Monday Night Blogging

     Last night was rough. Eventually I fell asleep, though. (Why don't "rough" and "though" rhyme?)

     Rags was really happy I was visiting home for the weekend. And Last Holiday wasn't as depressing as I thought.

     Brad Paisley's "No" is a Song of the Day. I've never liked it much, because it's always felt like a weak imitation of Garth's "Unanswered Prayers." Also, Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story has been another that's been stuck in my head, possibly because there's been a cool video going viral of a dad and his daughter singing it together. (Hey, they also did "Tale as Old as Time" from Beauty and the Beast!) I hate the idea that that's being remade in live-action, but Emma Watson is a perfect Belle. The Fox and the Hound could never be remade in live-action (for one thing, it's too depressing), but if it ever was, I vote that Queen Latifah voices Big Mama the owl.

     Brent Musberger is retiring tomorrow - all the sports voices of my childhood seem like they're doing that lately, in one way or another. It's sad. John Saunders died last year, and Vin Scully and Verne Lundquist both shut off their microphones for the final time last fall. At least Bob Costas and Al Michaels are still around.
     The Pro Bowl still exists, apparently - it was on mute for a bit last night. And the Monday Night Football theme song still exists, though Hank Williams Jr. doesn't do "All My Rowdy Friends" anymore, which is frustrating, because he was fired after criticizing Obama. Read a book from the campus library called The Game's Not Over: In Defense of Football, by Gregg Easterbrook, which is one criticism against the NFL. That wasn't the best book ever, mostly stuff repurposed from his Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, but it was good to see somebody criticizing the NFL. I'm not sure I can like football again, but it's such a part of our culture that it can't really be ignored. Worked on a post a couple years ago from the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field Ross Hall, trying to explain my attitude as a grownup towards the game.

     I really should be working on homework, but I need to get something typed out first to get a good rhythm going. It'd be better if it were fiction of some type or destined-for-Kindle nonfiction, but those projects will have to be shoved onto the back burner for now while finishing this semester.
     Poked my nose into the RSU BCM meeting tonight, which was a bad idea - they're incredibly depressing and saddening, even more so than CCF at NSU. I think it has to do with the utter lack of anything approaching the gospel or biblical teaching whatsoever. Makes me very thankful Bob and Deb are doing such a good job leading in Tahlequah.

     January is already in the books. That's strange.

Mid-January Blah

     The first week of my final semester was survived. Too early to know what the rest of this semester will be like. Was brushed off by bureaucracy when I asked about doing more volunteer voicetracking at the radio station, which figures. The weather has been rainy and coldish all week, but not cold-cold, which contributes to a general feeling of blahness generally.

     Read through Daphne de Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca for school; she was a contemporary of Agatha Christie's, and Flavia's sister Daffy reads one of her books in Thrice the Brindled Cat Hath Mew'd. Also checked out Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow and Dodie Smith's The Hundred and One Dalmatians again from the campus library, because those are lighter. Sure, Rebecca was a well-written novel, but it's set in western England, which is so bleak....it was exhausting to read. The movie was probably more exhausting to watch, due to the pacing of movies in the 1940's. I discovered that I was the last person to check out The Hundred and One Dalmatians, two years ago. That's really sad, because without it, the world would have never known to count Cruella de Vil among the ranks of Worst Villains Ever.

     In football, Atlanta destroyed the Packers in the NFC championship game, so the Falcons will play in Super Bowl LI in two weeks. The only other time the Falcons made the Super Bowl was the 1998 season, losing to the John Elway-Terrell Davis Broncos by a 34-19 score on January 31, 1999. That was the second Super Bowl that I can remember watching; I was five, and we would move to Morris that summer. Atlanta will be playing New England, since the Patriots annihilated Pittsburgh, so that'll be, like, their eighty-seventh Super Bowl appearance in the last twenty years. (Actually their eighth, and their ninth overall.)

     Ashland told me about this article she'd read called "Body Ritual among the Nacirema," by Horace Miner, which was a sociological satire written in 1953. So I had to look it up, since she liked it so much. It's making fun of our tendencies to be obsessed with healthiness and cleanliness, and it was really funny. Satire usually is, though, if it's done well.
   
     Disagreed with most of Aziz Ansari's points in his Saturday Night Live monologue, but he expressed them well. And the Weekend Update jokes about Trump's inauguration were hilarious.

Inauguration Day

     Man, "Inauguration" is a terrible word to spell. And it reminds me of Tolkien's dragon Smaug. Anyway, Donald Trump officially became the 45th President of the U.S. late this morning. I watched the swearing-in ceremony for the same reason that I watched the results on election night - because that's what you're supposed to do, because it's respectful.
     Do I think he'll be a very good president? No. But Hilary would've been worse. I watched on CBS since that seemed like the most legitimate of the networks, occasionally flipping to CNN.

