Davy Jones - February 29th

I just learned that Davy Jones, of The Monkees fame, has died at age 66 and my day is a little bit darker because of it.  Just last Friday, Dad and I were driving to the airport, listening to Pool It in the car.

I became acquainted with them in 1986 when MTV re-ran episodes of The Monkees.  Even though I am a second generation fan, it still feels like a little piece of my childhood is gone.

Atlanta: 2012

As always, Atlanta is a seductive mistress.  I have never gone to visit my sister and not had a passing thought about moving to the city.  It could be the fluffy white dog that refuses to wake up to an alarm clock and snuggles harder into the crook of your arm.  It could be the slightly warmer weather, no matter what time of year I visit, and being able to walk to most destinations.  It could be the social network of friends that my sister has and how they are always so welcoming when I visit.  It could be the Flying Biscuit.

But really, I think it's being able to stay up late talking to my sister about whatever thought enters our heads at midnight.  Receiving a gift that only has meaning for us.  Having the not so quiet time in the car when we're singing to our favorite old and new pop songs.  Or baking a cake that turns out a little less than perfect.  It's missing out on these moments together, from the mundane activities like washing dishes to the more exciting stuff like hiking Stone Mountain, that make the idea of moving to Atlanta so appealing.

I always have a hard time after a visit.  Whether it's her visiting Maryland, me visiting Atlanta, or going on Family Vacation in North Carolina.  The day before we're ready to leave and return to our normal lives is always the worst and I have about three or four days after where I just feel lost.  There is this very important part of my life that isn't where I want it to be.  My life is full, I have wonderful things going on for myself, but it just isn't complete.  This is the only way I can think to describe it.  I don't know for certain that being in the same city with my sister would be the answer to a lot of the issues I've been having lately.  But I know that things make a lot more sense when we're together. 

Home can be a lot of things.  For me, that feeling is where ever the two of us are together.

April Fool's 2 years, 8 months, and 12 days later....

There are times when you realize that you want something too much.  It makes you vulnerable and gives others the opportunity to use that against you.  Today, I was duped by a more than two year old April Fool's joke by the BBC.  (This is the problem with the Internet, things don't die here.)

It involved the possibility of recovering lost episodes of Doctor Who from the 60's using bounce back radio waves.  All my Doctor Who fans will know exactly how elated I was at the mere mention of this.  So excited was I that I immediately shared on Facebook and e-mailed to my fellow Whovians.  Then I notice the date and, instead of feeling incredibly stupid, feel an incredible sense of loss.  I really, really wanted this to be true.

Typing it now, I realize how silly the entire concept is  I mean radio waves degrade over time and space.  That's why I have to change from NPR Baltimore to DC when I get to work.  It's the sharing with a somewhat cool guy who will hold this against me that makes me feel stupid.  Always, always check your sources!  Then, check the dates on those sources and finally, do a Google Search.  Odds are, someone else fell for it before you did and may have written about it in hopes of saving you the same fate.  And always remember: If it's too good to be true, it usually is.

In Case You Didn't Believe Me....



Mom and Dad 1977




Annette and Frankie


They could be body doubles....

Happy Birthday Annette!

In honor of her 69th birthday, Annette Funicello has launched annetteconnection.

I was very excited to see this on my Facebook feed today as Annette was always one of my role models growing up.  How could she possibly be one of my role models you say? Seeing as she was famous in the 60's & 70's and I was born in 1981 I can understand how you would be confused.  But you fail to take into account that my sister and I grew up watching the Beach Party and Disney movies of the 60's and 70's.  We used to think that mom was like DeeDee and dad was like Frankie.  Then they divorced and no matter how many times you hear Annette sing the Parent Trap, it just isn't going to work out.  Of course, seeing as my father and my mom are still friends to this day, I guess my parents really did turn out like Frankie and Annette, IRL.

