Cleolinda everywhere

Mom has texted to say that Grandma's brain tumorectomy went well: "She's already talking to the doctor. She says she has a headache--imagine that!" Indeed. Also: whew.

(Update: now she says that Grandma told them to go ahead and shave her entire head rather than just the pertinent area. Since she's always been very dainty about her hair, this is both kind of sad and kind of amazing. Mom suggest that we help her find some stylish turbans.)

What I have taken away from this and foresthouse's eye surgery is that American healthcare is excellent... if you can afford it.

Of course, it was four hours before we knew if it would be okay, so I looked around for ways to distract myself.

( NUKE THE SITE FROM ORBIT #itstheonlywaytobesure )


Meanwhile, I have Thoughts on the Marie Claire brouhaha, but I think I should post those in a separate entry. If you haven't heard about it yet, well... you're about to.

My favorite month of the year! All the fun of Christmas and my birthday, but none of the emotional baggage!

@cleolinda: YOU GUYS. I might leave the house TWICE this weekend. #omg




Meanwhile, this happened:

@cleolinda: He would be eaten on sight. RT @erincragg: @cleolinda i would love if you included this in secret life of dolls http://bit.ly/bnQzQt

@queenanthai: @cleolinda TLE: "I WANT TO FEEL SHAME BUT I JUST CAN'T."

@cleolinda: @queenanthai My understanding is that Bieber hits on aaaaaall the ladies. An e-friend of mine was like, "Um, no, you're eight."

@cleolinda: @queenanthai So you can imagine how long a Bieber doll would last on a shelf full of jealous male dolls. "Tender, like veal!"

@cleolinda: People are now offering to send me a Justin Bieber doll solely to feed to the Edwards.

@queenanthai: @cleolinda I love that context does not help your tweets. YOU ARE LIVING AN AWESOME LIFE.

Linkspam! ( Read more... )

I am waiting for a professional do you like me yes/no/maybe check one answer right now, and I am not doing a very good job of not driving my friends and family crazy with my Eeyore stoicism and nervous upset stomach. I have also broken out with strange rosacea-like blargh across my cheeks, because my body likes to think of new and interesting ways to rebel every time I intellectually compartmentalize anxiety and pretend it's not there, but this is still better than that GIGANTIC HEINOUS FEVER BLISTER I got on my lip when Mom went into surgery. (Anxiety I calmly refuse to acknowledge has, over the years, also chosen to express itself as dizzy spells, blood pressure spikes, severe fatigue, nausea, facial blemishes, and, on occasion, boils. I am hoping none of the other plagues of Egypt show up.)

Meanwhile! As I am waiting! We have many things to discuss.

My sister has a new cat, and his name is Jackson. (ETA: My sister does not have a new cat here.) ( picture )

There is a new Made of Fail episode up.

Also, a Help Pakistan fandom auction (I heard something to the effect that 20% of the country is underwater?).

Mark is now three chapters into Order of the Phoenix.

Stephen Fry is... on his way to Mobile, Alabama? I don't even know.

Entertainment linkspam! Man, it's nice when I can keep reasonably on top of this stuff and not spam you with a Wall o' Text. ( In which things get scary IRL )

More Formspring questions. Posted 3/9/10.


( Did you ever go through a goth phase? )

Okay, I think we need to have a little night linkspam. I admit, these are cherry-picked from my Twitter page (which you can read whether you're on Twitter or not), but I'm still trying to get back on my feet and/or normal work schedule. I also have a more expansive raw linkspam feed from my Google Reader on FriendFeed. (I've always had that, in fact.) So you see, the thing is, I'm reading the news; I just haven't been posting it all here as a list. Which I should, because it's fun. I'm just... tired and out of sorts, and have been for a long time now.

Short version: Yes, I heard about the dippy Twilight fan and/or brilliant troll who thinks that The Wolfman ripped off New Moon.

Short version ETA: Yes, I heard about the handmade emo-scented Twilight vulva soap. No, I'm not linking to it. Y'all a bunch of handcrafty trolls over there at Etsy, for real.

Long version: ( Read more... ) 

Very tired--like, "sleepy" tired, not "verge of a nervous breakdown" tired. Maybe it's just because there's been a lot of holiday-related running-around lately, which is fun. And I've been eating out more, which means I'm drinking soda, which means I'm getting more caffeine than I should, which means I'm not sleeping very well at night. All I know is, a friend called yesterday and thought something was seriously wrong, because I sounded completely out of it. I woke up a bit late and didn't take my meds on time this morning, so now I have a headache, etc., which I'm hoping will go away by the time I go out to the Christmas swap party tonight. Speaking of which, I am still trying to find my boots (just short black boots to wear under my jeans, nothing huge), because I would really like to wear those. Also, I have very nearly talked myself into wearing a dark blue top with crocheted sleeves that are a bit... princessy. Eh, I will claim they are "festive."

First, a few Avatar links, since that's what the last entry was about. And thanks for such a civil and thoughtful discussion over on the Avatar entry. It took 360 comments for someone hostile to finally show up and inform me that I am a prejudiced, touchy-feely liberal. After the all-time high of cleoloindaisgay, this was a fairly disappointing flame.

James Cameron Reveals His Quest to Build More Perfect CGI Boobs. Unfortunately, I read this before I saw the movie, so I spent the whole thing staring at Neytiri's goods, curious to see if such a paradox as a CGI nip slip could possibly occur. 

EW on Avatar: Does story matter? "Titanic is Shakespeare compared to Avatar." ICE BURRRRRRN.

James Cameron Planning 'Avatar' Trilogy, Director Tells MTV News. Yeah, I told you.

