She Told Me So (aka I Want Spike)

I write so much about Violet, you'd think we were married or something. Uhhhh...no. But I do keep a toothbrush in her bathroom.

For years now, I've been hearing about her obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I've never gotten around to watching more than one or two episodes. Sure, they're good, campy, kick-ass fun, but I never got addicted. I did develop something of a soft spot for Angel, because the show played before Charmed during the days a few winters ago when I was trying to catch up on every episode of Charmed I'd never seen. (That was all of them. I'm a bigger geek than you ever imagined, huh?) So I would tune in a few minutes early, and catch Angel kicking some ass and then being all sweet and/or brooding. All I knew about him was that he was Buffy's love, but what I saw was him falling for Cordelia. Kim didn't want me to think of Angel as in love with Cordelia, because, clearly, he was Buffy's man...uh...vampire.

Last night I was in a dark mood. Not depressed. Just dark. As in, not sunny. As in, "Hey, let's plumb the deep recesses of Jill's psyche! Let's wander aimlessly uptown and figure out how we can turn my twisted imagination into some very penetrating art!" We did so for a few miles, then took the subway the rest of the way. Finally, after listening to some drunk abuse every man on the A train, and watching a tiny dog chase a rat as big as its head, we arrived at her apartment. We poured some iced tea and she told me "Okay, be quiet." Very few people get away with telling me to be quiet. Then she introduced me to Spike.

Oh.

My.

God.

Yeah, ok, I'll be quiet for him.

Somehow, in my fumbling with my words on the long hike home, I was able to convey to Kim exactly where my head was at. Or she was able to surmise it psychically. In three short scenes, this character catapulted straight to the top of my "Fictional Characters I Have Lusted After" list. Seriously, in a brawl, he would kick Hamlet's ass, hands tied behind his back. I like that. I really like that.

Yeah, yeah, I get it, he's not real.

But damn, if someone didn't pry into my subconscious one night to create him, then I don't know where he came from.

She told me so. But why did she hold out on me for so damn long?

And who else is holding out on me? If there are more of him out there, I want to know about it. Any suggestions?

"Oh, Westley!":The Princess Bride and Comfort Food

Yesterday was a hot, sticky day. It's been like that all week. August in New York is one of those experiences that you erase out of your consciousness after every instance, and the next time it happens, you're blind-sided. I've been living on Gatorade, fruit, and random salty things all week. The air conditioning in my car gave up again. And yesterday, at rush hour, I had to drive through Manhattan, up to Kim's, for a quick run-through of the show in preparation for our final performance.

The West Side Highway was like a parking lot. It took me 47 minutes to drive...8 miles? I had forgotten to recharge my iPod, so I couldn't use the transmitter. But, because it was rush hour, all the radio stations were trying to be supportive. And because Bryan had taken the time to pre-set all the good rock stations on my radio the last time I'd been staring out at the Hudson wishing I could jump in, there was very little searching for me to do. For some reason, every rock station in NYC became obsessed with Joan Jett and Van Halen between 4:30 and 6pm yesterday. This, of course, was not a problem. In fact, it made me very, very happy, even though I was sitting in a pool of sweat and un-triumphantly watching the Carnival Triumph sail by. I opened all the windows, sang along, and tried not to bang my head against the steering wheel.

By the time I got to Kim's I was starving, but so was everyone else. For some reason, they allowed me to pick the take-out place that we would order dinner from. I think it had something to do with the passionate way I was reading menu selections aloud. With mashed potatoes...oh my God... Barbecue sauce was sounding so damn appealing, and I'd been fantasizing about those sweet potato fries since I'd first laid eyes on that menu two months ago. So yes, we went with the barbecue chicken sandwiches (all white meat, kaiser rolls, unbelievable sauteed onions) and those orange orgasms.

After we ordered, we sat around in the living room, staring at each other. There was just no way work was going to get done until we were fed. That was abundantly clear. So we did the only thing a bunch of reasonable people wanting to goof off could do--rifled through Kim's DVD collection. We decided on the cinematic equal to the comfort food we were eagerly awaiting--The Princess Bride.

Now, I love this movie. Everyone I know that has seen the movie, loves the movie. (Amazingly, Ingrid had never seen the movie. We all tried to not ruin it for her. We tried.) But you've got to admit, Buttercup is a priss. What Westley sees in her, I have no idea, especially when she's standing by letting him get his ass handed to him by a Rodent of Unusual Size. Jump in, birdbrain! Westley, don't you want a woman who's got your back? Come on! Incidentally, I am not the only woman to feel this way. The other three females who were there and had seen it said exactly the same thing. The lone male...well, Bryan is smart enough to keep quiet when he's outnumbered, even if he agrees.

