Category — TV & Movies

With the return of NBC to iTunes and the dawn of HD episodes, we’ve been re-watching the last season of The Office. I’d almost forgotten how funny it is. Not the show in general, just last season, because what’s fresh on my memory are the episodes after the strike. I may be in the minority, but, I think that while those episodes were good, something was just off. I didn’t feel like we were back in sync until “Did I Stutter?” where Stanley and Michael come head-to-head.

But it really is a funny season. And it brought us some major relational shifts: Dwight & Angela broken up, Michael & Jan living together, Jim & Pam dating. I care about each of those, and I know getting involved in PB&J is the cool thing to do, so I hesitate to even mention them, but it’s hard not to when I see the way Jim looks at Pam in those first few episodes.

John Krasinski nails it! I’m not sure there’s a girl in all of America whose heart doesn’t melt when he even just thinks about Pam. Last night that look got the best of me:

Me: “I’m sure Jim & Pam will end up together, even if they break up, because this is TV and it would be cruel for the writers to do that to the fans, but do you think they’d end up together in real life?”

Chris: “Of course they’re going to end up together. You can’t build that much anticipation around two characters and not put them together.”

Me: “Yeah, but I mean in real life. Would they end up together or do you think they’re too good together or something? Too much alike? You think they’d have this great relationship until a bit of doubt crept in and ruined it or do you think it’d be smooth sailing? And if they didn’t end up together, you think they’d be able to be happy?”

Chris: “Jim & Pam in real life?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Chris: “In real life, Jim & Pam aren’t real.”

Don’t worry. I know Jim & Pam aren’t real. But I do think they represent real humanity. And I don’t know if they’ll end up together on TV or not. The Office takes some close looks at some hard human issues. That’s part of what I like about it, but I doubt they’d end in such a heartbreaking spot. I don’t know if those two would end up together in real life either, but I figure there’s a higher chance that they wouldn’t in that scenario than on the airwaves.

Nothing profound came out this conversation, just that Chris doesn’t think about TV in terms of real life and he couldn’t think of a reason why those two made-for-each-others wouldn’t get together and stay together. And I, obviously, get caught up in the reality of TV all the time and wouldn’t doubt for a second that they might not end up together just because that’s the way it happens.

With that melancholic mood in place, we settled in to watch the last two S1 episodes of Mad Men, the show we’re currently watching at night. Chris picks the nighttime show — we just finished S4 of Alias and the most recent season of The Closer. He picked Mad Men too, probably because his design buddies love it, but it’s not his usual fare. It’s a quiet drama, all relationship, the opposite of what he likes. But he says he’ll come back for the second season, which is good because I’m at least mildly interested in finding out what happens to these people.

But that’s not the point. The point is the season finale wrapped and I went to sleep with this bit on “nostalgia” curled up beside me:

In case you can’t tell, Don’s an ad man, making a pitch for a slide projector. He’s a complex man who’s taken his wife for granted and run away from his past. (The guy who leaves the room crying is in the doghouse with his wife.) Don’s pitch sounds like a pitch, but I still really like what he says about nostalgia.

Then this morning I came across this story about these two young people who really are perfect for each other and know it instantly, but when they start to doubt that happiness should so be easy, they decide to test their rightness for each other by breaking up and waiting to see if life brings them back together. Years later, they do meet again, but by that time life has taken their memories and they walk past each other forever, not realizing that every other love will never be as perfect.

It’s a well-written story, and you know what? It’s what I said could happen to Jim and Pam and got scoffed at for just last night!

Just to drive this weekend’s nostalgia theme all the way home, I also read an article on eMusic where this musician lists her favorite albums. She starts the description of one with, “You know how people who love music are always talking about how an album takes them back?” That got me thinking, because while I figure she’s probably right, I’d never imagined that that’s not true for everyone. I mean, I have albums I listen to for the mere sake of going back, but that also happens unintentionally. And with all the sensory ties to memory, it’s hard to believe music wouldn’t do that even for people who aren’t “music lovers.”

Anyway, I planned on connecting all these incidents into some cohesive thoughts on the nature of nostalgia, memory, media (TV, literature, music), and the senses. (I was gonna tie The Office into memory, maybe via personality, but really, I just wanted to talk about The Office, as if you can’t tell from Twitter.) And I was going to revise each of those points down, but Caelyn’s crying, so I guess I’m not. I’m sure I’ll be getting nostalgic later this weekend anyway, so maybe I’ll have some new thoughts that’ll make a nice tie-together post on Monday.

In the meantime, this is what you get.

