Cleolinda everywhere

A Formspring question (yes, I do sometimes answer those still, although I have a backlog of 80+ now) that I don't know how to answer:

I don't usually get emotionally involved in fictional stories, but I have been strongly affected by the death of my favorite character. (The story is not Harry Potter, by the way.) How do I move on from this? I am feeling genuinely depressed about it.

I got really upset when Philip Pullman killed a character off in one of his series--but more because it seemed so incredibly senseless, and it was right the red hot second after a relationship had finally come to fruition. I didn't get depressed over it, though--I just refused to read the next book, because I was terrified (as a reader, I mean) what he might do next. I know people got upset over the Harry Potter deaths (MARK, YOU PROBABLY DON'T NEED TO READ THE COMMENTS), but--well, I'd already read the His Dark Materials trilogy Pullman also wrote, and all of these books together convinced me that he had no writerly mercy at all, and I just wasn't ready to put up with what he might do next. So maybe I'll go back and finish that series, I don't know. But it was genuinely I am afraid what he might do next rather than THAT WAS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER, GO TO ALL THE HELLS. So I don't really know how to answer the question of emotional investment. Thoughts?

(Yes, we can include the works of Joss Whedon.)

1) The United Airlines debacle: As of this writing, they have gotten in touch with evilpuppy, given her the number of a representative to call, and seem to be taking this seriously. I'll update you more fully once the dust settles on that; I'm in a wait-and-see mode at this point. Y'all's comments from yesterday are an eye-opener, though.

2) I posted Clash of the Titans in Fifteen Minutes on Sunday. I can't make icons at the moment, as I still haven't put anything spiffier than MS Paint on this computer.

3) I am still nominated for a thing! Voting seems to close on Thursday?

4) Speaking of Thursday, word on the street is that the U.S. Post Office intends to close at 5 pm, instead of staying open until midnight to let people get their taxes mailed out at the last minute. Be advised.

5) Made of Fail has a Formspring account! As do Kevin and Dayna individually! I have not answered questions on mine for a few days, but I've already answered 400, so I think I can take a little break!

5b) Please, guys, I love y'all, but don't ask me for psychiatric advice on Formspring. I'm not qualified. I can talk about my own experiences, but I really can't give out medical advice. All I'm going to be able to say is, "If you are concerned about this, you should talk to a doctor and/or therapist."

6) Speaking of Dayna, she sat through the New Moon porn "parody" and texted me through the whole thing, as you might have seen yesterday (NSFW). (With a special appearance by Kevin, who was on the phone with me on unrelated matters during the second half! "So I'm thinking it'll take a week to write that, these things... just... do... ... ... uh..." "Dayna texting you again?" "She says they miked... Rosalie." "Uh.") Also, I owe her five actual dollars now. (I was playing the odds, people!) The screencaps are safe for work, but the general conversation is graphic, crude, mind-scarring, and frequently devolves to "Ah," "Argh," and "Oh dear" on my part. The movie squicked Dayna, if that tells you anything.

Not much to say lately; I've been really tired, and actually feverish today. A lot of headaches related to the air pressure (fickle March weather).

I'm testing out Tumblr, because I figure I won't know if I want it until I try it. Basically, it seems to be like Twitter for pictures, which I like, and it's super easy to post the page you're on from your browser. Although I'm trying to restrain myself from posting every single pretty thing I know of, because I could probably post 100 entries a day at that rate. Basically, I'm posting jewelry, artwork, and a few dolls at this point, although any interesting landscape or movie-related picture I see will go up. (The Art Nouveau Disney princesses thing was pretty awesome.) I'm trying to keep the theme to "pretty things," so no Sexual Horrors of Etsy, thanks. It's my sparkly happy place.


Still answering Formspring questions, although I haven't gotten below 50 questions yet in terms of inbox backlog--I'm up to 359 answered. I haven't posted any new cross-posts from the back end, but I think the "view older answers" thing is working at the moment. Please, try to comment here on the answers rather than ask new "questions" just to make a comment. And don't ask "Have you seen [whatever]? I hope you like it," because that's clearly just trying to pimp something. Seriously, I've still got fifty questions to work through--and some of them are very thought-provoking, which is why they're hard.

(Also, a lot of the movie industry questions presume I have any clue what I'm talking about. I answered them the best I could.)

Actually, there are some questions I could use some help with--a few coming in are kind of heavy.

There's a girl at my school struggling with depression. I want to help her, but we're not close. What would you have wanted someone to do when you felt down? Do you have any depression awareness sites I could see?

Which seems like a delicate one to answer, so I don't know. Thoughts?


We will have a new Secret Life of Dolls at some point. I'm just having a hard time getting it to turn out well. This in the middle of, you know, research reading and footnote-writing. And I can't concentrate for shit. So... I'm doing the best I can.

More Formspring questions. Posted 3/9/10.


( Did people always think clowns were scary/creepy or is this a post 1970 development? )

More Formspring questions. Posted 3/9/10.


( So ... dreamed about Brad Pitt lately? )

Sister Girl will apparently be able to keep her finger, although she assures me it was "barely holding on." They gave her a digital block (apparently this is supposed to numb the entire finger?) but it... kind of didn't work, and she felt all four stitches. (They offered DermaBond as an alternative. That's right: they offered to glue my sister's finger back on.) The doctor (who, if he was an intern as she had feared, was the oldest one on record) asked if he should stop or try something else and she said, "NO JUST FINISH IT OKAY JUST FINISH IT I JUST WANT IT TO BE OVER." Then, they put a Band-Aid on her finger, which is really so useless that I feel like it must have been cosmetic, or maybe just to keep the stitches dry. She then entered an outpatient treatment program of Taco Bell and OxyContin, and will be off work a couple of days while she is painkillered up.

Meanwhile, I forgot to mention that there's a new Made of Fail podcast up with MarzGurl from That Guy With the Glasses. (Guys, am I supposed to be on the next one this month? I can't remember.)

Meanwhile-meanwhile, over at Formspring: 175 anonymous questions answered, 75 to go. It seems to be glitching, though, and won't show anything when you click "more." Maybe I'll copypaste the answers somewhere else periodically. They better come back, though, because that's like 150 answers lost if they don't.

Also, barring unforeseen circumstances, I will be liveblogging the Oscars tonight. My understanding is that, due to a TV affiliate dispute of some kind in New York, some channels will not be allowed to carry the Oscars. You will be able to watch them streaming live (in theory. Good luck with that) courtesy of the AP.