When the food finally arrived, the fries were slightly soggy, and of course they weren't accompanied by the fancy-pants sweet chili sauce & crème fraiche that Eight Mile Creek does to perfection...but what they didn't offer in crispness, we all made up for with our voracious need for fat & carbs. And the perfectly sauteed onions earned the place brownie points in our takeout rolodex. Then we had frozen Snickers bars for dessert.

Joy, my friend and a super editor, just called. I've got to run out to meet her (so she can give me a guilt trip about how I called one of my essays "The Final Draft" even though I knew it was no where near finally done.) I told her what I was writing about, and by freaky coincidence, she also watched The Princess Bride last night. Really freaky coincidence. I didn't ask her how she felt about Buttercup and the Rodent. I'll just keep that up my sleeve until I need to change the subject from the revising guilt trip.

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

The Island

I've just discovered another entry for my list of Fictional Characters I Have Lusted After.

Do not mistake this as a ringing endorsement for The Island as a piece of cinematic history. It's a hybrid sci-fi/action flick, and if you don't like to mix your sci-fi with your action or vice versa, you're very likely going to get a bit ticked off. If you're not a purist, though, you might just be entertained. Because just when the sci-fi looks as if it might get heavy, just at that place where it started becoming painful to sit through A.I., The Island shifts gears. And if you like your action heroes to be ruthless and don't mind their impossibly-good luck, then you'll have a damn good time. I did, even when I was not gawking at Ewan McGregor.

I won't spoil the big mystery of The Island, but I think it wouldn't be a spoiler if I conceded that, yes, in fact, the movie is what the trailer makes it out to be: a metaphor for treating humans with dignity. For not living lives of quiet desperation. Et cetera. I think everyone gets that off the trailer, right?

(Some trailers are just way too transparent. Let me take you back a few years. My friend Tim and I are watching the preview of The Sixth Sense.

Jill: So...um...the Bruce Willis character is...
Jill & Tim: Dead.
Jill: Right.
Tim: Yeah.
Jill: Ok, no need to see that one.
Tim: Pass the Milk Duds.)

Well then. Back to The Island. So if the film is a metaphor for not living lives of quiet desperation, the hero will of course be the utterly-charming-and-resourceful-non-conformist. I'm a sucker for this type. I know this. All the better when played by a cute scruffy guy with a great voice. Who isn't afraid to violently wield crowbars, wrenches, and futuristic motorized vehicles of all kinds.

I won't divulge any more except this, my favorite moment. The moment when McGregor's character, Lincoln, joins my list. He had never previously encountered any motorized vehicles. He's been asleep out by a deserted stretch of highway with Jordan, Scarlett Johansson's character. A motorcycle flies by. They both wake up. He runs out onto the road. "What was that?" Jordan asks. Lincoln gets this look of pure mischief on his face. "I don't know," he replies. "But I want one."

Yeah, me too. I want one. Can I get one of him?

The Death of Dead Like Me

Why did no one tell me Dead Like Me was cancelled? Oh, right, the execs at Showtime sort of swept it under the rug, didn’t they? They dropped it in December, but kept the show info on their website. They’re re-running the second season (of which the DVDs are being released in July) but fail to directly state on the site that no third season is coming. They assume we know. Now Mandy Patinkin is on CBS.

As most people who know me can readily attest, I often get very attached to fictional characters. I choose to view this as a good thing, as I am a writer, and writing involves a fair amount of commitment to “people” who don’t actually exist. I am attached to the reapers on Dead Like Me. They fight over breakfast foods. They’re witty, dry & sarcastic at all hours of the day and night. They know who they are and don’t apologize for it. I want to hang out with them, and not just because Callum Blue (Mason) is the most adorable thing to come across the Atlantic since Ewan McGregor. (Ryan Kwanten is also high on my adorable list, but as he is from Australia, he likely came across the Pacific.)

If I were instantly killed by a flaming toilet seat from outer space, I wouldn’t mind Rube as a boss & surrogate parent. And if I needed a roommate in that undead afterlife, I could probably live with Daisy’s self-absorption, because she has a hell of a lot of naughty stories to tell. And she’s not as shallow as first she seemed. Just ask Mason. He’s smitten by her—utterly, inexorably, adorably smitten. I was awaiting the third season specifically to witness how the writers would finally bring them to that inevitable moment.

Well, now that there won’t be a third season, I can write my own climax, guilt-free. I think we all know who’ll be there in place of Daisy.