As a girl who prides herself on and is often frightened by having obsessions, I try to keep that energy focused, so it doesn't get out of hand and do something rash.
My new obsession is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Needing something to watch while on my elliptical, Champ let me borrow the first season a month or so ago. I devoured it in three days and liked it so much that I bought a boxed set of the entire series.
I am currently in the beginning of season 6. I'm totally hooked and my friends are so very glad. We got together a few weeks ago for wine and cheese at Mchan's and spent, I kid you not, at least an hour talking about the show.
We decided that it was time to venture to a place no point of light has gone before: A convention. BuffyCon 2007. So we hopped online, where all people go to find information, especially regarding conventions of any kind, and we sought out information about this year's Buffy convention. We talked about how cool it would be to have it close to Knoxville, TN so we could all go to Dollywood too because that's a trip we have long been trying to get together when suddenly, the giggles died down and a somber tone took over the room.
There is no Buffy convention this year.
Just when I was so excited to be nerdy enough about something to go to a convention for it, they stop having them. Apparently last years attendance was low and there were whispers even then around the Buffy community that that one was it.
So here's my plan: I and my girls convince the cast to come to my house for a Buffy BBQ in my back yard. They don't have to act scenes from the show out, I don't think any of us will be wearing costumes (maybe plastic vampire teeth, but I swear that's it) and we could drink beer and shoot the shit and I could quietly be thrilled by the people who play my fictional heroes being in my back yard.
How cool would that be? I'd have an excuse to pretty up the back yard too.
BuffyCon 2007! Coming this summer to my back yard, where only the points are invited!
Friday, April 27, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Trouble
Since when did it become okay to shoot people as a means of expressing negative feelings? Every newspaper, cable news network, and website I have seen in the last few weeks has blood and mayhem as the lead story. Blood and mayhem as a result of someone shooting people for no other reason than they were feeling rejected and needed some kind of tangible retribution.
Two weeks ago, I called my son to make plans for dinner that night and he asked me "are you still on lock down?", to which I replied "I'm supposed to be on lock down?". Apparently, there was not one but two gunmen running from back yard to back yard, hiding in sheds and garages, hoping the cops would never find them and arrest them for barging into someones house and shooting them. This all happened less than a mile from my house.
That same week, a disgruntled man who had been recently fired from an accounting firm, walked into his old office in Troy, Michigan and opened fire. He was upset that he had been fired.
We spent last week choking down the glut of media coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting.
What the fuck people?
I don't know who to blame, but I need to blame someone, or something. It's the only way I feel I can even begin to wrap my head around this. If there is a tangible reason, there can be a way to compartmentalize it. The 'lone nut' or 'depressed' explanation will simply not suffice, there needs to be some solid answer so I can fix it and it doesnt happen anymore.
For me, it seems to be related to the fact that many Americans are becoming nutjobs. Politics seem to be at a peak "us vs.them" mentality. "Reailty" TV encourages us to quickly judge people based on the doctored versions of who they are and we get to decide who wins and who gets the boot. Celebrity is based not on merit of craft, but who's husband someone is supposedly fucking, who's in rehab (or running away from it), and who has the best stuff. All of these, I desperately hope not by design, make us regular folks feel weird about who we are and what actually means something in our world.
Along with all these factors, a bull's eye was hit by my friend Champ over the weekend. Us ladies were sitting outside on an impossibly beautiful April evening, discussing the state of the world and when the Virginia Tech shootings were brought up, Champ pipes in with a precise and scathing comment about the state of mental health care in the United States. It is just not there. For anyone. If you are lucky enough to have tremendous health care, you might have access to it at the cost of a co-pay, but that is rare. Most of us just have to buck up and cope in the face of alarming rises in rates of mental illness in our country. Only the rich get to have the luxury of having a clear head, and frankly, after meeting a some of them, they are completely beyond repair anyhow. How sane do you have to be to sit on your ass and shop online all fucking day?
One last thought on all of this. How much is all this technology helping us? We can email at a stop light from our Balckberry, are expected to call people back within moments of getting their messages and can communicate with clients half a world away in two seconds with one email. But I still don't feel enough kinship with anyone to stop wishing horrible things on them when they drive too slow in the left lane, or don't meet my needs, or improperly cross my path. How wrong is that? When I think of anyone saying the things I say to someone I know, I'd hit them with an iron skillet. Or give them a fierce glaring at anyhow. How can we be talking to each other so much yet have no idea how to communicate?
Two weeks ago, I called my son to make plans for dinner that night and he asked me "are you still on lock down?", to which I replied "I'm supposed to be on lock down?". Apparently, there was not one but two gunmen running from back yard to back yard, hiding in sheds and garages, hoping the cops would never find them and arrest them for barging into someones house and shooting them. This all happened less than a mile from my house.
That same week, a disgruntled man who had been recently fired from an accounting firm, walked into his old office in Troy, Michigan and opened fire. He was upset that he had been fired.
We spent last week choking down the glut of media coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting.
What the fuck people?
I don't know who to blame, but I need to blame someone, or something. It's the only way I feel I can even begin to wrap my head around this. If there is a tangible reason, there can be a way to compartmentalize it. The 'lone nut' or 'depressed' explanation will simply not suffice, there needs to be some solid answer so I can fix it and it doesnt happen anymore.
For me, it seems to be related to the fact that many Americans are becoming nutjobs. Politics seem to be at a peak "us vs.them" mentality. "Reailty" TV encourages us to quickly judge people based on the doctored versions of who they are and we get to decide who wins and who gets the boot. Celebrity is based not on merit of craft, but who's husband someone is supposedly fucking, who's in rehab (or running away from it), and who has the best stuff. All of these, I desperately hope not by design, make us regular folks feel weird about who we are and what actually means something in our world.
Along with all these factors, a bull's eye was hit by my friend Champ over the weekend. Us ladies were sitting outside on an impossibly beautiful April evening, discussing the state of the world and when the Virginia Tech shootings were brought up, Champ pipes in with a precise and scathing comment about the state of mental health care in the United States. It is just not there. For anyone. If you are lucky enough to have tremendous health care, you might have access to it at the cost of a co-pay, but that is rare. Most of us just have to buck up and cope in the face of alarming rises in rates of mental illness in our country. Only the rich get to have the luxury of having a clear head, and frankly, after meeting a some of them, they are completely beyond repair anyhow. How sane do you have to be to sit on your ass and shop online all fucking day?
One last thought on all of this. How much is all this technology helping us? We can email at a stop light from our Balckberry, are expected to call people back within moments of getting their messages and can communicate with clients half a world away in two seconds with one email. But I still don't feel enough kinship with anyone to stop wishing horrible things on them when they drive too slow in the left lane, or don't meet my needs, or improperly cross my path. How wrong is that? When I think of anyone saying the things I say to someone I know, I'd hit them with an iron skillet. Or give them a fierce glaring at anyhow. How can we be talking to each other so much yet have no idea how to communicate?