Tonight, I've traveled quite a ways, and I've little to show for it.
No, I didn't actually go outside. I hear it's cold out there, and there's those dangerous evil spirits afoot on King Street and the like. First, medicinal wine from a teaspoon, then beer from a bottle! Plus, you know, pool tables and horse races. Not a wholesome trottin' race, mind you. But you've heard that old song and dance one way or another. Besides, my game is trivia, not pool. Of course, I just came in second on a Facebook trivia game (basically by not knowing the street the Munsters live on. I'm still not entirely sure what it is. Apparently it was Mockingbird Lane. That was up there on my differential, but then, so is typhus.), so I can't say that I'm doing too well even at my game tonight. Of course, I've now snazzed it up into my old blazer (in no small part due to the fact that my room remains a good ten degrees colder than the rest of the apartment, regardless of the season. I could blame aliens, but you'd be expecting that.).
It was several weeks ago now that Joe and I gave up the high life of cable and HBO for the simpler choice of basic cable and Internet. In theory, we can watch Jeopardy! and a variety of other wholesome shows, but that depends on the cable actually working. Thank goodness for Netflix. However, despite this occasionally mildly inconvenient development, I have discovered an incontrovertible fact that has been rekindled by this night curled up in the Internet.
I should be on a soap opera. No. Seriously. Hear me out on this.
You've seen this blog, as evidenced by the fact that you're reading this sentence right now. You've seen my absurd segués and trains of thought. Here are two sample sentences from my time on the Internet tonight (both from the TV Tropes page, "Convenient Miscarriage"):
"On As the World Turns, teenager Liberty Ciccone, herself the product of a teen pregnancy, becomes pregnant. After waffling for several months over getting an abortion, raising the child herself, giving the child up for adoption, or letting her mother raise the baby, Liberty has decided to get an abortion, probably. Maybe. Anyway, then she gets tackled by an errant football player and has a miscarriage."
"On One Life to Live, following a fight with their respective partners, a despondent and drunken Will and Jessica had sex, resulting in pregnancy. After the requisite waffling over having an abortion, marrying her boyfriend (who graciously offered to step up and 'do the right thing' even though he wasn't the father)[, (because screw the rules, I have the Oxford comma)] or placing the baby for adoption, Jessica ultimately decided to keep and raise the baby herself. It [sic] what had to be one of the most ridiculous examples of this trope, she was hit by a car as she was going into labor [original author's emphasis] (she had gone for a walk to escape the chaos of her baby shower)."
Are... are you seeing that? These are absurdities that I couldn't dream up with a growler of Nuclear Penguin and a night of reading Tom Wolfe and Douglas Adams. Also, apparently the One Life to Live example is, "one of the most thoroughly told, nuanced, and engaging portrayals of a teen pregnancy on TV in recent memory. So good, in fact, that when ABC and the Campaign made an educational video using clips from the season-long story line, that video tape (yes that's right it was VHS!) was one of our most in-demand resources for a decade, used in thousands of youth programs, schools, and other settings to spark conversation about teen pregnancy and its consequences." That's right. They got ACCOLADES for making something that contrived. I could learn so much.
More than that, I am a godsend to soap operas everywhere. As you may have noticed, I tend to look somewhat different depending on the way my hair is framing my non-threatening bone structure (which would look just GREAT in soft focus). Not enough to fool a whole bunch of people, but think about how that facilitates any amnesia/evil twin/evil-not-a-twin-but-still-a-doppleganger storylines! And then there's the facial hair! Want to show that the twin is evil? Give him a goatee! Done! Want to show that there's one that's the great-great-grandnephew of Theodore Roosevelt? Give him a moustache and some glasses! Done!