What made me even more excited than the launch of her website was the discovery of this gem in the news section:

Annette's new Fan Mail Address:

 

Annette Funicello

c/o Postmaster

Shafter, CA 93263

OMFG!!  I can write to Annette and tell her how much I adored her in the Beach Party movies.  (And when I adore someone, they stay adored.)  I can tell her about the life lessons I learned from watching her other films and how I strive to live my life in a manner that she would find pleasing.  Because that's not creepy at all.  Seriously though if I could go back in time and be best friends with any celebrity, it would be her.

NaNo Ideas

I saw a commercial last night that really made me think about NaNo.  It was the new Playstation 3 "Michael" Commercial for their Long Live Play advertising campaign.  In the commercial, soldiers from Call of Duty make a hasty escape to a medieval looking tavern filled with other characters from Playstation 3 games.  Each of them describes a situation when they felt they were down and out and Michael stepped into "help" them out.  At the end, they salute "Michael" and the camera pans out to show several other gamers photos on the walls of this place. 

It really made me think of Jasper Fforde and his novels where literary characters can interact with each other in the BookWorld.  Here are several game characters hanging out in a bar saluting their player that controls them through the different levels of their respective games.  It has the same reverence that one would attribute to a deity or to the reader in Fforde's novels.  (Though, in Fforde's novels it's the author that controls the actions of the characters and the readers are merely the audience to the production.  But a reader could influence the way a character appears, as noted in the most recent novel that Harry Potter will forever look like Daniel Radcliffe because that's how the readers imagine him.)



from sharenator.com

 Cleolinda jones has a similar congregation in her Secret Life of Dolls and I sincerely wish I had that level of creativity.  I know I've written on this theme in previous NaNo's but it is incredibly seductive to this literary fangirl.  Who wouldn't want to put his or her favorite characters in a room together and see what happens?  Think about Murder by Death or certain commercials for television line-ups.   Even the recent season finale of Doctor Who with the whole history of time happening at once was a similar idea.  (Winston Churchill as Caesar and Charles Dickens writing Christmas specials for TV!!)

Laugh-in Predicts the Future

Re-posted from my LiveJournal.  I just thought it was an interesting entry and wanted to share it here:

In one such episode of Laugh-in, Rowan & Martin focus on money and the problem with Credit in this country during the 1960's.  The most interesting part was a skit about trying to buy a plane ticket at the airport. The premise being that one day cash will be meaningless.  Set 30 years in the future, Dan Rowan goes up to a counter womanned by Jo Anne Worley and proceeds to ask for a ticket to a destination.  She tells him the price of the ticket, a whopping $400, and he pulls out his wallet to pay cash.  Jo Anne Worley's character balks at the idea and asks for his Credit card instead.  They have a dialog about how he just wants to pay cash and she ends up calling management.  She is incredulous that a person would pay cash for a plane ticket but is reassured by the "management" she can accept that form of payment.  So she hangs up the phone and asks for his Cash Card.  Obviously, much funnier seen than read, but it's important to know the details. 

At the time the skit was written, it was humorous because it was so over the top.  Obviously, there was a kernel of truth in it but the point was to take it to an extreme.  This is how comedy works, after all. One of the more important details of this skit, is when Jo Anne Worley's character says to Dan Rowan's, "Well, I need some form of Identification."  In our modern world, some 30 years after this skit was written and performed, this isn't that ridiculous.  A person could certainly purchase an airline ticket with cash, but they will be scrutinized for fear of the terrorist agenda.  It is much more likely that a person will purchase their ticket using a credit card or, even more likely, a debit card.  (In this case, the idea of a "cash card" is not too different from our modern Debit cards.)  And, of course, identification must always be presented and verified for any flight.  It was kind of eerie to see how accurate this skit has become.  Even more interesting, looking back at the collapse of the housing market and subsequent recession, is to think of the role Credit has played in our current situations and how it was a concern even 30 years ago.

