any rumors that you have told about me have been greatly exagerated
this is my fifth year living on the east coast and traveling to see my family on the west coast, and (when i was ... younger? oh, jesus christ) i used to be really good at jerking my internal clock back and forth between time zones. this past week, i couldn't get on pacific time to save my life, i kept falling asleep at eight-thirty at waking up at five in the morning.
(my brother gets up every morning at four-thirty for work, and one night i was itemizing on my laptop when he came through the room and said goodnight and i remember looking at the clock on the desktop and thinking, "that's weird, i wonder why he's going to bed at midnight when he has to get up at four-thirty" and, like, TWENTY MINUTES LATER i realized my laptop's clock was still on eastern time and it was only nine o'clock.)
of course, now i'm back in boston and i even though i only slept for about six minutes on the plane last night, i cannot. fucking. fall. asleep.
a. friday night lights:
this sucks, because i LOVE this show, but i just do not like the direction we are going here. interesting blog post here, which includes an interview with one of the show runners where he claims that the most retarded plot development ever was a) not the network's idea and b) something they'd been planning since last season in order to get tyra and landry together.
i actually think i'm more bothered by the idea that this was the idea of the show runners and not the result of pressure to sex up the show by the network. because i'm used to being disappointed by networks, but i did not expect to be this disappointed this quickly by the people who make this show. the author of the post above captured it best, i think, when he said that the decision to have landry kill the guy breaks the spell that let you believe that dillon, texas was a real place, and makes friday night lights just another tv show.
the stuff with julie and matt and the swede bugs me, but honestly that's because i did not start liking julie as a character until she started going out with matt. her tortured fifteen-year-old is a valid character, but we don't really spend enough time as viewers in her point-of-view for me to work up much sympathy for her. her whole "i don't want to turn into my mother" thing, i don't know. it's a complete 180 from the "please completely throw your lives into turmoil because i have to stay in dillon OR I WILL DIE" she was pulling at the end of last season and i know that you don't have to explain complete narrative departures when it comes to fifteen-year-old girls because that's what they do, but skipping an abrupt nine months in the future makes this feel particularly forced.
i imagine i'm in the minority here, but i miss the shift in focus away from the football-related action, and hope that changes when the football season starts. the best part of this show was the way that it figured out how to tell stories about racism and gender-related expectations and absentee parents that were seamlessly wrapped up in stories about winning and losing football games, and i think the show loses something without it.
finally: there is no explanation for why lyla, tyra and tim are all still in school. every single one of them had a conversation with someone about what schools they should apply to last year, so somebody has to put some effort into convincing me that jason was a senior and they were, somehow, all juniors, and nobody is even trying!
b. twenty four hours (give or take a cross-country time change) in the tragicomic life of a boston sports fan
9:30pm (pacific): arrive at oakland airport, immediately stake out airport bar already filled with fellow boston-bound long sufferers, tie game that have been monitoring in the radio all the way to the airport did not break open during harrowing wait through security checkpoint. phew!
9:31pm : start tab.
10:30pm : wonder how it's possible to feel raped by eric gagne from THREE THOUSAND MILES AWAY.
10:45pm: reluctantly board flight, having seen the first two runs that cleveland scored in the top of the eleventh, mercifully miss additional FIVE FUCKING RUNS given up by god's supposedly chosen bullpen. toss and turn fitfully in sleep, thinking about ways eric gagne could die in a plane crash.
7:00am (eastern): arrive at logan. shield eyes from all newspapers, too painful. discuss gagne's status as piece of shit in chief with cabbie. arrive home. collapse.
12:00pm: wake up. stumble around for a while, eventually wretch self out of house just in time for ...
4:00pm: PATS GAME! pats can always be trusted to cure a baseball hangover.
6:00pm: pats briefly appear as though though they cannot be trusted. wonder if will have to call in sick to work tomorrow with self-inflicted stab wound.
8:00pm: ZICTORY. pats rule, cowboys drool. stumble home, ranting happily to self about how people who like other sports but think it's okay to look down on football are retards, football is fucking awesome, randy moss is best ever.
9:30pm: attempt to collapse. fail. (see above-mentioned jet lag) turn on tv, maybe sports center is on or something.
c. zomg this website. i want ALL the colors. if i am going to make good on my promise to not fall in a rut and dress like a homeless person this winter, i am going to need approximately 83 pairs of tights, i think. when i was at my parents' house, i sewed a couple winter-weight skirts, one in multi-color flecked wool and one in corduroy. the corduroy skirt is orange with a purple trim at the hem, a color combination that every single person at the fabric store and every single member of my family thought was terrible. i tried to tell the girl at the fabric counter that i've liked orange and purple together ever since i saw four weddings and a funeral and there were those bridesmaids dresses that were orange with a purple sash and the girl said, "uh, i've never heard of that movie" and i realized that she was probably, like, sixteen and i was making age-inappropriate pop culture references, i am so uncool, oh my gooooooooooood.
okay, time to try and give myself a concussion.
