'Ere, he says he's not dead.*

[bending_sickle]

I suppose even if I say I've been meaning to post for the past week it doesn't detract from the fact that I haven't posted this whole year so far. It's not for want of things to say, either, just that time seems to have taken amphetamines and is working double-fast. So I'm going to try to catch up in the time-honoured fashion of bullet points.

Why Rome Is a Bad Place:

• On the mid-morning of December 31st, my mom was making her way back from the market with a few bags of vegetables walking down a main street near our house. It was a main street, yet, but it was also empty, this being New Year's Eve and all. From behind her, she heard a motorcycle. Moments later, her groceries flew up in the air and she fell forwards on her left side as A Complete and Utter Rat Bastard on a Motocrycle rushed past and grabbed at her purse, dragging her down the street for meters, twisting her around so she was dragged on her back and then on her other side and hit her head against a car bumper. Eventually he let her go and scooted off. A couple from Way Over There who'd seen the grocery bags fly rushed up to her and offered to take her to the hospital or chaperone her home, but she declined both counts. She came home very shaken up, though, and scatched up and bruised and everything. This whole thing is doubly scary because we know of cases of women dying from these bastards throwing them down. She's okay now, but all through that day and ever since she'll randomly flashback and spout out a cabrón (and fuck you, Wiktionary, it's as much a "term of endearment" in Mexico as saying "Hey, how's it goin', fuckwad?" is and your definitions suck ass and completely forget about Spain. Cabrones.)

Sickle's Daily Life:

• I can has job! Okay, so it's part-time and for a limited time at that (January to May) and at the Institute where I did my internship, but still. Job. I'm helping with the logistics of setting up a course for international diplomats, which means right now I'm making databases of names and addresses and other contact details, and then will be sending these people Beurocratic Chain Letters wherein we ask them to appoint other people or tell them we've told other people to ask other people and so forth. It's going alright, except my Google-Fu fails me soemtimes because not all embassies have the information I need (or maybe they do but not in a language I know). These two coming weeks, though, my supervisor's going to be away, which means we're all going to do our best not to flounder and drown without her (and flounder we might, because she's the Super Glue that keeps us together).


• Any day now, the proof copy of Time We Saw a Miracle is going to make its way through the US mail system and there will be joy and rejoicing. Well, maybe not, because it's going to my brother's address (so much safer than asking an American company to send something super special across the pond to Italy). Still, book.


• I've been working on the four (oh gods, four) fanmixes for Time We Saw a Miracle. I've got three with their songs pretty much narrowed down and in a decent enough order, which still amazes me because I had so many songs to wade through.


• I read The Red Tree by greygirlbeast (Caitlin R. Kiernan) this past week although "read" isn't the word so much as "avidly devoured".
  
  I was a tiny bit disappointed for all of two seconds when I discovered that the novel wasn't written in the wonderful run-on sentences of Threshold (because gods do I love that writing) but as I said, that lasted two seconds and then I was hooked and loving it.
  
  Oh, and I totally called The Thing About Constance, but that's okay because while I suspected it, I never really believed that's where it was going, so was still pleasantly surprised and still thoroughly enjoyed the slight paranoia I was sharing with Sara.
  
  I was not expecting the sex scenes or maybe it was just two details that stuck in my head and won't go away, involving sex toys, but either way, it fit.
  
  I was struck by a few details like the insomnia and the seizures where I could point to and say, hey, greygirlbeast's Real Life is poking though, and that was actually nice because I could draw upon all her descriptions of what she's gone through and understand it all the more. I also liked that a few details and scenes I could pick out from Threshold's universe-vault, or maybe it's just greygirlbeast's general universe details and I just haven't read enough of her work to know.
  
  Still, there were trilobites and paleontologists and Esther Matthews (this being the more obvious inter-universe link, because The Red Tree's Sara sends trilobites to Esther who is Threshold's Chance's grandmother), the suicide that happened before the start of the novel, the breaking and entering into dark tunnels with characters taunting the main character along, the main character in a horrible, dark, unnaturally cold tunnel, the main character finding another character naked and covered in mud or something similar in a dark tunnel with no idea of what happened, the string tied around trees to the Bad Place, mysterious dogs in the dark...
  
  In fact, let me find the passages for the more strking similarity between the two, where the main character is in a dark, wet, unnatural tunnel looking for another woman who's gotten lost:
  

  A noise behind Chance, then, noise like something damp and heavy, something vast and soft moving through the tunnel, and the sucking undertow squelch of water swirling down a drain; meaty, counterclockwise sound and she turns and shines the flashlight at the place she things it's coming from. But there's only Elise, standing a few feet away and squinting into the flashlight. She's naked, nothing against her skin but mud and tunnel slime, the chill air, and there are tears streaking her dirty face.
  
  - Threshold (2001)

  
  

  That's when I heard something behind me, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I almost screamed. I turned quickly around, expecting anything at all, but there was only Constance, standing a scant few yards away. She was naked, though almost every inch of her bare skin was smeraed with the ocher mud, a yellowish shade of ochre leached, I guess, from the minerals in the gneiss or granite.
  
