since he so obviously is, but I admit I've discreetly checked my watch more than once.
I definitely hope that our varying levels of besottedness (hee, excellent turn of phrase) will equalize sooner rather than later - it's not like I have a problem with being adored on occasion (*preens*); it's just that I wish we were more consistently on the same page in this regard. But, hey, if it worked for you and B, it can work for us!
Your perfume rant was a lot of fun to read
Yay, glad I managed to come across as witty and frustrated (wittily frustrated?) rather than just, y'know, grumbling. XD I'm totally willing to admit that they've got a tough job in translating scent into words, but, really, "Magically evocative notes immediately awaken your deepest senses"?
I would have never made the wine writing connection on my own, but you're totally right! Since my father is a winemaker and all, I end up reading a fair amount of wine writing, but all I can ever come up with is "tastes like wine." XD BTW, Dave Barry wrote a column (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-08-24/features/1997236127_1_wine-country-grapes-tasting-wine) on wine writing that I absolutely love, especially because he coins the term Pretentious Phrase Room, which I'm fairly sure both perfume and wine has to pass through before going on the market.
I haven't watched Sherlock s3 yet
Although I was oddly underwhelmed by the 3rd episode and loved the 2nd for totally atypical reasons, I recommend it! Once it comes out on Redbox (or tumblr provides a convenient link, w/e), I'd love to get your thoughts on it, especially since the 3rd episode is based on The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton. Oh, and as I mentioned (and I'm sure as you've seen gif'ed about a zillion times), John gets to punch Sherlock in a very cathartic manner. ;)
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Date: 2014-02-26 09:33 pm (UTC)I have to say that you putting it that way makes me think that now is a very good time for you to be reading Komarr and A Civil Campaign. ;)
Ahaha, thank you for that Dave Barry link -- I can't remember if I've read it before or not, but it was hilarious to read regardless, especially "thinking of ways to make fermented grape juice sound more complex than nuclear physics". (And, yeah, I figured you'd been exposed to a lot of wine writing thanks to your dad, but I guess after a while it becomes normalized -- perfume writing probably will, too, ridiculous as it is...
I read hamsterwoman's comment about wine and...
Date: 2014-02-24 12:26 am (UTC)She's a PERFUME BLOGGER! He's a WINE SNOB! THEY MEET AND SHENANIGANS ENSUE.
Re: I read hamsterwoman's comment about wine and...
Date: 2014-02-25 08:10 am (UTC)(I would read and/or watch the shit out of this.)
Re: I read hamsterwoman's comment about wine and...
Date: 2014-02-28 05:07 am (UTC)It was kind of hilariously dramatic though.
Oh wait I found it. It was called "Drops of God" or "Kami no Shizuki." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/KamiNoShizuku?from=Main.DropsOfGod) Still don't know much about wine, but apparently, the author of the manga actually affected wine sales so much that Japanese wine-sellers started asking the author a month in advance what the next featured wine in the next chapter would be so they could stock up on it.
Re: I read hamsterwoman's comment about wine and...
Date: 2014-03-06 06:57 am (UTC)But, yeah, any manga/j-drama about wine-tasting (and wine-tasting contests with one's hated rival, apparently) must have been REALLY melodramatic (dare I say, whiney?) and awesome.
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Date: 2014-02-24 04:25 am (UTC)Re: your boy stories, I think your approach makes a helluva lot of sense! I totes approve of your "not rushing to be smitten by o-lady-love treatment" approach, and wholeheartedly approve of all the new activities. As Anna said, he just might be the type who gets to that stage fast as per his geekiness, and activities seem like a good way to balance it with actual getting-to-know each other.
tldr, I'm very happy you're having fun <3
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Date: 2014-02-25 08:51 am (UTC)Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is an online-only phenomenon - I don't think they could get away with this IRL!
It is delightful and you should post more about it :DD
Oh, believe me, I plan to! >:D Like, just today, I ran across this little gem: luxurious musk accords touched with the ambery warmth that makes these compositions melt beautifully on the skin... The chypric ambery facet of its composition is slightly reminiscent of Miss Dior Cherie, which was created by Christine Nagel, although in Narciso Rodriguez, the woody-musky ornamentation renders the effect to be more sophisticated and refined. The crisp sweetness embellished with citrus fruitiness gives way to the floral heart, dominated by orange blossom. Its sensual, yet innocent radiance serves as a perfect prelude to the woody drydown lit up by the vanilla and amber. Bathed in the voluptuous musky richness, the composition has a decadent feel of a silk dress ...Actually, Overheard On Perfume Blogs needs to become a thing, methinks.
(except amazon tells me an item most often bought together with Greenfield tea is Ukrainian Russian Cyrillic Keyboard Sticker With Yellow Lettering On Transparent Background For Desktop, Laptop And Notebook. WTF, Amazon?!)
...Wat.
I think your approach makes a helluva lot of sense!
Yay, glad this approach gets the Official K Stamp of Approval! :D You and Dn always seem to have such a solid relationship, so when people like you or Anna, both relationship veterans, approve, I know I'm doing something right.
activities seem like a good way to balance it with actual getting-to-know each other.
Yep, this is very much proving to be the case! It's kinda difficult to idealize someone when you're hiking/kayaking/alligator wrestling with them, and I'm pleased with the results so far.
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Date: 2014-02-25 11:25 am (UTC)I've been thinking about it after your post, and I think I remember reading similar stuff in Avon/Oriflame catalogues back in the day when they were circulating in my high school. It's the old-school equivalent of a web-site, to be fair, as something not exactly written on the box and therefore super-flowery.
LOL! perfect prelude to the woody drydown gives me ALL the inappropriate associations, ngl! #jokes sponsored by Dickon Manwoody
And you should totally start "Overheard On Perfume Blogs" as a sideblog or a regular newsfeed for us or something XD I'd totally sign up for it!
I'm weeping tears of hysterical laughter at being classified as a relationship veteral, jsyk XD I know you mean it well and all, it's just I'm so totally unromantic person it's a miracle I'm not a fuck-all bachelor XD (or the irony of the universe, if you want) But yeah, best of luck on the road of adjusting his Rose-colored spectacles (horrible pun intended, sorry! :D)
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Date: 2014-02-26 08:11 am (UTC)OMG, cannot unsee. And since "woody" shows up an awful lot in perfume reviews...you (and good ol' Dickon Manwoody, of course) just made every perfume review about ten thousand times better!
it's just I'm so totally unromantic person it's a miracle I'm not a fuck-all bachelor XD
No, that's exactly it! Like, I know you have exactly zero tolerance for bullshit, romantic or otherwise, so the Official K Stamp of Approval means that I'm *actually* doing something sensible, if that makes any kind of sense...
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Date: 2014-02-26 10:32 am (UTC)Oh, in this case, you are totally welcome to my Seal of Approval! *does her best to make seal noises*