Existential Joss Whedon

I picked up a copy of The Existential Joss Whedon: Evil and Human Freedom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Serenity, by J. Michael Richardson and J. Douglas Rabb, on the Kindle app on my phone.  (Normal copy would cost about $35 and the Kindle edition was $15.)  I have only read through about 14% of it, but I am having a hard time putting it down.  First of all, it discusses important plot lines and character development from one (some) of my favorite shows.  Second, it breaks down Existentialism into digestible pieces of information that I can comprehend.

The one that caught my attention last night was in chapter three, entitled "Buffy, Faith, and Bad Faith: Choosing to Be the Chosen One."  In the chapter it starts discussing Jean-Paul Sartre and the episode of Firefly, "Objects in Space."  The Richardson and Rabb talk about Sartre's idea of freedom.

We also encounter other people.  Unlike mere physical objects, they too have freedom, plans and projects which may, Sartre would say must, conflict with our own.  To reduce this conflict we do what we can, always in Bad Faith, to negate their freedom or to deny our own freedom.  At some level, we also want to be recognized by these other persons, but recognized as free conscious beings, not the mere things or objects to which they, also in Bad Faith, would like to reduce us in order to preserve their own precious freedom.  

And it just sort of clicked for me.  Of course, the example in the book of a woman out on a date could have helped with that as well.  It is incredibly easy to think of other people as two dimensional characters or objects filling up the spaces in our lives.  We are the center of our own lives; the stars of our own sitcoms, if you will, and everyone else is a supporting cast member. 

When I'm driving, usually home from a long day, I often think about the people in the other cars on the road.  They are all going somewhere, with some agenda in mind, and we wish everyone else would get off the road so we could get where we're going faster.  I often think that my problem is that I "deny [my] own freedom" too much when interacting with other people.  I'm far more concerned about the well being of others than I am about myself.  I have this sense of fairness that few people seem to have.  I will be paralyzed by indecision or avoid a situation altogether rather than make a choice that will cause someone to be harmed in some way.  Of course, this is not healthy and I am getting better at it. 

JEMCON 2011

I have recently discovered that there is a JemCon in Holland this year.  Next year it will be in St. Louis and, since that is a lot easier for me to attend, I am trying to make my plans now.  As you have already witnessed, I have the Jem Costume all worked out.

The thing is this, I've never understood (your obsessive genre here) conventions.  I enjoy costumes and dressing up, but I just didn't "get" going to a convention with thousands of other people dressed in the same outfits. 

But this, JemCon, speaks to my inner child that always wished for the Jem costume.  The part of me that wanted to be an international superstar that helped charities and outsmarted the Misfits.  And I just might finally understand what all those Star Trek Fans have been doing after all.

The Morphinominal Project

My sister has started a project on Blogger.  She is analyzing the episodes of The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to discover who the the most important Power Ranger was on the show.  She believes that by tracking who says the first and last lines on the show, who first appears on screen, who says, "It's morphin time."  and who kills the monster of the week in the episodes, she can statistically calculate which Ranger is the most powerful/important member of the team.  I think she is secretly hoping to discover that Kimberly is that Ranger, but I also think it's an interesting concept as well as a way to practice what she's learning in B-School.

So, check out The Morphinominal Project.

Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler

Doctor Who returned last night after a mid-season break.  I was concerned about how this returning episode would pick up after the events in "A Good Man Goes to War."

With a title like, "Let's Kill Hitler," I was intrigued but also concerned that we would have a one-off episode before getting back to the River Song/Pond Family story arc.  Thankfully, the title was a red herring and Hitler was locked in a broom cupboard for almost the entirety of the episode.

