Funny The Way It Is

Said goodbye to a special someone tonight.  We haven’t really been hanging out for a terribly long time but I have still really enjoyed spending time with her, having intelligent conversations (as well as not so intelligent conversations) together, and just being around her awesome personality.  I’m really stoked for summer, yet I am not so excited to only be able to talk with her over the phone.  It’s strange how terrible the timing can be with things like this.  Bugger.

In other news, I’ve been watching a fair bit of Angel recently and after about a season and a half of snooze alerts and Clifford the Big Red Dog kind of episodic connection, I have finally hit the good stuff.  The episodes have finally begun to get hazy and non-existent at the corners and have started turning into one big story instead of several episode length tales coincidentally involving the same folks.  Angel has started to do for me what Buffy was able to do so well; it is telling a story that makes sense, is compelling, is imaginative, and is comfortable with what it is.  Sure, it would be easy for a show like this to either be way too serious (I mean, come on, it’s about a vampire who finds many of his answers by singing for a demon in a bar) or else way too goofy.  Instead, Joss and the other producers were able to level out Angel in a way that allows for a stellar plot progression supplemented by comedy, drama, and spoofy fun.  To anyone starting out with this show, I have the following message: Push on, brave soul, and you will be heartily rewarded.  I just hope it continues along this path.

Also, as a final note, this from Jonathan Carroll’s twitter today.

Makes me wonder why I define love the way I do.

A time to rest and think

The track season is finally over.  I have a jumble of mixed feelings ranging from sadness over not seeing that bunch of cool guys anymore to happiness at not having to struggle along on hard runs behind those cool guys anymore.  We’ll see which side of the spectrum wins out eventually but for now, I’m happy to just hang out, nap, watch good television and chill with friends instead of running myself silly.  A break will be good and I’m excited to be able to plan things with people at 4:00 in the afternoon again.

I also picked up an old story that I haven’t really touched in a few months.  I wrote just a little bit of it and then left it, partially because winter break was here and all I wanted to do was sleep, eat, and watch BSG, but it was also partially because writing is just a little bit easier for me when I can do it in my mind.  That story, a tale about a land called Other, has been sitting on the bench in the back of my head, just waiting for me to notice it.  Well, today I finally did.  It’s pretty rough and there is a lot of reorganizing and reshaping that should happen before I start writing new stuff, but it feels good to be back there.  I had forgotten how much I enjoyed those characters and that setting and it was nice to be in Other again.

On a totally unrelated note, Dollhouse was excellent this past week.  I am planning on doing a longer post about it tomorrow but suffice it to say for now, Alan Tudyk is my hero.  Thank you Joss for bringing him back to us.

A Happy End

Last night was the last open mic of the year and for some of my friends, the last open mic of the ever (at Morris).  I enjoyed most of the acts but it was really great to see my friend, B, get up and read the story through which he had started his Morris open mic career.  The story was about the end of the world, or what was to be the end of the world, and I thought it totally fitting for many reasons.  Without giving anything away, there are points in the story that touch on the idea of rejuvination and finality and as I watched my best friend up on stage, reading away, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad.  Open mic won’t be the same without his quirky and often moving prose, his rosy pink DS, and his pointy feaux-hawk horn.  He’s moving onto bigger and better things, finally following what he loves doing, and I’m happy for him.  But I’m sad for us.

Dreads and Friends

I’ve got good friends.  I don’t just mean cool people to hang out with and make dumb poop jokes with.  I mean I have really good friends.  People that challenge me, hold me accountable, are exciting and full of life, share my interests, accept me for me and are just plain awesome.  Tonight, my two best friends sat and dreaded my hair for around 3 hours total even though I, like a kid with an attention span like a chipmunk, had dreads put in last year and cut them off only a month later.  Even though I need dreads put back in because I was too hasty and impatient and distracted, my friends are still incredible enough to take time out of their schedules (busy with papers of the senior sort, papers of the history sort, and general school stress to deal with) to rat my smelly hair.  I’ve known for quite awhile that I’m a lucky person for having these people in my life but there are instances that remind me just how lucky I am.  For a very long time I didn’t really value friendship much.  I sort of saw it as something of a filler to fit nicely in between significant other time but I’ve realized slowly that friends, the good kind, like my friends, are something to be valued and treasured.  They are the people that are going to be with you when times suck and you just need to drown your sorrows in a basket of Applebee’s buffalo wings and they are the ones that are going to be sitting with you on a Tuesday night, running a pet comb through your hair in a way that most people would cringe at.  I am lucky and I know it.   B and K, if you are reading this, I love you both.  You’re both good shit.