‘Avatar’ could get nine Oscar nominations. I don't know if I'm just more mature mellow as a person now than I was circa Titanic, but I think I would manage not to claw my eyes out if it won something huge. I don't know--maybe my Zoe Saldana love is helping me hold on.

The "Moff's Law" link going around: RT @ebertchicago To people who say "Just enjoy! Don't analyze!" This speaks eloquently for me: http://j.mp/4XAkBR.

Meanwhile (alert alert alert): today's 50% off sale at Aromaleigh is the Eye Lustres section ( Quick reviews of the ones I like )

Speaking of color: Colorstrology. Something about birthdays and colors and Pantone sponsorship, I don't know, but it's interesting. December's color is Pagoda Blue, and the 14th turned out to be Green-Blue Slate: "Complex, quick-witted, expressive." "You are expressive and funny and people like it when you entertain them" in particular made me laugh. DANCE, HUMOR MONKEY!


Speaking of which, I am so behind on Secret Life. Oh God. The Christmas/catchup installment looks like it's going to be in three parts now. Dammit.

So. Tired in a very lazy, self-indulgent way. I don't know if it's the holidays or the birthdays or what, but I've got to get over this dragginess--however pleasant it might be at the moment--at some point. I am, however, going to see Avatar on Sunday, and am working on some kind of zen meditation to rope off my EXTREME WEARINESS of the hype I've been hearing for an actual, literal year about how this will CHANGE THE WAY MOVIES ARE MADE. I don't know which way they mean, but if involves 3-D becoming the standard movie format I'm going to be pissed off, because it gives me headaches like whoa, and keep in mind that I have to balance those damn glasses on top of my real ones. I'm afraid to ask what other ways they might mean, because so far, "Huge effects spectacle with an overly familiar story and clichéd dialogue," "The nation divided into warring tribes of Fanboys and Haters," and "Would you like fries with your topless Neytiri figure?" kind of seem like business as usual.

@cleolinda: RT @flickchart: Director Michael Mann said of AVATAR: "There's before this movie, and after this movie."

@cleolinda: RT @flickchart: Spielberg quoted on AVATAR: "The last time I came out of a movie feeling that way was the first time I saw Star Wars."

@cleolinda: People, you realize now that I'm not going to be impressed unless Avatar delivers orgasms AND hot fudge sundaes. Knock it off.

@cleolinda: @jamevph The only thing more obnoxious than the hype would be if the movie actually turned out to be that good.

@cleolinda: @gorgeousnerd Oh, I mean, I'm going on Sunday, and I'm going to try to be zen about it and set all of that aside.

@cleolinda: Although I do wonder--"Doomed romance on the Titanic" is an easy sell. "Giant blue cat people do... something," I don't know.

@cleolinda: It could be the Second Coming, but I don't know how well it might actually do. Interesting to see how it shakes out.

@lilithsaintcrow: @cleolinda "Giant blue cat-love on the doomed Titanic! It's a sure thing!"

@cleolinda: @lilithsaintcrow Aw, man, giant blue cat-love screeching in the back of a Model T, do not want.

Then, from gfrancie: I Hate James Cameron, but I Love His Movies. Yeah... that's probably going to be me Sunday afternoon, after I recover from my 3-D headache. I will hate myself for liking it after being battered with hype for TWELVE SOLID MONTHS, but I also feel like it's intellectually dishonest to blindly hate something just for the sake of hating it. Meanwhile, I don't even know if there will be anything Not to Be Spoken Of, but I wouldn't count on it. Also, I'm still not sure if The Lovely Emily and her husband were kidding about painting their faces blue or not.



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Been having a really hard time the last few days. Don't even really want to talk about it, although suffice it to say that it's not just me feeling pitiful, it's me actually trying not to get sucked into a number of different people's dramaz and not entirely succeeding. I'm trying to space the entries several days apart, but if The Secret Life of Dolls seems to move at a brisk pace over the next week or so, it's because I find working on that to be both comforting and distracting.

Linkspam--before we get into the grim stuff: ICE CREAM DEATHMATCH! If you'll excuse me, I have a container of Heavenly Hash I want to crawl into now.

( Three deaths to start out with )

BREAKING: David Carradine Found Dead in Bangkok; David Carradine, Actor, Is Dead at 72.

Fantasy Author David Eddings Has Died.

( Read more... )

A few things:

I think I gave the wrong impression when I talked about my closet the other day--it's not Confessions of a Shopaholic up in there; it's filled with fifteen (or more) years of cheap junk. The "purses and handbags" are, like, $20 woven satchels or totes from a couple of local places, not $1500 Prada bags or something. And I have a habit of stashing away old odds and ends--the scarf nobody wanted, the ribbons from opened gifts or old dresses, the old green vase cluttering up the kitchen counter, the beads from the necklace that broke--and so most of the accumulated stuff didn't even cost me anything. And many of the "boxes of clippings" are shoeboxes, not gigantic crates or anything. The list was more of an exercise in "Wow, when you put it in words like that, I really do have a lot of ancient and pointless crap I could stand to get rid of," not "Look at my decadent materialism!"

However, if you were interested in the historical costume coloring books, they are from Bellerophon Books and roughly $5 each.

Re: Yesterday's Secret Life: The rocking chair (sitting unheralded in the back of one of the pictures) was one of the smaller reader gift/mail items that I've been holding onto until I can work them in. Also, I don't know why Anna's arm kind of looks jaundiced in the picture. Also-also: two icons!

(I TOLD YOU GUYS The Littlest Edward was tiny, didn't I?)

( Catchup linkspam! )