  - The Red Tree (2009)

  
  In all, though, I really liked the book and greygirlbeast continues to be the one author who can make me cower under the blankets at night. And both Threshold and The Red Tree live up to the warnings they sprinkle in their pages:
  

  "Some stories don't have endings," she says. "In some stories, there aren't even answers."
  
  - Threshold (2001)

  
  

  "You won't like it," Andrea replied, wishing silently that she could go back to the quiet, undemanding moment before.
  
  "Isn't that for me to decide?" the whore asked.
  
  "It'll only leave you with more questions than answers," Andrea said. "And just when you think it's one thin, this story, it'll go and become something else entirely. It's fickle. It's a fickle story."
  
  - The Red Tree (2009)

Sickle Hits the Fandom:

• Grey's Anatomy is back, baby! There were happy couples and rapid-fire drama and sweet jambalaya Christina Yang I missed you. The characters made me happy, except Meredith who for the first time ever completely alienated me from her drama and made me say, "Good gods, woman, you're being petty and over-dramatic." But then Cally was all amazing, so it's all good.


• Castle was watched in the company of my mom, which meant a lot of pausing and recapping and explaining, but it's really nice to be able to watch a show with someone and squee.


• Supernatural is still absent from my life (especially considering I barely even have time to read fic or meta) but my wallpaper's a screencap of the Dean's promo bit, and when mom asked who it was, out came Google Images and parental approval. Seriously, that boy is too pretty.


• Human Target was Human Target again! \o/ Rejoice! Chance was his Big Damn Hero self, Guerrero was full-on BAMF for the first time this season (and oh, how I've missed the crazy little guy), Winston was fantastically snarky, (and I absolutely loved the Guerrero&Winston scenes). It felt like Season 1 again! Ilsa continued to be well-accepted into the mix whereas Ames was mostly incompetent and bikini-clad and incredibly whiny about the dress and goddamn it, I'm trying to give her a chance, I really am. [ETA: And I started of liking her right off the bat. Well, the character and her personality, not what the writers had her doing. I still like Ames-the-person, but ye gods, the writers don't know where to stick her in storylines.]
  
  I did have a few instances where I had to roll my eyes at the show. These included the Bare Foot Fiasco, where a) Ilsa being able to walk for miles through the rainforest in bare feet, b) niehter Ilsa nor Chance thought of taking the dead man's boots, c) neither Chance nor Ilsa were concerned that Ilsa had bare feet in a house with a nest of "the most poisonous spider in the world", and finally d) Ilsa flicking said poisonous spider away with her bare foot. Just, what the hell, writers?
  
  There's also the Unnecessary Moments and Phrases, such as a) Guerrero putting on Ames' thigh holster, considering Ames is probably more than capable of belting a holster about her thigh by herself and sweet gods there will be no sexual tension between Guerrero and Ames so help me the entire pantheon and also considering that the gun stayed in her holster all of like one foot in the Bad Guy Bar and therefore was a completely unnecessary detail, b) Chance wailing "My eyes!" as if the writers thought the audience had the intelligence of a frog inna blender and neaded the scene where Chance gets a Bad White Powder thrown into his eyes explained as A Bad Thing, which leads us to c) Chance being partially blinded and thus needing Ilsa as a guide, which was wholly unnecessary and not even used, just there, like the writer's just needed an excuse to get Chance to hang onto Ilsa.
  
  So yeah, Human Target was its usual crazy fun self with the blatant disregard for reality we all know and love and I clapped like a happy, happy seal.

Links of the Day:
Supernatural:
tartysuz's Review All Dogs Go to Heaven
callistosh65's Fic Ten New Year Re-soul-utions: As compiled and edited by Sam Winchester
moonlettuce's Fic They Still Don't Know Which One's Major Tom
cj_bot1's 2010 Fic Recs
mobiusklein's Fic Beyond Hypothermia
jennylynneh's Quote List Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Supernatural
elvisglasses5's The Park Bench Anthology, Vol. III - ♥! "A Dean/Castiel fic anthology selected (with the authors' and artist's permission) and designed to look like a book or literary journal. Can be printed like a booklet or viewed as single-page PDFs on a computer or e-reader."
secretlytodream's Fanvid On the Road
bevwa's Fanvid Stoic Last Stand
egsparks' Fanvid It's Only Fear
hellybongo's Fanvid The Noose
Violetpop's Fanvid Anyone's Ghost
Hasitall's GIFs 1x07 - Smiling Dean and Impala
E Online's Best TV Show of 2010 Winner

Doctor Who:
petronia's Review A Christmas Carol
chloris67's Review A Christmas Carol
hammard's Meta Pondering River's Future/Past Chronology
ladychi's Meta The Great Moffat v. Davies Debate: Explained and Analyzed Through Creative Comparison to Soda Cooperations
canterlevi's Fix It, Rec it, Pimp It Ten and Donna Fix-It Fics
tennant_love's embed Polar Bear Documentary (Narrated by David Tennant)
theweaselking's The Eleven Doctors Game
Blogtor Who's Top 10 Doctor Who Stories Episodes of 2010

Sherlock:
qthewetsprocket's pimpage of mycroftpoppins

Other Fandom:
Geek O'System's Actually, Mark Wahlberg might not ruin the Uncharted movie after all - Also, surprise Nathan Fillion ; Mad Men might actually be Firefly

Multifandom:
yumemisama's Why I Dislike Lady Gaga
prettybutt's Picspam Top 10 TV Characters of 2010
charmax's Meme Vidding in 2010
hpxlife's Icons - Supernatural, Leighton Meester, Gaspard Ulliel
exp0se's Icons - BtVS, Supernatural, The West Wing
TV Over Mind's Which show has the strongest online fandom? Science attempts to measure.

