every martyr in this jungle

I'm not the comedian in my social circle. As the enthusiastic magpie, my forte is effusive bursts of emotion on the esoteric subjects I know a ton about. To that end, I've spent many happy hours between Tumblr and the AO3 "preparing" for the third season of Sherlock. Meta, fic, art - my fannish life of the last two years consisted of little else.

( Which was exactly the problem when it came time for The Empty Hearse. )

Back in September, as my newspaper's resident Sherlock expert, I agreed to write episode recaps, which we try to make amusing (nothing TWoP-caliber, but not everyone wants to read a few thousand words on a single episode of their favorite show, either.) The formula works: While I watch neither Homeland nor Scandal, our synopses are often so amusing that I almost forget people die with some frequency on both shows. So it was with that goal to find humor that I approached my recap of The Empty Hearse - and realized what I've been doing wrong from the first scene.

Summarizing something forces you to focus on what's happening in the story, and only that, while being funny puts the drama in perspective. I learned to love the episode by setting aside two years' worth of emotional investment (which still needs a good catharsis - this is the closest I've come). Take things as they happen. Let the characters react in their own ways. Instead of allowing a scene totally jar me out of the story, take a deep breath to consider that the people who made it probably weren't intentionally setting out to fuck with their audience. Allow things to unravel as the writers intended instead of imposing limitations and requirements. I know you're all rolling your eyes, but as a journalist I'm trained to look ahead and anticipate what's next - but the effect is prejudicial in the real world, and joy-killing in entertainment. With that in mind, the episode actually turned out to be damn good, accomplishing everything it needed to without becoming maudlin. I'd give it a solid B+.

tl;dr Sometimes the characters serve the plot, and sometimes the plot is determined by character development - and both are valid storytelling approaches.

It feels like there hasn't been any new news for two weeks. Of course, this doesn't mean we didn't put out a paper, because the 24-hour news cycle doesn't need something worthy to happen to keep churning along as anyone who's watched cable news will tell you. But it did make for some long coffee breaks while we wondered what the hell the world has been up to, and the hilarity of a weeklong Miley Cyrus twerk binge morphing into whether we should retaliate for the chemical attacks in Syria.

Speaking of those long coffee breaks, a male colleague told us about a party where they played a game that involved everyone trading phones and having free rein for five minutes, and I can't imagine a more heinous way to spend five minutes. I don't want to know that much about anyone else, and vice versa.

Rewatched Order of the Phoenix today, and didn't remember the showdown in the Ministry for Magic being that underwhelming. However, this was only my second time watching this movie, since of all of them it was the worst offender in terms of omissions.

Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Frappucino: An A+ way to tide your cravings over until the weather turns cold enough for lattes.

There will come a time when my life isn't all Nicki Minaj all the time, but this week was not it. Now if you'll excuse me, my pumpkin coffee and I are going back to scrolling through all the beautiful pictures of Cumberskittles at the Toronto Film Festival (speaking of him, ICYMI, there's now glorious footage of the Star Trek Neutron Cream prank.)

I have a VividCon recap in me. At the very least, I have half a Moleskine notebook's worth of amazing panels that tried very hard to shellack a veneer of technical competence onto my raw enthusiasm. But writing it all down would feel like letting it go, sort of? At least that's how getting words out of my head and onto a page works for me. But it will happen! Just as soon as I'm not constantly refreshing Twitter for Sherlock filming photos, half-storyboarding a vid idea before being seized by another one, and trying very hard to hold back the tide of SGA feels from out of nowhere. It's been a busy couple weeks.

One of the few perks of journalism is the occasional free samples distributed around the office. This week, I discovered Salt of the Earth chocolate chip cookies, which besides featuring sea salt use chocolate sheets instead of chips, creating a more predictable taste experience. Recommend!

Speaking of work-related perks, I got to do a cool thing last Friday! Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, unjustly headlined by Robin Thicke (who is a 20-year veteran of lounge singing who suddenly has a massive pop hit on his hands - and nothing else to play for the rest of a 45-minute show) played a small concert in Manhattan before the VMAs. In no small part because of bradcpu's Thrift Shop vid and several fun remakes of Blurred Lines mean that I jumped at the chance to go. Macklemore is, for lack of a better word, adorable (as much as a rapper can be) and literally stepped onto the hands of the crowd during Can't Hold Us (it's all in my official review.)