Plus, I've got the remnants of an acne-encrusted adolescent existence and a bit of a thinning hairline, so I wouldn't be a huge threat to the more established players' egos. They can still be the pretty ones (even though there's no question on which one you take home to Mom and Dad- it's totally Evil Twin Rob, because he's got the great genes of Not Evil Rob PLUS the manipulative capacity of an evil twin PLUS that snazzy goatee! There's no way they'll disapprove of that, at least until Pamela goes into teen-labor in the middle of her Girl Scout Lacrosse match for Survivors of Errant Football Players and Cars, at which point its just proper decorum to hold off the wedding until Evil Twin Rob is tempted away by that just awful she-witch Siobahn), and I can still look good enough in a suit (or less, LADIES) for the little weekly digests in the supermarkets.
More than that, what do a lot of soap operas have plenty of? Medical jargon! And who better to rattle off that business than someone who will eventually have not one, but TWO doctorates? That's like a soap opera scientist right there! All we need is time in a foreign- OH WAIT ROB SPENT A YEAR IN FRANCE TEACHING ENGLISH TO UNDERPRIVILEGED CHILDREN. FANCY THAT.
Around now, there may be some of you saying (between gasps of laughter at my rapier wit), "But, Rob, there's more to soap opera-ing than just being pretty enough face with versatile facial hair and an intricate knowledge of medical terms. You have to do the whatsit. The acting. That's the stuff."
Well, of course there's the acting! I'll have you know that I was in no fewer than 5 productions in my high school (and 3 in college), where I was trained by a teacher who acted as if her life was in fact a soap opera. My life up to this point has clearly been leading to a soap opera (after I go on Jeopardy! during graduate school, and obviously after I've gotten far enough in residency to have time to do a soap opera, unless they want to give me the schedule accommodations that I would need to be the recurring-to-supporting role for which I would SURELY win a Daytime Emmy. That is the award for soap operas, right?).
There's really no alternative, ABC/NBC/CBS/Soap Opera Network. You're going to have to pack up and come to Charleston, because you've just found your newest star (who will probably be in a coma for the filming dates in May and June, because, dude, boards. You don't mess around with that, or else I will enlist Evil-Not-A-Twin-But-Still-a-Doppleganger Rob to cut you, and he will totally do it, because he is just chillingly amoral due to some mysterious childhood trauma that lies behind those icy blue eyes. He's just waiting for the right woman to crack open that shell and get him to share, possibly in flashbacks, if that's a plot device that soap operas tend to use. Which, in my limited experience watching them, seems to be the case, because they've got like 40 years of footage to work with.). I mean, sure, I can't be quite as expressive with my eyebrows just yet, but if you just up the Botox on everyone else, nobody will notice!
Okay, full disclosure, I left this thing like 30 minutes ago to take a short break that turned into, well, 30 minutes. I maintain that I need to be on a soap opera (and if I could speak Spanish, I'd shoot for a Telenovela crossover, but I'll have to settle for the French version, which will probably involve Juliette Binoche and Gerard Depardieu).
Meanwhile, it's late, and I'm two hundred and twenty-one words down from my quota for tonight. Aren't quotas (quotae?) great? I'm also starting to fade fast. This could get ugly and/or bumpy, guys.
Or it could just hit a brick wall. A big, ugly brick wall, like the kinds you'd find just sitting in the middle of a field, all graffitied up for no real reason. You know the one. Or maybe you don't. Either way, it's probably still there, sitting in an apparently reasonably warm November morning.
So, at this point, it's going to get a bit rambly. Feel free to sit back and just enjoy the flight. Ummmm. Herpity derp? Oh, good Lord, there's still over one hundred words left to go.
Go see Seven Psychopaths? I haven't seen it yet, but it's by the folks who did In Bruges, which is absolutely hilarious (and filled with swear-words, so don't watch it if you don't like listening to British folks swearing like it's their job, because in this case, it is), and I have heard pretty good things from folks. Folks who heard about the movie from me. And I haven't seen it yet. And now there's also Skyfall. Wonderful.
Oh, thank God. I just have to get eighteen more words into this blog to reach the word count quota, and I have just the highest hopes that this sentence did it. Thanks for toughing it out with me tonight, and I'm sorry about the lateness and the precipitous drop in sense that this entry had. Til next time.
