What I Gave Up On

One of the columnists over at tvguide.com did a blog on the shows that she gave up on because it was just too much to stay involved with them. Which got me thinking.

I recently gave up on Lost. It kind of killed me to do it because I really, really want to know how the whole thing ties up. I never missed an episode (except during the Sox's playoff run in 2004 because it was the FUCKING WORLD SERIES, PEOPLE). But I caught up on the reruns, got myself back together, got really involved. I was a pro Kate/Jack, thought Charlie was annoying, and wanted Locke to just shut up. I thought the hatch was stupid and Ana-Lucia was annoying. I was involved, people. I felt this show. I enjoyed it. But this season...

First, the "fall" season of the seven episodes that ran until October was all "Others" episodes. I had no vested interest in these people. And as cool as Elizabeth Mitchell is (am I the only person who thinks she looks better as a brunette? Am I the only person who saw Frequency?), I would have rather seen Kate or, my personal fave, Sayid. Anyway, it was not interesting.

Then, the uninterrupted second half of the season was just boring. Lost was strictly a TiVo gig, meaning I never watched it live any more. I would let weeks go by before I watched it. I had a ton of episodes saved up on TiVo. So I finally sat down, watched them all, and thought I was back into it. Except I wasn't. I finally deleted the unwatched episodes off the TiVo and canceled the season pass. It's just not worth it to me any more.

So what others have I walked away from? Soaps, clearly. I no longer give a crap about any of them. After making my sister tape an entire season of The X-Files while I lived in England, I didn't watch the last season or two after David Duchovny left. I tried, but the formula of the show was wrong. Scully as believer? The Liquid Terminator as the new doubting skeptic? Freakin' Annabeth Gish as the most pointless character in a television series since Elisabeth Rohm was cast first on Angel, then on Law & Order? No, my friends. It was not for me. Duchovny gave the show such a biting wit and such a presence. You believed in the crazy with him. Without him the show felt cold.

Other things I gave up? Angel. I tried, but once they made Angel's son a teenager and Cordy an evil being, I was like, "see ya." And I thought Fred was beyond irritating. I stopped watching NYPD Blue for a long time, then watched the last episode after not seeing it for years. ER, I totally can't STAND that show any more. When the hell did that show become all about Maura Tierney? I have no idea if it still is or not, but that character drove me batty when it was all about her and the crazy brother and Sally Field doing a modified Sybill. The West Wing, I stopped watching for seasons five and six, but I came back to it for season seven and I will someday rent all those episodes I missed.

What else? I gave up on Melrose Place and 90210 once it became apparent this was just craziness that was never going to end, even when it should have. A whole ton of sitcoms, but I don't consider giving those up as traumatic as giving up dramas. I was never a huge Friends fan, so not watching that for a long time was no big. I also gave up on Invasion (Omar didn't like it and wanted to watch something else). Had they really killed off Michael Vartan, I would have stopped watching Alias, but I had a feeling there was more to that story than meets the eye, so I stuck it out. They rushed the ending of that series so badly, though, that just watching the final season hurts me. JJ Abrams really did his fans a disservice when he abandoned that show so completely.

I also gave up on Profiler, The Practice, and The Sopranos. The first two just got boring, the last was just too violent for me to keep watching.

That's all that I can think of in recent memory that I walked away from recently. The X-Files killed me the most to abandon. I loved that show. It was my favorite. But it was just hard to watch something that was once so brilliant become such a shadow of itself. It was like the last season of Buffy, Alias, and this season of Lost all rolled up into one.

Anyway, I made a stir fry tonight with a kick ass sauce, but I used too much salt and pepper, I didn't have any rice, and I used some BAD zucchini so everything had a very bitter flavor to it once you bit into a zucchini. Not my best effort. Lord knows Omar ate every bite, but I think he's just trying to make me feel better because I'm having one of those low self esteem weeks.

I'm just tired, I guess. I felt fat when I bought pants this week, even though I've lost five pounds. I didn't really get a chance to go grocery shopping this week, so I didn't have the usual salad that I eat every day. I've had a sore jaw and an earache for a week so I finally broker down to see the doctor and her diagnosis was either a sinus infection putting pressure on my ear, or TMJ. I really, really want it to be a sinus infection. It definitely wasn't an ear infection because she said my ears were clear. But, even though I don't feel sick, when she touched my face under my eyes and near my nose (you know, where your sinuses are) there was A LOT of pain. It's funny because they don't hurt unless you put the slightest pressure on them. I have a feeling that it's TMJ because that's how my life works.

Work stuff is too complicated to get into. That's for another night when I'm not ready to drop from exhaustion.

To Catch A Sleazy Reporter

Seriously, these "To Catch A Predator" shows are freaking HILARIOUS. Omar and I were just commenting how funny it is that the guys shake the reporter's hand when they come in sometimes. There's something sleazy about Chris Hanson, though. He gets too much joy out of reading these perverted emails the "predators" sign. He's kind of skeevy.

Anyway, I don't know what the hell to do about my job. I'm about to finish my course and I really want to work in a law firm. And they haven't offered me a full time position yet. But they're giving me more responsibility there and my Thirsty Thursday supervisor (whom I have since discovered is 24) had me train the new girl for a few hours this week as well as take over some of the stuff he usually does while he's on vacay next week.

