I woke up to the news that Alan Rickman was dead. Ian had messaged me as I slept, and it was a shock when I looked at my social media and saw the dozens of well-wishes and condolences. Immediately, I went into denial. No, Alan Rickman was not dead–how could he be? How could my one true love* be dead? I read link after link, but it still seemed surreal. He had been fighting cancer–fuck cancer, by the way–and today, he lost that fight. Once I accepted it was true (on the surface, I don’t think I’ve fully accepted it yet), I cried. Full-on cried. I have had a crush on Alan Rickman for such a long time, and even though I knew he was older than I by twenty-five years, I had hoped that he’d be with us for many years to come.
I am not one to crush out on celebrities. Don’t get me wrong. I think there are hot actors such as Kate Winslet, Gina Torres, Helen Mirren, Ewan McGregor, Daniel Dae Lewis, and Idris Elba to name a few. I’ve drooled over Christina Hendricks and Salma Hayek and Michael Fassbender, not to mention (please, I’d really prefer you didn’t) all those carefully-tressed hair metal bands of the eighties. But, I’ve never cared much about them in real life, not to be rude about it. I’d read about them and be interested in what they have to say, but mostly, I just enjoyed looking at them and watching them/listening to them do their thing. Alan Rickman was different, for whatever reason. The first thing I really noticed him in was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (though I was first attracted to Jason Isaacs, as you can see in this review. Please also note that even that early, I was pretty sure Snape was a good guy, and, yes, I’m tooting my own horn), even though I’d seen him before–including in the first Potter movie. He’s not typically handsome, and appreciating him takes time. There’s something about viewing the movie more than once, especially the scene in which he’s spelling that ponce played by Kenneth Branagh, that made me hot for him. It’s weird because he had that goofy wig on, but something about the voice and the masterful way he wielded his wand made me instantly smitten with him. Just below is a video with all his scenes from the movie, which is the way I watch a lot of his movies, tbh. He’s been in many shitty movies, but he’s always tackled each role with gusto and verve.
Hello. In my last entry, in addition to posting the pics of me as Miss Indy Pedant, the foul-mouthed fifties housewife, I teased that I had been mulling something over for the past month or two. I said, “Hey, watch this space for a kinda big announcement. It’s coming. It’s gonna be (kinda) BIG. Really, I mean it.”