No, I didn't actually go outside. I hear it's cold out there, and there's those dangerous evil spirits afoot on King Street and the like. First, medicinal wine from a teaspoon, then beer from a bottle! Plus, you know, pool tables and horse races. Not a wholesome trottin' race, mind you. But you've heard that old song and dance one way or another. Besides, my game is trivia, not pool. Of course, I just came in second on a Facebook trivia game (basically by not knowing the street the Munsters live on. I'm still not entirely sure what it is. Apparently it was Mockingbird Lane. That was up there on my differential, but then, so is typhus.), so I can't say that I'm doing too well even at my game tonight. Of course, I've now snazzed it up into my old blazer (in no small part due to the fact that my room remains a good ten degrees colder than the rest of the apartment, regardless of the season. I could blame aliens, but you'd be expecting that.).
It was several weeks ago now that Joe and I gave up the high life of cable and HBO for the simpler choice of basic cable and Internet. In theory, we can watch Jeopardy! and a variety of other wholesome shows, but that depends on the cable actually working. Thank goodness for Netflix. However, despite this occasionally mildly inconvenient development, I have discovered an incontrovertible fact that has been rekindled by this night curled up in the Internet.
 |
| Not yet, but we can dream. |
I should be on a soap opera. No. Seriously. Hear me out on this.
You've seen this blog, as evidenced by the fact that you're reading this sentence right now. You've seen my absurd segués and trains of thought. Here are two sample sentences from my time on the Internet tonight (both from the TV Tropes page, "Convenient Miscarriage"):
"On As the World Turns, teenager Liberty Ciccone, herself the product of a teen pregnancy, becomes pregnant. After waffling for several months over getting an abortion, raising the child herself, giving the child up for adoption, or letting her mother raise the baby, Liberty has decided to get an abortion, probably. Maybe. Anyway, then she gets tackled by an errant football player and has a miscarriage."
 |
| It doesn't make sense to her either. |
"On One Life to Live, following a fight with their respective partners, a despondent and drunken Will and Jessica had sex, resulting in pregnancy. After the requisite waffling over having an abortion, marrying her boyfriend (who graciously offered to step up and 'do the right thing' even though he wasn't the father)[, (because screw the rules, I have the Oxford comma)] or placing the baby for adoption, Jessica ultimately decided to keep and raise the baby herself. It [sic] what had to be one of the most ridiculous examples of this trope, she was hit by a car as she was going into labor [original author's emphasis] (she had gone for a walk to escape the chaos of her baby shower)."
 |
| Apparently, Jessica is the blonde. Also, these two are twins. Apparently. With the same baby daddy. |
Are... are you seeing that? These are absurdities that I couldn't dream up with a growler of Nuclear Penguin and a night of reading Tom Wolfe and Douglas Adams. Also, apparently the One Life to Live example is, "one of the most thoroughly told, nuanced, and engaging portrayals of a teen pregnancy on TV in recent memory. So good, in fact, that when ABC and the Campaign made an educational video using clips from the season-long story line, that video tape (yes that's right it was VHS!) was one of our most in-demand resources for a decade, used in thousands of youth programs, schools, and other settings to spark conversation about teen pregnancy and its consequences." That's right. They got ACCOLADES for making something that contrived. I could learn so much.
More than that, I am a godsend to soap operas everywhere. As you may have noticed, I tend to look somewhat different depending on the way my hair is framing my non-threatening bone structure (which would look just GREAT in soft focus). Not enough to fool a whole bunch of people, but think about how that facilitates any amnesia/evil twin/evil-not-a-twin-but-still-a-doppleganger storylines! And then there's the facial hair! Want to show that the twin is evil? Give him a goatee! Done! Want to show that there's one that's the great-great-grandnephew of Theodore Roosevelt? Give him a moustache and some glasses! Done!
 |
| Also provides an instant explanation for any "back from the dead" moments. |
Plus, I've got the remnants of an acne-encrusted adolescent existence and a bit of a thinning hairline, so I wouldn't be a huge threat to the more established players' egos. They can still be the pretty ones (even though there's no question on which one you take home to Mom and Dad- it's totally Evil Twin Rob, because he's got the great genes of Not Evil Rob PLUS the manipulative capacity of an evil twin PLUS that snazzy goatee! There's no way they'll disapprove of that, at least until Pamela goes into teen-labor in the middle of her Girl Scout Lacrosse match for Survivors of Errant Football Players and Cars, at which point its just proper decorum to hold off the wedding until Evil Twin Rob is tempted away by that just awful she-witch Siobahn), and I can still look good enough in a suit (or less, LADIES) for the little weekly digests in the supermarkets.
