So Not Impressed

I don't know what's in the air, but I am currently dying of allergies. I need to make a sling so I can more easily carry the tissue box with me wherever I go. That kind of killed my productivity yesterday, but I think my subconscious was hard at work. I came up with an idea that I think will really add a level of tension to the plot, but I need to think more coherently to be able to figure out exactly how to use it. (Achoo!) Then last night as I was lying on the sofa in a Benadryl haze, watching Olympic diving, I realized that I'd left out a very important scene. It was one of those "steps in a plan" scenes where we'd already seen them carry out a similar step, so I'd figured that we knew how the pattern worked and didn't need to see it repeated, so it could take place off-stage. But then I realized that there are all kinds of ramifications to this particular one, so that doing this step would be a big decision. And, really, that same thing applies to all the other steps, just not as intensely. I need to think more about this. If I could stop sneezing for a few minutes. (Achoo!)

I'm kind of glad that the Olympics are drawing to a close. I remember watching them obsessively, but I can barely get into it this year. I can blame the Internet in part because I can find out who won early in the day, and if it doesn't sound like something I want to watch, I don't watch it. When I do watch, mostly the gymnastics and whatever they have on the same nights, the broadcasts are so painfully bad. Most of the announcers are inane, and the camera work is insane. Like with the gymnastics, where the competition is about what they do with their whole bodies, and for some strange reason, they just zoom in so tight on their faces that they're practically giving them an endoscopy. "And now that we've verified that the gymnast has no nasal polyps, she'll do her final tumbling pass." They did the same thing with the diving I was watching last night. The diver would be pressing to a handstand on the edge of a platform 10 meters above the water, which is an impressive feat, and instead of showing the diver's whole body while doing this, they're zooming in on her face, which tells us nothing. Really, NBC, I take it as a given that someone competing in the Olympics is focused and determined and fierce or whatever it is you think this shot is showing me. But this is an athletic competition, not a nose-hair grooming competition, so show more than a tight close-up on the face. Not to mention the fact that they seem to have written their scripts for their coverage well before the events and they have trouble straying from those scripts even when the events don't go that way. It's like, "We're going to show you everything this one person who was supposed to win does, and oh yeah, by the way, this other person we barely bothered to show you actually won the event." Since the prime-time coverage is tape-delayed, there's no excuse for not being able to present what actually happened.

I can already tell you, McKayla is not impressed. In case you haven't seen this meme, American gymnast McKayla Maroney was supposed to win the vault but had a bad performance and was seriously pissed-off at herself when she got the silver. A photographer caught a rather unfortunate facial expression. And it went viral, with a very unimpressed McKayla superimposed on all sorts of amazing (or not) things. I would consider it kind of mean because I know what it means to have the kind of facial expressions that show up looking evil when photographed. Most candid photos of me look like I'm about to cut a bitch. However, she seems to be taking it with a sense of humor and is having fun with it, even Tweeting her favorites. I was thinking about making a new LiveJournal icon with it, but my photo editing skills aren't that good and I don't have good software for it, so I thought I'd go searching to see if someone else had already done it. Bad idea. LiveJournal is difficult to search, and you never know what you'll find. Like, say, real-person slash stories about the women's gymnastics team getting it on with each other. And now I need a gallon of brain bleach. I'm pretty sure McKayla would not be impressed.

Now to go lie on the sofa in a Benadryl haze with my tissue box at hand and see if my subconscious can solve all my book problems for me. Achoo!