     When Obama was inaugurated in 2009, we'd been in Grandpa's trailer for about a month after the fire, and we were in the middle of clearing out the house, sorting through what could be salvaged and what couldn't. While watching George W. Bush exit and Obama enter, I was reminded of a line from the tail end of Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: "So this is how liberty dies - with thunderous applause." (I remember this from the novelization, which I think has Bail Organa saying it. The movie has Padme Amidala saying this line. Doesn't matter who said it, it still worked well. Also, Star Wars movies have REALLY long titles.)
     When Obama was re-elected in 2012, I was reminded again of this line, and again saddened. NSU, or at least the freshmen I knew slightly from classes, were extremely vocal about their liberal tendencies. Not being very experienced with dealing with this, it was one more factor to deal with in making that first semester so hard. RSU is more extremely liberal in the overall atmospheric viewpoint, but at least NSU allows differing views to be presented for consideration, thus "liberal" in this case being occasionally positive in the sense of "open to new ideas." RSU has more of a "If you disagree with this, keep your #$%ing mouth shut" vibe.
     Anyway, back to January 2009. It was raining, and I hadn't started college anywhere yet, because it was the middle of my freshman year of high school. I was fifteen, and the Okmulgee County homeschool drama group had just wrapped up a musical re-imagining of the story of Joseph as a This Is Your Life-style talk show. Cody was the host, and I played Joseph the interviewee in the present day. (Most of our best improvised lines in rehearsals were cut for not passing audience standards.) Roy played Joseph in flashbacks. Quinton played my assistant Stew.  While a bunch of us guys were playing basketball in the gym during the wrap party, I was on defense when a pass deflected off my hand, breaking my left pinky. It was almost healed a month later while watching the Obama inauguration, which I remember mainly because we were watching the CNN feed, and the Tahlequah Cable people had just installed the equipment earlier that morning. Having cable was An Event, since we never had it before or since. (As a family, I mean, that I can remember. In Missouri when I was a toddler we had it, and then in Tquah and Claremore I've had it while at college.) But I'm rambling again.
     Things that hadn't happened yet: Marie's incessant pestering finally convinced me to create a Facebook account four months later. I didn't know Jed or Jon, though I'd met them. I hadn't met Jessica or Amanda, and Josh and Marie were about the only people I felt safe hanging out with from church, since the Soukups had quit (the older guys in the youth group seemed to enjoy making our lives miserable, though I think part of that was just us overthinking.) Dylan hadn't moved to Tulsa yet, and neither had Samara. I hadn't yet been to Washington, D.C., though occasionally I would spend a couple days in Westville taking care of Nano. Sport and Sunny were still alive, and Sunny's daughter Eclipse had just died. I was just starting to dabble with guitar, figuring that it would be a good way to keep myself busy during the downtime (ha!) of the remodeling.

     But being in Tahlequah meant that I couldn't be part of the Okmulgee County spring drama production, The Hysterical Account of the Trojan War. It was really weird to watch as a member of the audience, sitting in the balcony of the First Baptist-Okmulgee sanctuary with Quinton, Alton and Brenna. There was a new girl named Jessica who moved from Florida who joined the group that semester, and to tell them apart Jessica Ashley became Little Jessica while new-girl Jessica became JB. She was best friends with Annette (they would write a play together called Tinker & Bell and the Fight for Neverworld) and eventually Alton and JB fell in love, becoming the target of many jokes, and they got married a couple years ago at Trinity Baptist in Morris.

     The Boy Meets World sequel series Girl Meets World had its series finale tonight. Just like Alton-JB were the couple of our Okmulgee homeschool clique, Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence were the couple of late-90's TV, which I knew well, being the child of youth pastors during the late 90's. I was more a fan of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and 7th Heaven, so I never really got into BMW, and not having cable, couldn't catch reruns to get into it. (I discovered MacGyver when I was about 13 and Full House in college, so that covers all of the 90's between all those shows mentioned.)
     But one day, while sick, I flipped the TV onto the Disney Channel (ack!) and a Girl Meets World episode was on. It wasn't good, but it was better than most Disney Channel shows are. So I would occasionally watch whenever there wasn't anything else to do. It was horribly written, and not realistic at all, but there was something that it did really, really well - and I never could quite put my finger on it.  The plot features the adventures of Cory and Topanga's daughter Riley, her best friend Maya and their friends, with occasional appearances by Shawn, Eric, Mr. Feeny, and pretty much everybody else who ever had an important role on BMW. These adventures reminded me a little of what me, Sam, Dylan, Marie, Jed, Jon and Manda got into during high school.
     Did the Tanners of Full House do a better job of parenting than the Matthews? Probably, but sitcom parenting is a little iffy at the best of times. (I would vote Nate and Beverly Jackson from Doc as the Best Parents on TV, though the Camdens of 7th Heaven and the Taylors of Friday Night Lights are also good candidates.) Is it as well-written as Parks and Rec? Certainly not. But GMW has that "....Well, whatever IT is, you've got a lot of it" (to quote Michael Jordan in Space Jam) stuff that both of those shows do. All these shows may be ridiculous, but viewers care about those characters. So, it kind of worked.