First, let's talk about the Teselecta.  Clearly Mels is not the only human being to consider using time travel to go back and "Kill Hitler."  The tiny humans, I'm guessing they're humans anyway, inside the Teselecta are already on their way to do the very same deed.  Honestly though, who hasn't thought of using time travel to go back and prevent some of the horrible things we learn about in history. The Justice Department humans, in the Teselecta, assume the form of a Wehrmact officer, in what has to be one of the coolest effects I've seen used for a robot that can change its shape at will, and head off to Hitler's office.  

What interests me about the Justice Department though is that they make a point of finding the "criminal" at the end of his or her timeline.  They aren't going back in time to stop what that individual may or may not have done.  I don't know if it has something to do with changing "fixed points" in history or what.  But I thought it was odd that they have the ability to go back in time and covertly kill an important historical figure yet we don't really talk about preventing the crimes in the first place.  Of course, I suppose it then goes into the ideas presented in "The Minority Report" where they question punishing someone for a crime they could potentially commit.

This brings me back to the Doctor and River.  The Justice Department decides to abandon their Hitler mission, they were too early, and go after Melody Pond instead.  Apparently she was a much bigger fish.  They go after her because ***spoiler alert***she kills the Doctor, as seen in the season opener.  Which makes me wonder, why did River stop Amy and Rory (in the opener) if she knew perfectly well what was going to happen?  Then she encouraged Amy and Rory to hide the news of his death from their current doctor when he showed up.  What does it mean?

I also found it quite disturbing that Mels ***spoiler alert*** is pre-regeneration River Song.  Well not the part where she is going to be River Song, but the part where she was a childhood friend of her parents.  Wikipedia tells me that this is an ontological paradox.  Meaning that by Mels being friends with her parents, she encourages their relationship (thus ensuring that she is born) and then provides a namesake for herself.  Kind of disturbing is thinking about when Melody received her combat/seduction training if she "grows up" with her parents.  Was she already an adult in a child's body?  Where was she living while they were all "growing up?"  Was she living with her Silence Captors and getting mixed messages about the Doctor?  Also disturbing is the way the Doctor dismisses finding baby Melody; telling them that they have too much fore-knowledge.  a) I know that Amy is not going to give up trying to find her baby and b)is the doctor that foolish to think that she would.
What I do love is the way that Alex Kingston plays this newly regenerated Melody Pond/River Song.  Like the Doctors before her, she is amazed by the outcome, checks out her new teeth, etc.  What I thought was funny at the time, but realize is kind of biased now, is that Mels tell them to shush because she's "concentrating on a dress size."  The Doctor is never concerned about his waist size, why is she?  Is this an indication of her age? Or because she's female and therefore more superficial?  To be fair, I would probably do the same thing if I could regenerate into someone new.  But if all you have to do is concentrate during the regeneration process, why is the Doctor never ginger as he always laments not being?  Or is it not a gurantee just a preference?

I felt like some things were thrown in to justify previous things in the series.  i.e. Melody saying that she would slowly try and age younger to throw people off - is this to explain why the actress is getting older even though her first appearce was the character's last timeline-wise.  Or having Melody ***spoiler alert*** give her remaining regenerations to save the Doctor.  I felt like this was to explain why we saw the character die in her first appearance.  But that was explained in the same episode when she knocked the Doctor unconscious and took his place, so why bring it up now?

I have so many questions and I sincerely hope we get them wrapped up before the series ends.  I love the Ponds and River, but I am ready to move on from this arc.














http://fuckyeahgallifrey.tumblr.com/post/9601264737/martinusmiraculorum-show-me-river-song

Snapshots

Several people on my Facebook friends list have posted their professional pictures from weddings, births, parties, etc.  And it occurred to me, as I grew increasingly jealous of their projected happiness, that we, as a culture, don't take photos of the sad times in our lives.  We take photos on vacation, at birthday parties, social gatherings, and life's milestones.  But I don't know that I've ever seen someone take a photo at a Funeral. 