Yes, I watched the *NSYNC reunion at the VMAs, and just want to say that if you're receiving a lifetime achievement award, and acknowledge that half the accolades of your career were a group effort, then your group should get half the spotlight during your acceptance performance. Otherwise, looking good, boys.

But the REAL news this week was finally finding competent Chinese food - and it's literally around the corner. Pic Up Stix was recently upgraded from a restaurant grade of C to A, and we decided to reward good behavior by getting lunch. Not at all bad, with the impressive feat of a sweet&sour sauce that was neither noxiously sweet nor electric orange.

And then we spoiled our meal with a string of terrible James Spader '80s movies (don't watch Tuff Turf, it's not worth it even for barely legal RDJ.) Though it's a blessing for all other men in the '80s that Spader didn't cultivate his charm until sometime after he chopped off his foofy blond hair, otherwise none of them would've gotten laid the whole decade.

My new job began this week, but I use that sentence lightly. Getting used to the new 11:30am start time has been the hardest part, as half the editors I'll be working with were either still doing their old newsroom jobs or just started in their Weekend Edition capacity, so there was no actual copy. Basically, I spent a leisurely week pretending to publish my own newspaper, editing and designing a 24-page section. There were stories about the Chinese converting 'night soil' into biogas and the French left gloating about the current financial crisis and dead mothers coming out for hurricanes. It was an entertaining but overall depressing exercise, like reading the news tends to be these days.

But mostly, any free time I've had the past month or so went into the abyss that is the Twilight series. Should anyone feel the need to find out what the teenies are going crazy for this season, ask me about it. I've read all four books, seen all the trailers and have promotional photos. Also, very complex feelings, most of them some variation of [blech]. The first book was fun, actually - if you like high school romance and vampires, but also have a high tolerance for repetition and stupidity like prismatic skin and basing relationships on the way your significant other smells - but the rest is just insufferably stupid without any emotional payoff. Also, the series enshrines codependent, abusive relationships, not to mention that Bella's only characteristic is that she loves Edward - no hobbies, no friends, no motivation other than being with him. All of which, of course, begs the question of why I'm still here: pretty icons, the promise of incestuous bloodplay fic (still searching for that), and Robert Pattinson's magical hair.

Other things I've been doing:

- Smiling randomly that Lance is on Dancing with the Stars
- Cheering on the Tampa Bay Rays, as Brandon is a St. Petersburg native. One of the photo editors, Mike, is from Tampa, so we've been exchanging gossip and shaking off losses and sharing "Whoo, World Series!" fist bumps
- Mainlining 30 Rock
- Learning keyboard shortcuts for everything
- Counterbalancing my love for Winston with the worthless brick of an iPod that Apple sent for my birthday
- Partaking of the zombie silliness in World of Warcraft. Also, discovered shamans, possibly never going back
- Drinking lots of tea because my mom handed off TWO giant tubs of biscotti to us in Europe
- Shaking my head. The barista Alison spoke with about getting a piece of pumpkin bread for our Dubai road trip two weeks ago shook her head and said, "Pumpkin season is not until January!" [dies]
- Playing Rock Band again. Short story: A dear friend, at all of 25 years old, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma back in July, and he's been getting treatment in New York. It didn't start well, but he finished chemotherapy with two fewer rounds than expected and is in total remission. His plane back to the 'Dhab landed on Thursday and by that evening we had gotten the band back together. It's so fucking good to see him again.

( You don't want me to do the controversial meme. ) Obama's got a lot to fix, but I've got more confidence in him than a warmongering coffindodger and his ignorant pandering sidekick.

Tonight's bit of hilarity: The deputy desk editors looked at me (and, it should be noted, the paper's deputy editor, a former New York Times writer) as though we were illiterate at the suggestion of acclimation. It seems Brits and Australians exclusively use acclimatisation (yes, with an S - it's been a grammatical rollercoaster since we've stepped off the plane).