So I'm stuck. No full time position and having to look for a job while temping. It's frustrating!!

Tomorrow night we're having some friends of Omar's over for dinner and I'm excited. I'm going to cook! Good stuff too. I'm going to make a grocery list in a few minutes.

Mom has not claimed the vehicle yet. She may not even do it. She's not even in a cast yet because she's still too swollen.

Jonathon Papelbon is going to close again this season and I'm so freaking excited about that I can't even stand it. They have an amazing starting rotation and the bullpen's pretty decent. I really, really wish they hadn't traded Mark Loretta. This Pedroia kid, I'm sure is good, but he's not Mark Loretta who was freaking amazing last season. The guy was unbelievable. I want him back!!

I Hate This New Blogger System

This system is so freaking stupid. It won't let me skip the "sign on with your Google account" thing anymore so I had to create a Google account. Except you already have to have one. I don't want one. I already have an email address. So I just plugged in my aol account and it took it! These people are fucking whack jobs.

So my mom broke her wrist this morning while she was out doing her usual five mile walk. She slipped on some ice and landed on her wrist. My dad called my sister to tell her and then told her not to call me. What the hell? You know, I take a lot of shit off my parents. I really do. There's things that they say and do that drive me up a wall, things that if I list here will just drive me even more batty than I really feel about this day. So my sister calls me and tells me this at 6:30 this morning. When I couldn't reach my parents at 12:30, I called the hospital where they took my mom and just asked the person at admitting if she was okay. The woman told me she was and I hung up and got on with my day. Not a big deal. Because my parents were fucking obtuse as usual by not calling me, I didn't have any of the information. All I wanted to know was if my mother had hit her head when she fell. Sometimes when you fall you hit your head and you don't know it until you've been given an exam by a doctor. All I wanted to know was if she had hit her head, because that can fuck you up later.

Instead, my parents are inconsiderate as usual, I got all this information second hand until my mom called me and told me she was fine. I asked her if she was okay and she said she was. I asked if she hit her head, she said she hadn't. Then she asked to swap cars with me for the next few weeks because she broke her wrist and drives a stick, so she can't drive it anymore. I told her that was fine. I'm giving my mom my car for an undetermined amount of time and my parents couldn't even be bothered to call me and let me know that a) she was hurt and b) she was okay.

Sometimes I really hate the way my family behaves.

1 Angry Lucy

I'm all for old movies. I, in fact, adore all movies. 2 movies in my Top 5 are old movies (Casablance, Notorious). However, I do no adore 12 Angry Men. I'm currently watching it for my litigation class in my paralegal course and as jarring as it is to see Jack Warden and EG Marshall not only alive, but very young, it's not my cup of tea.

I find movies where there's just a lot of conversation and not much else happening to be rather dull. This dialogue isn't actually that interesting, although the idea is. Lock 12 men into a sweltering hot room with no a/c or fan and have them debate over whether or not to convict an 18 year old of murder and send him to the chair. Have one person dissent when everyone else thinks he's guilty. There was a Veronica Mars episode based on this, except not.

Anyway, I'm not feeling the love for this movie.

It was a rough weekend. My sister was in a crappy mood at my parents' house, which put me in a crappy mood. We missed the open house we wanted to go to. I had a paper to write for my real estate course, which I hate. And this movie blows because it's not holding my attention.

I'm on a Jane Austen kick, but my collected works is freaking huge and not travel friendly. So I'm needing to go out and get copies of Persuasion and Sense & Sensibility. I'll hold off on the others (I already have Pride and Prejudice) until I'm really in the mood to read the so-called lesser works. Emma drives me bonkers, although not nearly so much as Mansfield Park does. My sister loves Mansfield Park, but I can't stand it. I read it because I love Jane Austen so much I would read anything she wrote. I wish she had written more and I think the world is poorer for the fact she didn't write more. Instead, we get the melodramatics for the Bronte sisters, who, for the love of God, were quite possible crazy. Don't get me wrong, I love Jane Eyre. It's also in the top 5 books of all time (along with Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Anne's House of Dreams, which may not be the best book in the Anne Shirley series, but I like it because it's a bridge between Anne as a young woman with hazy dreams and Anne as an adult with realistic dreams). But I hate Wuthering Heights. I still read it once a year, because it's Wuthering Heights, but I read it because I feel an obligation as an English major to do so. It's why I read Virginia Woolf. I feel obligated. I can't always read crappy stuff. I like to make my brain work every now and then.

Tried to watch Some Like It Hot last night and just felt immeasurably out of touch with it. I used to love that movie. Now, it kind of leaves me cold. There's something manipulative about it. I get that Marilyn Monroe is supposed to be an f'd up floozy, but knowing that she was like that in real life too makes the manipulation of her character Sugar that much more uncomfortable. It's too easy to see Tony Curtis as a sleazebag. He sounds like he's one in real life.

Went and looked at a condo today; the owner was a freaking loon. It was a nice place, but it's a one floor condo with two small bedrooms and not nearly enough storage. The owner said it's 1200 square feet, but I don't think she's right about that. We have 1100 here (probably closer to 900 because I think my landlord is liar) and that place was a lot smaller than this one.

Seriously, this movie is so not what I'm interested in. But it's homework, so here we go.