My dad tells me that his father's family would line up in front of their deceased relative's coffin and take a kind of final family photo.  I have been told that this was a common practice in the 30's and 40's, but I haven't really heard of this as a current one.  When my paternal grandmother died all photos were taken after the funeral, at the luncheon that followed.  But my point is that we don't hire professional photographers to document these moments in our lives.

Realistically, not many people want to remember those times in our lives.  We would rather look back at the photos that make us beautiful and bring warm and fuzzy memories.  We only want to share those moments that will make others pay attention.  Which brings me to this article I read about Facebook and how it makes us all a little more depressed.  The Anti-Social Network, by Libby Copeland, really speaks to me at the moment.  The idea is that, in a study performed at Standford, Facebook only projects the best part of our lives for others to see and this, in turn, makes us feel more isolated in our less than perfect realities. 

It's kind of like the sitcom versions of our own lives; we get the funny, ridiculous, and Kodak moments.  I have often lamented that life cannot be like a movie (or television show or book) and we can't montage through the boring and difficult parts.  By viewing people's activities on Facebook we don't have to experience these in between parts that others certainly go through and it can make it seem like they don't exist for these friends and relatives.  It can make life seem easier than it is.

I personally enjoy the posts my friend, G, puts up about her children.  She's always honest about when they do something amazing and when they are driving her crazy.  Even though I am not there every day, I know that parenting is quite the struggle.  Whereas, former classmate, C, seems to have no end of joyous moments with her children and the five or six others she has in her daycare.  Do they ever fall down? Cry? Repeatedly ask for something they can't have?  Throw a temper tantrum?  I sincerely doubt that C has this perfect existence but I don't have any evidence to the contrary and I would believe that she and her adorable husband have a marriage akin to the Cleavers'.

I talk to my sister every day and I know the struggles that she is currently going through.  But if I were to judge her life based solely on the content she puts up on Facebook, I would think that she was perfectly happy and only a little stressed from time to time.  It's not her fault, she doesn't intentionally put only the good content up because she's afraid of what other's would think.  It's just that there are certain things you just don't share with an online community.  Facebook creates this false intimacy with people.  We imagine that we know everything happening in their lives even though we haven't called them to ask how they are or even seen them since high school.

I do know that the difficult times I've had recently seemed that much worse when I would see how happy other people were on Facebook.  It increased that feeling that perhaps something was wrong with me, some important life lesson I never learned, or a turn right when I should have turned left.  I've come out of that a little bit and I'm trying to focus more on the reality of life around me.  I think that Facebook creates a false plumb line for our lives.  We think about what content we'll post, how many people will like it, and how many hits we'll get on x, y, or z post.  We censor ourselves and project a modified version in an attempt to court the favor of people who are doing exactly the same thing. 

So, lately I've been trying not to over think situations and create imagined problems and concerns for myself.  I'm trying to stop asking if this is what other people would do or if this would be acceptable by someone else's standards.  Because I know my own mind better than anyone else.  I guess the point is that I'm trying to enjoy my life as it is and not as a snapshot for someone else's approval.

Name that Bitch

Have you seen that episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted keeps inviting his random dates to important friend events and Lilly gets really upset.  She has him play that "Name that Bitch" game with her scrapbooks and he can't remember any of the girls' names.

I am heading down to NC today for the NKOTBSB concert and R's second birthday.  I couldn't be more excited.  I know that I don't live near my friend, J, and I don't see her and her family everyday so her son won't have actual memories of me until he's much older.  Even then it will be like the memories I have of Dad's friend, Bonnie.  I know she came over a few times and was there for family parties, but I have no concept of her as a person outside of these rare events.  I don't know what her sense of humor was like or what kind of friendship she had with Dad.  I know what I've heard, but I don't actually know.

What I do like is that one day R will look back at his parents' pictures and see me in the wedding party, at his shower, and (hopefully) all of his birthdays.  That even if I am not an actual character in his life/world, he will know that his family was important to me and that his mom had friends that loved her.  There are certainly people in my parents' pictures that appear more than a few times and I wonder who they are.  I hope that I have a little more presence in his life than that, though.  Things do change, however, and we can never tell what the future will bring.