Random:
theuglyvolvo's Squeaks
cleolinda's Review The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ; Review The Hunger Games
ursulav's A gift of turkeys ; Restoring the vanished piedmont prairie ; First steps
greygirlbeast's 2010 in Dinosaur Paleontology ; These Things Happen - Rain of birds and death of fish
theweaselking's The argument: The "the law must apply equally to all persons" clause of the US constitution doesn't apply to women, because they're not people! The reason the argument makes news: Because it's a US Supreme Court Justice making it.
lucylou's Drawing December
alliancesjr's I had an interesting weekend - Engaged!
Neil Gaiman's Yes - Married!
Geek O'Systems' Homeless Man with a Golden Radio Voice [Video] ; Homeless Man with Radio Voice Offered Free House, Job with the Cleveland Cavaliers - ♥ Oh gods, that man makes me cry.
Edward Lear's A Book Of Nonesense
LA Times' Geraldine Hoff Doyle dies at 86 ; Inspiration behind famous wartime poster
MSNBC's A pill to prevent PTSD? It could happen, study hints
Kevin and Ursula Eat Cheap's Episode 17 - There's porn in Good Housekeeping, right?
Jackal House' For the Children I Will Never Have: The Facts of Life - ♥ "Some men are born boys, some are born girls. Some women are born girls, some are born boys. Some people are born neither boys nor girls. [...] When you grow up you can kiss men, or women, or both, or no one. When you are older you will figure out who you want to kiss. [...] As you can see, it’s really quite simple." Perfect.
Sun Times' Pete Postlethwaite (1946-2011) - *pours out the whiskey*
Wiki's List of Common Misconceptions
Very Good Taste's The Oral Pleasures of Chocolate
The Crime Library
Smitten Kitchen
Savage Chickens


* Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Comments

[lienne.livejournal.com]

psst, html

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

*fixes* *squishes*

[lienne.livejournal.com]

/so much squish! :D

[jennylynneh.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link luv. :)

Looks like we enjoy some of the same shows. If you do regular recaps, I might have to keep stopping by.

And, yes, the Guerrero-Ames/Cagney-Hepburn thing they are trying to do is a little creepy. I like my lecherous Guerrero without a regular weekly target and much more mysterious.

I did like the scene a few episodes back when he gave Ilsa the special paper to print her checks on -- the same paper the U.S. used to use at the Mint.

I love my comic book tv. :)

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome for the link - it was a please to read.

I don't know if anything I do can be counted on as "regular" (except the Links of the Day), but I do try to put in reviews when I can. Do feel free to pop by anytime!

I love the Winston&Guerrero scenes we've been getting, and I rather like seeing Ilsa be confused by Guerrero (like him refusing to sign anything, ever), but the Guerrero&Ames scenes seem so forced, or make Guerrero act so bizzaredly out of character, that I don't know how to react. (And he didn't even compliment her on the dress! How un-Guerrero!)

[jennylynneh.livejournal.com]

Winston-Guerrero has always been good. (May have to start re-watching first season tonight. ;) )

I loved when Guerrero came to the meeting late and said he could only stay for 5 minutes because he had someone waiting in the car...in the trunk. Also the time he was leaving at the end of an episode to meet the plumber and when it was pointed out that it was almost midnight, he said, "not a plumber, The Plumber.". His whole other life just cracks me up.

[seschat.livejournal.com]

Holy shit, that's awful! *wrings hands* I'm glad your mum's okay now, though :/// BUT GOD, what a fuckwad, indeed! D:<<<


A big YAY! on TWSaM and I still totally want a copy, too, I don't even care what you say. ♥ Also, so looking forward to your fanmixes! Although they can't be awesome as is the one I'm working on... heheh. >:D

*showers you with hearts* My lovely Sickle, I missed you so much!

[seschat.livejournal.com]

*facepalms at the grammar* Ignore iiit, ignore it all, ignore me. :'D

Oh, and also, JENSEN GETTING PARENTAL APPROVAL? SO MUCH WIN \o/ ahahah.

❤

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

I don't even know if I could get you a copy of TWSaM without putting it up for sale (which is a Very Bad Idea because of things like Copyright and therefore Not Going to Happen). I don't know if maybe another proof (non-free as the Nanowrimo code is only for one copy) can be ordered and I don't want to mess with the files until the proof book is sent and happy. I don't know, squishy. *hand waves* It's late, my brain's gone mushy.

*smishes*