     Will Friedle played Cory's older brother Eric in both BMW and GMW, but there was also an ABC Saturday-night TV movie he was in called My Date With the President's Daughter. He played the pretty-average-but-quick-witted teenager Duncan. At the mall, when he meets and awkwardly asks out a pretty girl named Hallie, she asks if he's into sports. "Oh, yeah," he nods. "What kinds?" "The usual - bungee jumping....karate....rock climbing. Y'know, the basics." It was part of the Wonderful World of Disney that created such not-exactly-classics-but-they-sure-stick-in-my-mind-that-way as the Tony Danza-led Trash Pickin', Field Goal Kickin' Philadelphia Phenomenon; Slam Dunk Ernest; Angels in the End Zone (starring David Gallagher - Simon from 7th Heaven - and Matthew Lawrence, who played Jack on BMW); Angels in the Infield, the 1999 version of Annie (which is the best) and the 1997 reboot of The Love Bug (which stars John Hannah - Radcliffe on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - as the villain.) There was also a movie called H-E Double Hockey Sticks that also starred Friedle that I really wanted to see, but we had to go somewhere that night, and so until I learned the title just now it's bugged me forever, since I didn't know how to search for it. (Update: Found it on YouTube!)
     Anyway, between those two events, they reminded me of My Date With the President's Daughter, and it seemed like a great time to rewatch it. (Plus I didn't feel like studying.) The verdict? This movie is ridiculous, but it's supposed to be, and the writing and acting isn't top-notch, but it gets the job done. And it unfortunately could never happen now, because of social media and cell phones. And it is much, much funnier now than it was when I was five. Dabney Coleman(WarGames, Principal Prickly in Recess) is the President, and basically everything that could possibly go wrong on his daughter's first date does. Coleman makes a good fictional President.
      The next Monday at school, Duncan's friends give him a hard time about missing a dance, asking what he did instead. "Saturday night....I had a date with the President's daughter, got chased all night by the Secret Service, my dad's car was stolen, got into a brawl at a dance club, put on a magic show at a biker bar - that was pretty cool - uh....was on television, and oh, right - I kicked Steve Ellenger's butt!" That pretty much sums up the plot.

     I've pretty much tried to stay off of the internet, given all the tension and stress about the inauguration and all. Unfortunately I can't completely hide from people in general, but that level of tension is pretty thick around campus, too. Also, the power went out all across campus this afternoon, which happens with some regularity, just like in Morris. That didn't help anyone's mood. I had some time to plot out a fiction project a little more, and work on this post once the power came back on. Maybe tomorrow will go easier.

Getting Set for the Last Lap

     It's been raining all day/night, and there is a foggy haze coating everything. That's what the weather looks like outside. Inside, I've been taking amoxocillin and ibeprofen to get over whatever sickness I caught a little bit ago. The people at the urgent care were like, "Well, it's not strep, but we have no idea."

      Pandora is tuned into my country station, the current song playing right now is Rodney Atkins's "If You're Going Through Hell." That was one of the ones I included in my freshman year playlist, so it seems appropriate, given that this is the first post of my final semester of college.
     "It feels like you've been in school for forever!" Ashland texted me one spring weekend night sophomore year. I was walking back from finishing an order of onion rings at Boomerang, because that was a very welcoming creative environment, not to mention an amazing restaurant. That was also the day that she'd learned she was accepted to the Missouri State honors program, which is why she texted me in the first place. It did feel like that, though. And it really does now, too.

     The Master's Hardware building collapsed last night, according to the Tahlequah Daily Press. Master's Hardware finally closed up shop last year, which is sad. Bob and Deb are on a mission trip to Haiti right now. Susan will be graduating this semester, too.

     Read through At Home in Mitford again because Mitford's a good place to be. And add the North Carolina Appalachians to the places I'd like to see. Courtney will hopefully be working there over the summer at Snowbird, doing the same stuff that Laura did last summer.  
     Bennett went back to Fayetteville yesterday, so his dog Bullet is asking for cuddles from everybody else, according to Facebook. Also in the "Sad Pets" category: When Rags saw all the boxes being used for packing stuff, she just wilted in disappointment.

     Agents of S.H.I.I.E.L.D. started up again Tuesday night, and while tweeting reactions (which I usually do), Elizabeth Henstridge favorited and retweeted one of them. That was wild, but cool.   

     My classes this semester will be Capstone, Creative Writing for the Popular Market (genre fiction), Gothic Film and Literature and Psychology of the Criminal Mind (there weren't many choices to pick from, and I needed one more class).  Not sure how this will go, but it's only four months. I mean, I've done it this long.

     What comes next? No idea. Please stop asking. Maybe grad school comes later on in the future, I don't know. But it doesn't right now, because there's no way I could handle the stress - I've barely handled the stress right now.

     Carl Edwards retired from NASCAR, which was unexpected but not unwelcome. He always seemed too much like Leave It To Beaver's Eddie Haskell to be a fan of. The Chargers are moving back to Los Angeles, where they started in 1960. And the Raiders are moving to Las Vegas in the near future. The Super Bowl will be the winners of Steelers-Patriots and Packers-Falcons, none of which I care about.

    That's all, for now.