That's Life on the Hellmouth

For whatever reason, I was pretty out of it at the turn of the century so I never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There was no Tivo then and I was starting to have babies. Life was bleak. It was post-graduate school but pre-blog when I was still learning how to have kids and a life. The weird thing about that is--you don't know you don't have a life at the time so you don't care! Did I just loosely equate having a life with watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Let me start again.

When you first start having kids you just read baby books and play baby games and listen to baby music. It's good. You should. It makes you a good mom. But at some point you start to get bored and boring. For me it was iTunes and then blogging that opened or reopened the non-baby world to me. It's 14 years later and look at me! Completely scandalized by nude love scenes on prime time and missing Steve from Blues Clues. Let me start again.

Having checked out from pop culture for about 5 years while having my first two babies I missed watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In all honesty, I remember people talking about it at the time and it sounded dumb. I would never have watched it (even if Tivo had magically been invented earlier than it was) but Ira Glass referred to it when I saw him a few weeks ago. I try to live up to certain exacting standards in my life. I can't not get cultural references made by Ira Glass or I feel shame and have to talk to my bishop, Scott Simon. Just a little NPR joke there--Cool your jets, Glenn Beckers!

So I'm into season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's basically half dumb half awesome. Maybe even 20% dumb and 80% awesome. I think I get the idea but just to be sure I will watch three more seasons and Angel. I also get the Bones thing now--sistahs missed their Angel, right? But I doubt I'll get into Bones. Life's too short--and I say that as a person planning on watching all  7 seasons of Buffy so you know that 1)I mean it and 2)I'm super discriminating. At any rate, it will be fun for you guys to look back at this post when you trace the inception of my Joss Whedon obsession. I feel one coming on. I like to think of all my blog posts as prelude to my eventual arrest at and banning from Comic-Con.

If not for Ira Glass I wouldn't have made it through season one. But the fact is, Buffy is a girl--and a female protagonist is tres interesting in this genre! Around the time Seth Green shows up in season two it's pretty obvious that there's something smart about it. It'll surprise you. I like it.

I also like looking back nostalgically to a time I thought wasn't very long ago. But, judging by the clothes, it was. I long for those square jackets, baggy pants, and anything-goes-pants-hemming. I don't remember not having natural fibers in the late 90s, but I guess we didn't. When did flattering clothing become popular? Was it Stacy and Clinton who ushered it in? It doesn't matter. It means so much to me to see white tights worn un-ironically.

I also noticed that the kissing (there's a lot of it--sometimes it even makes you lose your soul which is a good lesson, I think) is really loud. There must be a trend in sound editing to make it sound quieter. Or maybe the loud chomp chomping was a part of grunge I don't remember. Who can say. I never fully embraced the movement myself.

Now that I'm into season four of Buffy I can FINALLY have a meaningful conversation with Ira.