The West Wing

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Ah the ’90’s!

No one can watch everything, and for some reason, I missed watching The West Wing. Until now!

Ben and I were searching for something else to watch on Netflix, like you do, and we usually have 2 or 3 shows going at a time, but they have to fall in different genres or slots.

We have one slot for a scary/ depressing/ intense show, and we have one slot for a more entertaining, lighter, or at least less intense show, something we can watch and still go to sleep after watching. The third slot is usually a Star Trek series.

We recently finished White Collar, and needed something else to fill the not-depressing/scary slot, so we started watching The West Wing.

We’re 8 episodes in, and I love it. We may never finish the last 12 episodes of Star Trek Voyager (I like Voyager, but Season 7 was not its finest. We’re struggling to reach the finish line here).

Writing is hard — I feel you, Sam.

But back to The West Wing — Guys, the walk-and-talk is real. There is so much walking and talking! Such long meandering shots through the office — it’s amazing. Bonus points to the directors and cameramen who set up and executed these shots. And to the cast for executing. 5 points for Gryffindor!

Also, I’m so impressed with all the actors because they have so many lines, so much dialogue to remember. Between The West Wing and Gilmore Girls, I wonder which scripts are longer? I thought no one talked faster than Rory and Lorelai, but Josh, Toby, Sam, and CJ could give them a run for their money. Not to mention President Bartlet’s speeches. Was Aaron Sorkin on a high school debate team?

The first episode just drops you in the middle of the action, trying to catch up, listen to the fast dialogue, and figure out who these people are. I like a smart show that expects something of its audience.

The West Wing GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Political dramas can be tricky to keep interesting (see the Star Wars prequels for what not to do), but this is how you make a political drama interesting (I haven’t seen House of Cards yet either; I know it’s a big thing). The humor, physical motion and clever dialogue keep the viewer engaged (dear Star Wars prequels, sitting on couches and speaking slowly isn’t a great way to help the audience feel that anything is happening).

I’ve also started listening to The West Wing Weekly, an excellent podcast which covers every episode. They’re currently in season 2, so I’ve just given you some listening for the next couple years.

I can see why this show has a loyal fan base, and I’m looking forward to more political shenanigans with the crew. Also, the ’90’s were not a great time for professional women’s fashions, so I’m looking forward to more shoulder pads. Oh yeah.

2 Creative Outlets, 1 Confusing Piece of Fashion

/ austinfey / 2 Comments

This month, my husband and I have been participating in Inktober. Participants do (at least) one ink drawing a day, and the hashtags are #inktober and #inktober2016 if you want to see examples.

I’ve been posting mine to Instagram and sharing on Twitter and Facebook.

It’s been fun, though I think if I set aside a little more time, I could do much better. Plus, this year, I’ve been really trying to experiment with the fancy Copic markers we bought. They are awesome, and slightly tricky. I want to practice more with blending, which is their real strength. Or one of their strengths.

For November, I’m upping the stakes and attempting to write for NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month (I’m austin_marie if you want to be buddies). The goal of said challenge is to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. That comes to about 100 pages of (single spaced) text, or around the length of a short novel.

Obviously, when trying to write 50,000 words in one month, the first draft is going to be a complete mess. I think the main point of the movement is to encourage people to just write. Writing is hard, and getting started is a hurdle, and you can’t revise what you haven’t written.

So I’m going to make the attempt. We’ll see what happens. I’ll probably need to throw out the whole draft and re-write it, but at least I’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t. Gotta start somewhere, right?

As promised, the confusing piece of fashion. I know, just one! But here it is: cold shoulder sweaters.

Cold shoulder sweater from Guess

Sweater from Guess. WHY??

My thought process on seeing a cold shoulder sweater:

Look at that cozy sweater. Do I need a cable knit sweater? No, I don’t. Hey wait a second, WHERE ARE THE SHOULDERS?? Why is she exposing her skin to the elements!? Why would you ruin the coziness of the sweater by slicing out the shoulders? WHAT IS THIS TREND?

Yeah, I don’t understand. Let me know if you have insight here.

PSLs and an Election Year

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One a road trip last weekend we stopped by a Starbucks on our way out of town, where I sampled a pumpkin spice latte, seeing as the weather has finally decided to cool.

I found, to my quiet horror, that I do not really like pumpkin spice lattes much.

Gasp. I know, I’m a traitor to fall.

Here’s the thing that makes it even worse: knowing that pumpkin spice lattes are so sweet and syrupy, I asked for half the flavor pumps (1 1/2 pumps of flavor instead of 3) so I could taste the actual coffee in the drink.

It was still too sweet and left a strange aftertaste that I didn’t much care for.

Apparently I’ve become a coffee snob, and I’ve become more sensitive to sweet drinks. While this is probably good for my overall health, it is a little sad that I don’t get excited about the fall-in-a-cup treat that makes the social media rounds. I do, however, still like anything with salted caramel in it, so all is not lost.

Just make the drink with half the normal sugar and it will be fine.

single leaf

It feels so frivolous to think about the relative merits of sugary flavored coffee when the world is in such turmoil. Natural disasters, wars, violence, racial tensions, an especially acrimonious political season, not to mention smaller disappointments, personal failings, and suffering of people I care about – these are all present.

Thinking about all the problems in the world is too much. Thinking about politics alone is sometimes too much, makes me too angry. Larger movements in the world — I have no control over these. Not that this means I should ignore them or disclaim any responsibility to make the world a better place in small ways, but I need not bear the weight of the world on my shoulders.

It’s better some days to focus on small moments of joy:

  • passing a test (after many, many attempts…)
  • friends who are learning to be new parents
  • friends whose child came home after a successful surgery
  • leaves that are just beginning to turn lovely colors
  • coming home to the smell of soup in a crockpot wafting through the house
  • time with my parents and my in-laws over delicious food

The world may be tired and dangerous, torn apart with strife, but the seasons continue, and the leaves will be beautiful no matter who wins the presidential election.

Photo from Unsplash.

Body-swapped or Transported?

/ austinfey / 4 Comments

Quick poll:

If you woke up one morning in an alternate universe, would you

  1. be in your body, just in the alternate universe OR
  2. be in the body of your alternate universe self and it’s just your mind that swapped places?

Which would you expect to be true?

Netflix Descriptions

/ austinfey / 1 Comment

Sometimes I wonder who creates the movie and episode descriptions on Netflix.

Netflix-ST-VI-Description

Yes, the caption really says, “To keep the peace, Kirk must dine with Klingons and drink Romulan ale. The Federation said there’d be days like this.”

First reaction: Whaaa?! That’s really what they’re going with here? There’s so much more going on in this movie! This is my favorite Original Series film, and the description makes it sound stupid. Come on, Netflix.

Second reaction: That’s hilarious. …It was a really bad day for Kirk. And non-nerds are probably not in deep enough to see this caption anyway.