opening remarks

"I'm bored. There's nothing on."
"Come on, let's go see those two guys sitting on the couch and scratching themselves."

I refer of course to the un/fortunate tendency of my co-conspirator and I to forget that our window faces the street without obstruction, and to sit watching, say, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, in our underwear in full view of bemused dog-walkers and thrill-seeking tourists. If television programs had been invented before television, we would be one.

I'm meant to be working on my novel, but I spent five hours last night, with breaks for taking pictures of snow and trying to email said pictures to my parents, dithering over which web journal system to go with and downloading lots of superfluous bits of software I thought I might need. (No.)

There are lots of things I could have done. There's the novel. There's the cleverly-conceived literary ‘zine, now about a month past its original launch date. There are always the dishes. So I thought I'd start a web journal.

Then, in order to put off starting the web journal, I went and watched two episodes of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer with my co-conspirator.

There is nothing left to eat in the house apart from things that aren't candy, so we broke into the mystery cookies. They came in a cellophane bag just before we left for the holidays, and I distinctly remember the person who gave them to me saying they couldn't vouch for the contents. I cannot, however, remember who it was.

So he brushed Mao the Left Shoulder Cat, (an obvious pseudonym) and I picked through the bag for identifiable cookie genres. We watched The Wish, and my co-conspirator discovered the power of black leather and laconic dialogue to make even Xander menacingly hot. Then we watched Go Fish and I gnawed the M&Ms out of the cookies.

I think that's enough for a first entry. There's an explanation in me somewhere about the inspiration for this journal, but I have a sworn duty to cart boxes across town for a friend of mine starting seven minutes ago, and I fear I will not have time for another episode before I go.

rf

N.B. That is Go Fish, the "speedo" episode of Buffy, not the woefully bad (if well-intentioned) film of the same name.