The Ground That We're On Might Be Common

 

I am having such a struggle adjusting to the idea that we are busy again.

And heaven knows, the girls and I are not busy at all like normal people- but we have discovered through a couple of years of mostly just being home a lot that it's our favorite way to spend basically all of our time. 

(I have always, always been a homebody, so this was nothing new to me, but when the girls were younger we did all the things and thought nothing of it. Now, the three of us crave time alone and wonder at how we managed all those things.)

Life, though, has picked back up, and we've been busier this past month than we have been the previous 2 years, and it has been quite a lot to maneuver. 

We did finish watching Roswell, and as I remembered correctly, the third season was so atrocious that Betsy said, "I'm, like, embarrassed if anyone would watch this season and think that I liked it." I told her that she is lucky that her favorite show, Julie and the Phantoms, only lasted the one season because at least it didn't turn into something that was horrible. She didn't agree, but I am quite positive that I'm right- My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks remain in perfect bubbles because there was no time to mess them up.

With that said, though, I am glad that Roswell had a second season, despite the fact that I didn't especially love it (I did, however, like the second season better than the third). Rewatching these old episodes quite naturally led to me rereading old Roswell fan fiction and that has been a lovely way to spend a lot of my time- remembering what writing in a fandom was like, how all encompassing those stories became, how every throw away line could be mined to be turned into a story. I have binders full of my favorite stories from the Roswell fan fiction world, and I'm so glad that I had the sense to save them because of course it would be impossible to find many of them now. 

(We also spent last weekend having a 2 Coreys weekend, which was a trip- we watched License to Drive first, and Betsy said, "This is a terrible movie," and then we watched Dream a Little Dream and she said, "This makes that other movie look good." Of the two, I am of two minds- on the one hand, Haim is my favorite Corey, and he is the star of License to Drive. But Meredith Salinger is the most underrated actress of all time (except possibly for the peerless P.J. Soles) and Dream a Little Dream has that wild scene where Feldman dances like Michael Jackson. But then again, we all know that the best 2 Coreys movie of all time is The Lost Boys.)

Stuff I'm Loving:

Yellowjackets

This is my new favorite show. I rarely watch anything right when it comes out because I hate being left on a cliffhanger. But for some reason I abandoned my usual "5 years later" plan and binged this as quickly as possible and am now sad to have to wait for new seasons. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This Cash Explosion Article

My sister and I loved to watch Cash Explosion when we were little and this article is just such a trip- the stories of lives changed by these winnings are such a balm to ordinary stories of how the lottery ruined someone's life. 

AACK CAST!

My very first calendar that I bought for myself when I was probably 14 was a Cathy calendar. Cathy has come to represent a certain kind of woman, obsessed with weight loss and getting a husband, and Jamie Loftus sets the record straight with this extensive podcast discussing the origins of Cathy, how she changed and evolved over years, and the work of women in comics. It was most enlightening.

Just now, the girls and I are rewatching all of my classic Degrassi episodes (Degrassi- at least the old school 1980s version- never hit a bad note), and I'm catching up on the movies that were nominated for Oscars on my weekends alone (I have said before but it bares repeating, I don't believe at all in the idea of a "best" anything of the year, but I have found that watching all of the nominated movies usually makes for weekends full of movies that are profound in their own individual ways).