Right Back Where We Started From....
Hello, Friends!
I thought I'd attempt to post when I am not a ranting crazy person. Let's see how long that last for.
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the premiere of The O.C. There's been a lot of pop-culture buzz about it, and it certainly was a game changer in a lot of ways, but the craziest part of it is realizing that, honestly, I need to send Josh Schwartz a cake or something.
Who knew, when I set up my VCR to tape the pilot episode -- because I loved Adam Brody as Lane's talky secret boyfriend on The Gilmore Girls, because the kid from Chino looked vaguely like a young Russell Crowe in the ads -- that it would, literally and figuratively, change my whole life, and more than once.
Ten years ago, I had just moved into an apartment in The Green Countrie Towne, where I was licking my wounds and attempting to pick up the pieces after everything that happened on September 11, 2001. I had spent a couple years in limbo, my stuff in storage, my workplace in ruins, living with my parents and driving 2+ hours in each direction to a temporary office in New Jersey. I never did fully unpack in that apartment. Everything in my life was unsettled. I watched the pilot after my night shift and fell asleep halfway through. I almost deleted it, but something made me watch again, the next day, over lunch before work and I was hooked.
The O.C. didn't introduce me to the Internet -- an overnight shift with hours of dead time, an office PC with a T1 connection and the Buffy Cross & Stake did that -- but it made the Internet my home. I can't believe that I've known some of you now for over 10 years! My Internet friends became my IRL friends, became some of my closest friends, became a part of my family.
I've been lucky enough to meet some of you in real life. Others, even some I call close friends, still only exist on the Internet, or mostly on the Internet. I've held your kids and met your spouses and significant others. I've attended your weddings and celebrated the births of children and mourned the deaths of parents and friends. I have, over and over again in my hour of need, been graced with the most wonderful and understanding virtual ears, wise words and deep and profound compassion, and have felt a part of something so much bigger than myself.
I moved across the country, thanks to the O.C. I've made friends, I've gotten jobs, I've stayed in people's houses and they in mine. I've been given an amazing community that, in a most lovely way, mirrors the thing that brought most of us to the O.C. in the first place: the idea that family is what you make it, that families of choice are the ones who give us our real homes.
This past week, my Internet family reached out and reminded me that is still true, that I'm not alone, that the world is filled with love and joy and such compassion that it is breathtaking.
And if LJ is not the place we gather all the time anymore (Although, as wearemany noted, it's still a necessary third space between too many family members and IRL friends and colleagues on Twitter and Facebook and my "real" blog and the casual acquaintances of Tumblr and other fansites), it's still my spiritual home, still the place that holds all those virtual memories and real-life faces.
So thank you, Josh Schwartz -- despite Marissa, despite what you did to Trey, despite Ryan's righteous streak, despite Seth's whiny self-absorption, despite Jimmy Cooper the Worst Father in the World and dumb stripper plots and dumber pregnancy plots and the Chino filter of despair -- thank you for creating a world that brought us all together, that gave me a second home, that made my life so much richer and more complete.
Thank you for my Family of Choice.
I thought I'd attempt to post when I am not a ranting crazy person. Let's see how long that last for.
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the premiere of The O.C. There's been a lot of pop-culture buzz about it, and it certainly was a game changer in a lot of ways, but the craziest part of it is realizing that, honestly, I need to send Josh Schwartz a cake or something.
Who knew, when I set up my VCR to tape the pilot episode -- because I loved Adam Brody as Lane's talky secret boyfriend on The Gilmore Girls, because the kid from Chino looked vaguely like a young Russell Crowe in the ads -- that it would, literally and figuratively, change my whole life, and more than once.
Ten years ago, I had just moved into an apartment in The Green Countrie Towne, where I was licking my wounds and attempting to pick up the pieces after everything that happened on September 11, 2001. I had spent a couple years in limbo, my stuff in storage, my workplace in ruins, living with my parents and driving 2+ hours in each direction to a temporary office in New Jersey. I never did fully unpack in that apartment. Everything in my life was unsettled. I watched the pilot after my night shift and fell asleep halfway through. I almost deleted it, but something made me watch again, the next day, over lunch before work and I was hooked.
The O.C. didn't introduce me to the Internet -- an overnight shift with hours of dead time, an office PC with a T1 connection and the Buffy Cross & Stake did that -- but it made the Internet my home. I can't believe that I've known some of you now for over 10 years! My Internet friends became my IRL friends, became some of my closest friends, became a part of my family.
I've been lucky enough to meet some of you in real life. Others, even some I call close friends, still only exist on the Internet, or mostly on the Internet. I've held your kids and met your spouses and significant others. I've attended your weddings and celebrated the births of children and mourned the deaths of parents and friends. I have, over and over again in my hour of need, been graced with the most wonderful and understanding virtual ears, wise words and deep and profound compassion, and have felt a part of something so much bigger than myself.
I moved across the country, thanks to the O.C. I've made friends, I've gotten jobs, I've stayed in people's houses and they in mine. I've been given an amazing community that, in a most lovely way, mirrors the thing that brought most of us to the O.C. in the first place: the idea that family is what you make it, that families of choice are the ones who give us our real homes.
This past week, my Internet family reached out and reminded me that is still true, that I'm not alone, that the world is filled with love and joy and such compassion that it is breathtaking.
And if LJ is not the place we gather all the time anymore (Although, as wearemany noted, it's still a necessary third space between too many family members and IRL friends and colleagues on Twitter and Facebook and my "real" blog and the casual acquaintances of Tumblr and other fansites), it's still my spiritual home, still the place that holds all those virtual memories and real-life faces.
So thank you, Josh Schwartz -- despite Marissa, despite what you did to Trey, despite Ryan's righteous streak, despite Seth's whiny self-absorption, despite Jimmy Cooper the Worst Father in the World and dumb stripper plots and dumber pregnancy plots and the Chino filter of despair -- thank you for creating a world that brought us all together, that gave me a second home, that made my life so much richer and more complete.
Thank you for my Family of Choice.