More than that, what do a lot of soap operas have plenty of? Medical jargon! And who better to rattle off that business than someone who will eventually have not one, but TWO doctorates? That's like a soap opera scientist right there! All we need is time in a foreign- OH WAIT ROB SPENT A YEAR IN FRANCE TEACHING ENGLISH TO UNDERPRIVILEGED CHILDREN. FANCY THAT.
Around now, there may be some of you saying (between gasps of laughter at my rapier wit), "But, Rob, there's more to soap opera-ing than just being pretty enough face with versatile facial hair and an intricate knowledge of medical terms. You have to do the whatsit. The acting. That's the stuff."
Well, of course there's the acting! I'll have you know that I was in no fewer than 5 productions in my high school (and 3 in college), where I was trained by a teacher who acted as if her life was in fact a soap opera. My life up to this point has clearly been leading to a soap opera (after I go on Jeopardy! during graduate school, and obviously after I've gotten far enough in residency to have time to do a soap opera, unless they want to give me the schedule accommodations that I would need to be the recurring-to-supporting role for which I would SURELY win a Daytime Emmy. That is the award for soap operas, right?).
 |
| He's got two (and another nomination), and he can't even sit in a chair properly! |
There's really no alternative, ABC/NBC/CBS/Soap Opera Network. You're going to have to pack up and come to Charleston, because you've just found your newest star (who will probably be in a coma for the filming dates in May and June, because, dude, boards. You don't mess around with that, or else I will enlist Evil-Not-A-Twin-But-Still-a-Doppleganger Rob to cut you, and he will totally do it, because he is just chillingly amoral due to some mysterious childhood trauma that lies behind those icy blue eyes. He's just waiting for the right woman to crack open that shell and get him to share, possibly in flashbacks, if that's a plot device that soap operas tend to use. Which, in my limited experience watching them, seems to be the case, because they've got like 40 years of footage to work with.). I mean, sure, I can't be quite as expressive with my eyebrows just yet, but if you just up the Botox on everyone else, nobody will notice!
Okay, full disclosure, I left this thing like 30 minutes ago to take a short break that turned into, well, 30 minutes. I maintain that I need to be on a soap opera (and if I could speak Spanish, I'd shoot for a Telenovela crossover, but I'll have to settle for the French version, which will probably involve Juliette Binoche and Gerard Depardieu).
Meanwhile, it's late, and I'm two hundred and twenty-one words down from my quota for tonight. Aren't quotas (quotae?) great? I'm also starting to fade fast. This could get ugly and/or bumpy, guys.
Or it could just hit a brick wall. A big, ugly brick wall, like the kinds you'd find just sitting in the middle of a field, all graffitied up for no real reason. You know the one. Or maybe you don't. Either way, it's probably still there, sitting in an apparently reasonably warm November morning.
So, at this point, it's going to get a bit rambly. Feel free to sit back and just enjoy the flight. Ummmm. Herpity derp? Oh, good Lord, there's still over one hundred words left to go.
Go see Seven Psychopaths? I haven't seen it yet, but it's by the folks who did In Bruges, which is absolutely hilarious (and filled with swear-words, so don't watch it if you don't like listening to British folks swearing like it's their job, because in this case, it is), and I have heard pretty good things from folks. Folks who heard about the movie from me. And I haven't seen it yet. And now there's also Skyfall. Wonderful.
Oh, thank God. I just have to get eighteen more words into this blog to reach the word count quota, and I have just the highest hopes that this sentence did it. Thanks for toughing it out with me tonight, and I'm sorry about the lateness and the precipitous drop in sense that this entry had. Til next time.
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