My Jem Costume!

I don't know if I'm sold on the wig just yet.  I promise to post pictures once I get the make-up and accessories figured out.

Gone With The Wind/X-Men Mash-up Dream

I had the most amazing dream last night!  Obviously, it's a combination of my reading Gone With The Wind and discussing the most recent X-Men Movie.  Still incredibly cool.  It was like I was watching the movie and then things started varying slightly. 

Basically, when Melanie and Scarlett think that Ashley is dead he's really turning into Aquaman.  Then when Scarlett and Rhett are fleeing Atlanta they have to run up a lighthouse and Scarlett starts to slip through the floor like ShadowCat.  She then believes that she and Ashley really are meant to be since they are both now mutants.  Then there was a musical number featuring the song, "Total Eclipse of the Heart."  In my dream, I asked my dad if what was happening was accurate since I didn't remember the 1930's being so forward thinking.  The entire Civil War was being fought between mutants because of the Charles Xavier/Magneto argument.

Best Nerd Dream Ever!

Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes to War

First of all, I want to say that I thought it was peculiar that the Doctor's new companion was named Amy Pond, back in 2010 when Moffat took over, since he'd also written a character named River Song during Davies' reign.  ***SPOILER ALERT***  Now I wonder if Moffat didn't have this in mind all along.  I know that the character was intended to be recurring, but could he possibly have had this in mind.  It also makes me realize that Amy is not quite so important.  I mean she is and she isn't.  She has a special bond with the Doctor and a non-romantic one, à la Donna Noble, but knowing that ***SPOILER River is Amy's Daughter *** makes me wonder if Amy exists because of River.And I just thought about how clever that was, to have River returning from a birthday celebration with the Doctor at some point in their future around the very same time that Melody was born. 

I really don't know what to think of all of the reveals in this episode.  It had the gathering of allies much like a finale, but it's a mid-season finale until September (GAHH).  I don't know if I can wait quite that long to figure out what the heck is going on.  I have ideas, but that big picture is really fuzzy right now.  I know if will be brilliant when all is said and done, but it has left me unsatisfied for now.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: S2E4

The thing that catches my attention about Inca Mummy Girl is that we see a possible future for Buffy.  Not meaning that she will become a mummy, but that here is a girl with a destiny very similar to Buffy's in that she is chosen to save her people.  We see Buffy struggle in these early episodes with the burden of being "chosen" when she never wanted that life to begin with.  So Ampata represents that part of Buffy that wishes for a normal life.

The difference being, of course, that Buffy would never take an innocent life to save herself.   We see this in later seasons when she is willing to sacrifice herself again and again to save the people around her.  Which makes me wonder if Buffy's sacrifices are really as noble as we are asked to think they are.  Buffy is willing to put her life on the line, but if she feels trapped by her "chosen-ness" is it really a sacrifice or an escape?  Is this the theme that is explored with Spike and after Season 5?

My point in talking about this episode is that we can see, through Ampata's actions, how the burden of protecting other people at such a young age can be a heavy one.  That Buffy struggles with it just as much as this girl, but that she is stronger and better than the Inca Mummy Girl or anyone else that would be in their position.  Spike has killed two slayers, didn't he say something about how they invited it?  Buffy definitely does from time to time, but she always has her friends to bring her back - emotionally or physically.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: S2E3

From the very beginning, Spike sets himself apart from the other vamps in town.

1) He arrives via car, destroying the "Welcome to Sunnydale" Sign. - how have the other vampires in Sunnydale arrived there?  Honestly, we don't know.  They either already exist in the town or they are created there.  So it's probably unfair of me to say that Spike arrived in a different manor not really knowing how the other vamps travel.  But to this point, we have not seen a vampire make use of this modern technology.