(my brother gets up every morning at four-thirty for work, and one night i was itemizing on my laptop when he came through the room and said goodnight and i remember looking at the clock on the desktop and thinking, "that's weird, i wonder why he's going to bed at midnight when he has to get up at four-thirty" and, like, TWENTY MINUTES LATER i realized my laptop's clock was still on eastern time and it was only nine o'clock.)
of course, now i'm back in boston and i even though i only slept for about six minutes on the plane last night, i cannot. fucking. fall. asleep.
a. friday night lights:
this sucks, because i LOVE this show, but i just do not like the direction we are going here. interesting blog post here, which includes an interview with one of the show runners where he claims that the most retarded plot development ever was a) not the network's idea and b) something they'd been planning since last season in order to get tyra and landry together.
i actually think i'm more bothered by the idea that this was the idea of the show runners and not the result of pressure to sex up the show by the network. because i'm used to being disappointed by networks, but i did not expect to be this disappointed this quickly by the people who make this show. the author of the post above captured it best, i think, when he said that the decision to have landry kill the guy breaks the spell that let you believe that dillon, texas was a real place, and makes friday night lights just another tv show.
the stuff with julie and matt and the swede bugs me, but honestly that's because i did not start liking julie as a character until she started going out with matt. her tortured fifteen-year-old is a valid character, but we don't really spend enough time as viewers in her point-of-view for me to work up much sympathy for her. her whole "i don't want to turn into my mother" thing, i don't know. it's a complete 180 from the "please completely throw your lives into turmoil because i have to stay in dillon OR I WILL DIE" she was pulling at the end of last season and i know that you don't have to explain complete narrative departures when it comes to fifteen-year-old girls because that's what they do, but skipping an abrupt nine months in the future makes this feel particularly forced.
i imagine i'm in the minority here, but i miss the shift in focus away from the football-related action, and hope that changes when the football season starts. the best part of this show was the way that it figured out how to tell stories about racism and gender-related expectations and absentee parents that were seamlessly wrapped up in stories about winning and losing football games, and i think the show loses something without it.
finally: there is no explanation for why lyla, tyra and tim are all still in school. every single one of them had a conversation with someone about what schools they should apply to last year, so somebody has to put some effort into convincing me that jason was a senior and they were, somehow, all juniors, and nobody is even trying!
b. twenty four hours (give or take a cross-country time change) in the tragicomic life of a boston sports fan
9:30pm (pacific): arrive at oakland airport, immediately stake out airport bar already filled with fellow boston-bound long sufferers, tie game that have been monitoring in the radio all the way to the airport did not break open during harrowing wait through security checkpoint. phew!
9:31pm : start tab.
10:30pm : wonder how it's possible to feel raped by eric gagne from THREE THOUSAND MILES AWAY.
10:45pm: reluctantly board flight, having seen the first two runs that cleveland scored in the top of the eleventh, mercifully miss additional FIVE FUCKING RUNS given up by god's supposedly chosen bullpen. toss and turn fitfully in sleep, thinking about ways eric gagne could die in a plane crash.
7:00am (eastern): arrive at logan. shield eyes from all newspapers, too painful. discuss gagne's status as piece of shit in chief with cabbie. arrive home. collapse.
12:00pm: wake up. stumble around for a while, eventually wretch self out of house just in time for ...
4:00pm: PATS GAME! pats can always be trusted to cure a baseball hangover.
6:00pm: pats briefly appear as though though they cannot be trusted. wonder if will have to call in sick to work tomorrow with self-inflicted stab wound.
8:00pm: ZICTORY. pats rule, cowboys drool. stumble home, ranting happily to self about how people who like other sports but think it's okay to look down on football are retards, football is fucking awesome, randy moss is best ever.
9:30pm: attempt to collapse. fail. (see above-mentioned jet lag) turn on tv, maybe sports center is on or something.
c. zomg this website. i want ALL the colors. if i am going to make good on my promise to not fall in a rut and dress like a homeless person this winter, i am going to need approximately 83 pairs of tights, i think. when i was at my parents' house, i sewed a couple winter-weight skirts, one in multi-color flecked wool and one in corduroy. the corduroy skirt is orange with a purple trim at the hem, a color combination that every single person at the fabric store and every single member of my family thought was terrible. i tried to tell the girl at the fabric counter that i've liked orange and purple together ever since i saw four weddings and a funeral and there were those bridesmaids dresses that were orange with a purple sash and the girl said, "uh, i've never heard of that movie" and i realized that she was probably, like, sixteen and i was making age-inappropriate pop culture references, i am so uncool, oh my gooooooooooood.
okay, time to try and give myself a concussion.