I'm falling asleep at my desk because after packing for the past two days, we moved all of our this-side-of-the-worldly belongings into the new apartment over three hours this morning. For dinner, I wanted Cosi, because they serve coffee instead of just Nescafe like every traditional restaurant in the area (does Islam frown on caffeine too?) But upon calling, I'm kindly informed that "we don't deliver today." Huh? That's not even comprehensible to me.

Also, the abominable security woman at the front desk made me put my purse through the X-ray machine again today, after laying off a couple weeks into our starting work. It's not the time but the principle of the thing - what reason would I possibly have to jeopardize my job? Why haven't I done it, say, before the launch of the paper if sabotage was my intention? If she does it again I'm pitching a fit. Grr!

I'm about to go sleep the sleep of one who stayed up for the day's first call to prayer, but there was no way we were leaving the makeshift printing hangar without getting a copy of the very first edition of The National.



Yeah, slightly blue, but it's Volume 1, Issue 1! We're finally official! None of us left our seats tonight despite a lighter-than-normal workload because suddenly, after three months of putting out what felt like a college paper with minimal responsibility for the end result, the whole world would see today's edition. Despite standing in heels for four hours, two paper jams and much doubt, we launched a newspaper. I'm not sure anyone will ever get to do that again.

[ETA: Check out the video on CNN.com: Arab answer to The New York Times? In the teaser shot, Mike is in the foreground with my hubby just behind him!]

The editor in chief just announced he's presenting our baby to advertisers tomorrow at the Emirates Palace Hotel, and all indications are that we'll barely get any copy onto the pages from all the interest. I'd so love to be there, to see the prototype up on a gigantic projection screen and have someone who hasn't been cooped up in our cold, dark hovel slaving over it for months say it's awesome, too. Alas, we have to work, but it's really happening. The press has arrived (after buying it from a Russian paper behind schedule and commissioning the world's largest cargo plane to get it here, if rumors are true) and a building risen around it (that five-story structure was definitely not there about a week ago), so it's finally real. I can't wait.

I turned 25 on the 30th, an experience best left as low-key as it was; there's no joy in being able to measure one's lifespan in terms of a century. My father and aunt came through town for a whirlwind lunch at Olive Garden on the 1st, leaving Godiva chocolate and some wicked good nutty mini croissants in their wake. My mom spent the past weekend up here, shopping on Saturday (have you ever bought something off the rack that was meant for you? TWICE) with dinner at Texas de Brazil Churrascaria (the garlic sirloin was dreamy, though really, if you're going to have men with large knives and skewered meat walking all around, take away their shirt privileges) and ( Universal Studios on Sunday. )

Workwise, I haven't not wanted to go into the office as much as today in a long time - my co-crime reporter quit two weeks ago, conveniently right after being out for a month for surgery, and the reporter who mentored me and commiserated about the fact that one of our direct supervisors actually uses the phrase "I'm gonna need you to go ahead and..." has switched offices because he hated being stuck with higher education (after BOTH our education reporters left, with no replacements planned) and now works out of our Winter Haven bureau. I may have cried a little watching him pack up his stuff Wednesday night. Oh, and they switched my weekends to Saturday/Sunday a couple weeks ago to keep the cops shift covered with overtime, so I now see flatword for an hour before work, for a half-hour dinner if we can get out, and about two hours afterward until I inevitably fall asleep on the sofa. Let me tell you how well that's working out for us.

( But then... )

Otherwise, Brandon plays a lot of Halo 3, I play a lot of Warcraft, and we respectively try to make time for reading and ( TV. )

Oh, and how did the Defuser win Who Wants to Be a Superhero? Hyperstrike must've kicked a puppy or something in the last episode.

Ousted Largo City Manager Steve Stanton has re-emerged as Susan Ashley Stanton - Susan for the name his mother would have chosen for a girl, and Ashley because he's "never met an Ashley who wasn't sweet and kind."

Whether or not the people who knew him as Steve Stanton support his decision, I hope Susan gets the chance she's wanted for people to know her.