2) He has an actual romantic relationship with Drusilla. - We haven't seen this type of relationship between vampires yet.  Angel is able to care for Buffy, but then he has a soul so there are special rules for him.  But Spike's relationship with Drusilla goes beyond the basic Sire/Child or the Master/Servant relationships we've seen thus far from the Sunnydale Vampires.  We see that Spike actually cares for Drusilla (brought her to a place of safety, encourages her to eat and get healthy).  When they are together the entire world can disappear around them.

3) He has no respect for the rituals and doesn't listen to authority. - while the other vampires are cowering around "the Annointed One" and doing his bidding, Spike has no respect for the kid.  In the end, he even strings the Annointed One up in the sunlight and kills him.  It really seems so simple when he does it you wonder why any of the other vampires hadn't thought of it first.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: S2E2

This episode gets away from the vampires a little bit and retells the Frankenstein story in a modern setting.  Things are a little different from the Shelley tale, in that Chris resurrects his brother for a specific reason (grief) rather than the fact that he could.  It's Darryl, Chris' brother, who refuses to go outside for fear of what people will think of him rather than Frankenstein hiding his creation from the world.  Still, Darryl and the Monster will suffer the same lonely existence in this world because of their "different" appearance.

I had forgotten how adorable Jenny and Giles are together.  ***SPOILER ALERT***It really makes me sad to know how this season and season 8 both end.   Jenny is exactly what Giles needs to pry him from his dusty books and enjoy what life has to offer, even on the hellmouth.  She animates his rather dull existence in a way that being a watcher never has. 

It seems that love, or rather not being lonely, is the general theme of this episode.  Giles is trying to make things work with Ms. Calendar and Angel is jealous of Xander's interactions with Buffy.  Even Darryl, newly resurrected from the dead, wants a companion. Cordelia is dragged further into the Scoobies' world and we start to see the beginnings of her attraction to Xander.

Then again, thinking of Darryl and his desire for a companion so he won't be alone in the world (à la Frankenstein's Monster)  it seems that the big question is "what makes life worth living?"  Angel has been around for hundreds of years but since he's had his soul restored it's been a lonely existence for him.  Buffy brings color to his dark world and makes some joy possible in his life.  Darryl decides to die, again, with his half-formed bride rather than be alone.  Willow and Xander have each other, but even they wish for something more.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: S2E1

Willow and Xander share a tender moment which is promptly interrupted by the first vampire they've seen all summer.  Thankfully, Buffy is there to save them and renew all of Xander's fanboy love.  I am kind of upset by this moment, especially considering season 8.  It seems that Buffy has to have Xander in her unrequited pile.  She does the same thing to Willow in Season 2 that she does to her own sister in Season 8 and she uses/abuses one of her good friends, Xander, to avoid dealing with her own emotions.

Of course, it could just be that she needs to feel loved by someone even if she can't return it.  Case in point, Spike later in the series. Though it's also a great way to keep people at arm's length.  Of course, Buffy is putting on a brave face for everyone and she's suffering from the events in season 1.  Angel is concerned but she can't stop pushing people away.  It's easier to protect people when your enemies can't use them to get to you.  Buffy is falling into the classic superhero trap.

We start to see the change in Cordelia in this episode.  Cordy is as intrigued by the vampire gruesome as Willow and Xander even though she's been too cool to admit it.  She quizzes them on their summer activities and then calls Buffy out on her behavior and tells her to get over her issues before she loses everything.  Cordelia knows her place and she knows Buffy's role better than Buffy at this point.

I like the first introduction of the vampire cult.  It's the same old cult type we saw in season 1 with the same old ritual reading, etc.  The anointed one seems to be getting everyone together for a round two of the previous season, but I know how Spike interrupts that plan later.  A little foreshadowing of Season 2's ending when Buffy challenges Angel to an ass-kick-off.  She even says, "Haven't you ever wondered what it would come down to?"