As you know, I’ve been all over the melodramatic crime dramas lately, and I’m finding myself a little bothered by characters on two shows: Penelope Garcia on “Criminal Minds” and Abby Sciuto on “NCIS”. Both of the women provide technical support and clownish whimsy to their otherwise all-business teams. They’re “alternative” characters, both perpetual teenagers in grown-up bodies. One is a girly-girl who brings trolls and ponies to decorate her desk when she’s working with the NYPD. The other is a goth who needs to be constantly fueled by 32-ounce sodas.
And really, I like that they exist on TV. They’re both super-smart, super-capable women playing invaluable roles on their teams and bringing femininity to their positions in ways that are beneficial rather than weak and detrimental. My problem with them is that they’re alternative in the way that appeals to middle America, alternative in the way out-of-touch TV execs imagine alternative to be. Abby wears black lipstick and spiked cuffs, but she talks with a baby voice, and you kind of picture her listening to Michael Bublé in her downtime. Garcia is brought in on cases where teenage boys need to be talked out of convincing their classmates to hang themselves, but anyone who was 17 fewer than twenty years ago knows no teenager would actually feel a connection to her; they’d think she was trying too hard.
The same goes for her team, who you know wouldn’t give her a second glance outside the office, except possibly to comment snidely on her multicolored hair and too-bright dresses. People really living lifestyles that differ from the norm have a hard time fitting in with the straight-laced set, but these characters are “alt lite”, societally-acceptable enough that your middle-aged viewer doesn’t feel threatened but zany enough that your middle-aged viewer feels a little bit hip quote-unquote knowing them. The problem is that anyone who’s the least bit hip themselves (I’m talking about me here, obviously) is going to see right through the ruse and like the shows less because of it.
What’s interesting is that Garcia also appears on the new spinoff, “Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior”. (It’s like there’s only room for one quirky fat girl on TV at a time.) Meanwhile, Janeane Garofalo, who actually is an alternative badass, plays a super-straight Special Agent in pantsuits and V-necks. Oh, irony.
On Valentine’s Day evening, Kamran called me from the law school library to check in and asked, “Anything . . . happen . . . to you today?”
“Um . . . nope,” I said.
“Nothing . . . happen?”
“Nope.”
“You didn’t . . . get anything delivered to you?”
“Nope.”
“Seriously?!”
“Yep.”
So it turns out he actually attempted to send me something to make up for my having to be alone and do laundry on Valentine’s Day. Only it didn’t get to me in time. And then not for two more days.
But still, aren’t they beautiful in all of their sparseness and deadness?
No?
Well, the company rightfully gave Kamran a refund, which he’s adding to my after-bar-exam chocolate fund. And it is, after all, the thought that counts. Which is why he’s still dating me despite the “Jersey Shore” t-shirt I made him for Valentine’s Day.
Also, donuts4dinner post today for all of my commiserators in fish-hate!
Last Friday, I was alone. I knew Kamran would be at the library all night with just over a week left before the bar exam, so I’d planned for many hours of one-on-one time with the DVR and “Criminal Minds”. But right about quittin’ time, I started feeling like I wanted to do something. I thought about how ironic it is to live in New York City and keep a blog about it and then sit home quietly eating bon-bons on a Friday night.
I thought about calling my former NYCBFF, Beth, but then I remembered she moved to San Francisco. Then I thought about calling my current NYCBFF, Ash, but then I remembered she’s trying to save money to buy a house and move somewhere even worse, Connecticut. Then I thought about calling Chantee, but then I remembered she’s busy rigging rich people’s taxes for the next two months. And on and on. I went through a mental list of each and every person I know in NYC and found a reason not to call any of them. And I felt like if I was just going to sit around on my couch, I might as well be sitting on a couch with my BBFF back in Ohio.
But just then, my NYCBFF IMed me and said she’s now a bazillionaire, doesn’t need to save all of her money anymore, and wanted to hang out! So I went to her luxuriously large apartment in Queens, and we got into her brand new CR-V, and her husband drove us to The Cheesecake Factory. Which was in a mall. In Long Island. Full of people in not just Juicy Couture velour tracksuit bottoms, which Ash says is okay, but the whole tracksuit.
It was the very un-NYC-est thing we could do and also the un-suckiest.
Call me a farmgirl, but something that still doesn’t make sense to me after five and a half years in New York City is people rapping along to their iPods. It seems like once you know the words, rapping takes basically no talent. Rhythm is important, sure, but anybody with functioning vocal cords can talk along to the beat.
I don’t exactly “get” anyone who makes audible noises on the train or the sidewalk, but I can at least appreciate someone singing along to quote-unquote real music, like the guy covering a Marvin Gaye song on the 7 the other night so low and sweet I’m not sure anyone else heard him. But I always wonder if maybe there’s an alternate universe where men all over the city are scoring girls based on their talking skills.
Filed under potty mouth
Tagged as potty mouth
This weekend, I found a plastic bag containing all of the dirty underwear I brought back from my ten-day Christmas trip to Ohio. They were all of my favourites, because of course I bring my most comfortable underwear on vacation with me. So I threw them into the wash last night with the rest of my clothes. You know, the clothes that hadn’t been festering in a plastic bag for two months.
. . . so there’s something you know about me that you can never unknow.
Relatedly, when my mom and dad went on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls, they realized when they came home that they’d left a duffel bag full of my dad’s dirty underwear behind in the hotel room. Pretty sweet tip for the cleaning lady, right? I’m mostly just impressed that my dad owned more than one pair of underwear in his 20s and that he classed it up by storing them in a duffel bag rather than a leftover grocery store sack.