But I will try to sneak away for comment responding sometime this weekend! (Thanks for all yours!) And, I’m not sure if it was a request or a threat, but here ya go, JSmo! If you make your first post something about the psychology of memory, I might not even have to finish this series.

Close to a year ago, I wrote a post about the Merritts getting healthy, and I suppose, to celebrate that anniversary, I ought to write an update post, even though I’m not sure I really want to because: a) being thin without working for it was a part of my image for a long time and b) it feels kinda vain.

But, still, I’m happy to report that 365 days later we’re still at it. I’ll admit that we haven’t been 100% for each of those days. January to April was sparse on the workout front. But, still, knowing us, I think that’s an accomplishment.

So what’s all that “healthiness” looked like?

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We don’t have a potty chair around here, but we do have a potty attachment seat. I know what you’re thinking (wishing?). But, no, It’s not high-tech, Japanese, state-of-the-art, or digital (but it does have Elmo on it). And, no, nobody called me at work to inform me that Caelyn just said “poo-poo” and send me racing home to make sure my little girl won’t have to take rubber sheets to a major university that requires their students to be potty trained.

But!

Just yesterday, Caelyn did say “Bapa-Bapa,” pulled her step stool up to the pot, slapped on Elmo, ripped off her diaper, climbed up, and let ‘er rip all on her own accord. Since then she’s only let two no. 1’s go anywhere but in the potty, and she’s racked up quite a few “sparkles” on her impromptu reward board:

And!

She did frame her face with her little seat and shoot the biggest smile up to her daddy, which made him crack up and say, “Oh, Caelyn. That’s a joke Dave Coulier would make!” (I think he was just trying to disguise his Full House knowledge by attributing the potty hat joke to Joey instead of its rightful owner, Michelle, don’t you?)

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We have a pretty nice camera. Chris also has not one, but two, pretty nice tripods. During the first winter after we met, we were walking around Circuit City when Chris spied a tiny, digital camera. It was just too James Bond not to have. So we bought it, 50, 50. And we took a bunch of pictures with it. We even took pictures of ourselves. Chris was a master of the one-armed camera pose.

But we were young. Love was involved. There was room for silliness.

Here we are, Winter 2002:

The pixillation’s a shame. That couch is downright offensive. You can see up my nose. But at least we’re in the same picture.

There’s a frame hanging on Caelyn’s wall. It’s white, hung by a sweet pink ribbon I attached to it back when we first started working on her nursery. It’s been hanging there since a few months before she was born, and it’s still empty.

It’s supposed to have a family photo in it, but somehow, in two years, despite the one-armed skills, tripods, and camera, we haven’t managed to take a decent photo of the three of us. We don’t even have one of the two of us. Not even from our anniversary, when there was another adult in our apartment who could’ve taken our picture, had we just asked. Heck, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Caelyn’s birthday all went by this year without a single shot of parent and child both looking at the camera.

So for my birthday yesterday I was determined that we’d take a picture for that poor, sad frame in Caelyn’s room. But, of course, when we got dressed, there wasn’t time to get out the tripod, and Caelyn threw herself on the floor crying when we tried to take one of just her and me. So I figured Chris could take one of me; I could take one of him. We could even photoshop ‘em together, if we wanted.

Here’s what we ended up with:

“In 27 years I still haven’t learned how to stand up straight.”

“I’ll stand here ’cause it’s your birthday, but that’s all the silliness I’m partaking in.”

Be careful when you talk your wife into blogging. You never know what’ll happen.

But picture or no picture, it was still a pretty great birthday.

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As of today, I’m just one episode away from wrapping my start-to-finish Gilmore Girls marathon. I’d have finished months ago if I hadn’t been sharing the DVDs with, first-time watcher and my sister, JSmo. But the truth is, I’m glad for the delays. Not because I haven’t enjoyed these last few seasons and not just because I’m glad for her to have had the chance to become friends with the Gilmores, but because I’m honest-to-goodness sad that the next 45 minutes I spend with the reigning Lorelai and her lady-in-waiting will be my last.

Of course, I’m exaggerating. I own the entire series on DVD for goodness sake. But I still sighed along with Rory today as she looked around her empty college apartment and closed the door for good, even with the words “wide open” on her lips. (You guys remember when Lex pointed out the immense importance of doors in this show, right?

I guess I’m just reliving that same twinge of sadness I felt last year when I sat on my couch in near tears, bidding the girls, “Bon Voyage. Forever.”

And I was a little sad today thinking about how even if I wrote one heck of a new post about those fast-talking gals, it just wouldn’t be as fun as it was back when those final episodes were first hitting the airwaves and I’d only begun to warm up the For the Record keyboard.

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