the Dalaverse

"American Dreams" season finale. Too early! I'm going to miss this show so much.



God, Beth's parents are horrid.

Oh shut up Helen. I love you dearly, but let your poor closeted-in-1965 coworker be. Although -- and I hate it -- her "have you spoken with your minister/I don't want to hear about it" reaction is really freaking accurate. There's just no way she's going to be all cool with it and want to take him shopping. But hey, we got to see some actual affection between gay men on network TV! ("Will & Grace" so does not count. I'm talking a respectable hour-long drama program here. I wish we got Showtime and "Queer as Folk," but no luck). No kissing, but some really adorable snuggling in the forehead area -- it was much less weird than it sounds. I can't remember seeing anything like this since "Boston Public" a couple of years ago, though granted I don't keep up with most dramas. The hot lesbians are fair game, but god forbid we should show gay men doing something so normal and pedestrian as cuddling, since we all know they're pedophiliac sex fiends. There are so many reasons I love and respect this show, and this honest (painfully so) scenario is just one of them. I wish more people would watch it, though I guess I should just be happy that it's coming back at all next year. And damn, but does it have the best soundtrack on TV.

I want Meg and Sam to have the smoochies.

Heh. Patty the family atheist wanting to be a nun. Boy can't kiss, babe, you gotta teach him to kiss.

Ewww, dirty cop Pete.

Oh holy mother. Fucking obnoxious priest. Poor Beth.

Awww. See, I spend most episodes having a serious hate-on for Jack, and then he goes and does stuff like this and I want him to be my dad.

Roxanne! And Luke! Rox and Luke! Don't go Luke! OMG hugging ::sobs::

I like this whole battle/protest juxtaposition.

"House of the Rising Sun," oh yeah.

Damn. I can't believe it's over for the entire summer. Sadness.

Anyway. I was home again this weekend for the Bob Dylan concert, which was Saturday night at American University. First Dad and I went to Grandma's and the three of us walked to Krupin's for lunch. We passed -- hold your breath -- Davenport Street. No lie. I've noticed it the last few times I've been downtown and kept forgetting about it. But now I have been down it and I feel accomplished. Had a fabulous sandwich at Krupin's, which is this awesome little deli in NW. They give you bowls of pickles and they serve Dr. Brown's sodas. Dr. Brown's makes the best black cherry soda ever, and their ginger ale's not bad either. After lunch, we went back to Grandma's and did some good old-fashioned family gossip. Learned that Easter dinner will be at Aunt Carolyn's this year (it's usually at my cousin Michelle's, but since she is feuding with pretty much everybody else in the family, that's kind of out). So I get to see the kids next week! And Beth's baby, wooo! Also, at one point Grandma Lorraine turns to me and says, "You know, this is the same blouse I wore the day they brought you home from the hospital," which for some reason left me completely gobsmacked. I love hearing about myself as a baby, my parents when they were young (and didn't totally hate each other yet), all that kind of crap. I was flipping through old photo albums today, too.

So, yes, post-Grandma, we drove over to AU forty-five minutes before the doors were set to open. And the line...the line stretched across the street to the parking garage and then up to the fifth fucking level. It was complete craziness. We finally got in and bought matching t-shirts, brown ones with "Subterranean Homesick Blues" Bob holding up a posterboard on the front and some lyrics on the back. The concert itself was...kind of disappointing. I mean, I'm glad I went, but he didn't do more than a handful of the good old stuff I like, and when he did, the versions were entirely different. At first I thought that he was just bringing the acoustic numbers up to speed with the full band (which, btw, had a really great guitarist), but then Dad suggested he was trying to drown himself out, which if you've heard his voice in the past ten years or so is understandable. Ahhh, I'm being too harsh; it was still BOB DYLAN and I still got to see a legend in concert.

Nothing else interesting happened. Rented "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (not bad, though a little slow to start) and "Donnie Brasco" (loveloveloved. I wouldn't have rented it if it didn't have Johnny in it, but it was a really good movie). Had a giant argument with the parents about driving to Penn State next weekend to visit Meg. Bottom line: they don't want me to, and I do want to. Except...I'm kind of waffling. I really really REALLY don't want to give in. But at the same time, it is kind of dangerous because I've never driven in Pennsylvania before, although the directions look easy enough and I have no problem with driving for five hours straight. But I'd have to pay for my own gas, and school's out in little over a month anyway, and my mother started crying and going "I have this feeling like I'm never going to see you again, somebody's going to take you off the side of the highway!"

But dammit, I want to take a road trip!

Sigh. I don't have to decide now.

Old stuff that I completely forgot about: Spring break, we went to the Holocaust Museum, which was thankfully not as traumatic as it was the first time, but then, I'm not eleven anymore. Also hung out at the Antietam cemetary the day I went up to school with Dad. I'm not much of a Civil War buff, but it was neat. Didn't have time to check out the actul battlefield. Last weekend, saw "Jersey Girl" with Bethie. I'm a big sappy girl and I loved it, although it was nowhere near as good as "Chasing Amy." I also used Daddy's 25% teacher's discount to buy a Guns'n'Roses best of CD and Joss Stone's The Soul Sessions, which is absolutely amazing. Girl can not only sing, she has the vocal maturity for the material, which is not something you often see in singers so young (Diana DeGarmo, babe, I'm looking at you). Also picked up "Chocolat" -- mmm sexy Johnny, with the guitar and the accent and the ponytail -- oh god the ponytail...um. Yes. Ahem. And the first season of "Coupling," which I adored beyond all reason. Not only did it have a great deal of Jack Davenport, it's actually funny. I've started rewatching all the episodes already, that's how much I enjoyed it. Between the two of them, Johnny and Jack now dominate quite a large portion of my DVD collection. And the next thing I'm buying is "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." Or the second season of "Coupling." Or "Ed Wood," if I can find it.

Now I have to go figure out what I'm going to do with the next chapter of "Nail." Somehow three or four separate elements are all crowding together, because there's only this one chapter before the nightswimming one and I'm not budging on that concept, because if I do I'll have to write two more chapters -- one Jack-narrated and one Norrington-narrated -- in addition, and I just don't have that in me. It'd be repetitive. I'm also going to scrap the exclusively W/E chapter-let so I can recycle the flashback, which I love muchly, for my Will fic-a-thon story. Which I need to write as soon as possible.

::blinks:: And meanwhile, "Ankles All the Way" and "Catch of the Day" are languishing in obscurity. For the first, I don't have the energy for another Norri-centric chaptered fic at the same time I'm concentrating on "Nail," and for the second...well, I really don't have an excuse. I love some of the later scenes, though, so there's no way it will stay unfinished forever.

Also can't decide on a name for the newest Turner. She started out "Nail" as Polly, but now I'm considering calling her Morgan. I dunno. I'll think on it some.