stakebait | (no subject)

I feel like Frodo. It's Autumn, and I want to go on a journey. Not, preferably, one quite so full of events as his. But it's finally cool and not raining. The air smells of burning and cool wetness all at once, even in the city. The sky is very much bluer and taller and white clouds sail across it in the kind of wind that ought to be blowing my hair back (and actually blows it into the corners of my glasses and my mouth, because I am an unsatisfactory sort of heroine). I want a red-brown horse with a black mane. I want a grey cloak, and wide open grassy hills scattered with rocks that match the overcast. And a road whose next bend is hidden by overhanging woods.

Or, failing that, to scuffle my feet through dramatically colored leaves while wearing a turtleneck and a really good suede or corderoy coat. Preferably while having Deep, Serious Conversations with my friends from prep-school, all of whom have angst and interesting cheekbones.

I am, of course, going to the Ohio Valley this weekend. But I'm not going on horseback, and it's not a quest if you have reservations.

In other news, it is all

dotsomething's fault. "We need a break anyway," she says. "Let's just watch the first episode of the West Wing. It won't take that long." And then she goes home and I watch seven more and I didn't need a new addiction, especially one where I'm six years late to the party.

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Many things are Dot's fault. If it makes you feel any better, the first season was the best. After that, you can stop, or at least slow down a lot.

Thanks! Good to know.

Actually, this one is really my fault since I got Dot into West Wing in the first place.

Hee! Then I blame you. :)

I watched the second season before i bought the first season on DVD.

The best part of watching the first epside of TWW is knowing more about what's going on than anyone else what was watching it when it originally aired. It's an entirely different episode.

"Your boss sure has a funny name!"

Heh. I have to admit, I'm avoiding as many spoilers as possible, but yeah, just by osmosis I know more than they would have. POTUS and SCOTUS still sound odd to me. :)

Preferably while having Deep, Serious Conversations with my friends from prep-school, all of whom have angst and interesting cheekbones.

Is this a Dead Poets Society reference, or am I reading too much into it? Because ever since the leaves began to fall in drifts I've had an urging to watch that movie (and, uh, resurrect one of my most long-lasting pubescent crushes).

Not reading too much in at all! Yes, it's totally a Dead Poet Society reference. Autumn is very much associated with that movie for me -- and with that whole genre of New English school stories.

I am always poised uneasily between envy, resentment, and adoration of those boys -- I don't want to be that sheltered, or have that tragedy, but it must be something to be able to take yourself that seriously.

Autumn is very much associated with that movie for me

Me too. It's the opening sequence with the trees and the bagpipes and the geese (were there geese?), isn't it? I went to prep school myself; although it's an American movie, I find there's quite a lot of old-fashioned 'Englishness' about the whole picture, which might well relate to your reference to 'New English school stories'. It's probably the stress on class and keeping up appearances and repression (which is where the slash comes in ;) Boarding schools have got to be, in my mind, one of the all-time hot-beds for angsty self-importance. Such an unnatural environment for all those rushing hormones.

I might have to buy the DVD...

Hee! I watched DPS before my eyes were opened to slash; I think I need to watch it again. And you're very right about the class and appearances issues. It's got that, not comedy, but tragedy of manners feel to it.

Never been to boarding school, but from what my friends who have tell me, I can't say I'm surprised. Not that public (in the US sense) high school was lacking in angst or rushing hormones, but there wasn't quite the same self-importance -- not that there wasn't plenty of self-obsession, but we were all too into laughing at each other -- and aware of the ironic gaze on ourselves -- to really take that kind of risk together.

I watch seven more and I didn't need a new addiction, especially one where I'm six years late to the party.

Oh, Mer, I *so* understand you, having been hooked by ~~crack dealers my friends on stuff like Farscape and BSG and, I am ashamed to write it out loud, SGA...~~

Hee! Mom thinks I might like BSG, but I am resisting. :) And I'm glad I'm not alone.

I don't see why it can't be a quest if you have reservations -- Frodo stays in an inn, after all. (and Rivendell)

Heh. Fair point. But he stays at them on his *way* to the quest. He wasn't questing for an inn.

I've always wanted to go to Rivendell. Maybe someday we'll build it.

...and oddly enough, I'm not the least bit contrite.

Well, okay, maybe a little (I sympathize, I do...damn that Veronica Mars).

Watching you watch the first episode of The West Wing was as much fun as I thought it would be and I want to hear all about what you think of the rest of it.

Yeah, I didn't think you would be. *grin*

You have done well, my young apprentice.

Preferably while having Deep, Serious Conversations with my friends from prep-school, all of whom have angst and interesting cheekbones.

Hmmm, I'm imagining a cross between Spike and Henry from The Secret History

Hee! I loved The Secret History.