I can't for the life of me write about this weekend. It was fun and great and my buddy of buddies, Brittania, was here and we had some adventures. But the future looms so these days that I have absolutely no ability to reflect, to pause, to soak anything in. I do something and then I leave and then I do something else.

I would prefer not to.

(I have nearly completely transformed myself into Bartelby the Scrivener over the past two days. I am a non-speaking, non-working, non-entity.)

On Sunday, after my fair and always excellent buddy left, I curled up in bed and watched Buffy. It was cold out. Rainy. I could not bear the thought of another person, not even another person at the grocery store. So I got under the covers and watched 12 hours of Buffy. I do not lie. Yesterday morning, I got up and got ready for work and then I just couldn't go. I thought of all that is not done in my life and the scant hours in which I have to do it all and I called in sick. And then I did eight loads of laundry. And then I went to the lake and ran. And then I packed along to more Buffy (and if you don't love this show the way I love this show I know you're reading that word, Buffy, and you're reading it WRONG) and for awhile, during the packing, I thought oh hell this stuff, this shit, keeps fucking multiplying. But this morning I feel a bit better about the whole gig.

Today is the final day for Buffy and this little fan is suddenly and completely and totally heartbroken. Which is stupid. But whatever. Love makes you do the wacky. Willow said that. Season two.

End of the season interviews/articles that I've read this morning: Two from salon (don�t forget that you can do the free day pass thing). One from Entertainment Weekly, for which you have to have a subscription to read the article. I'm off in search of more. I wish I were home. I want to spend today watching Buffy, season 3.

Unnacceptable reasons to love BtVS: to make fun of it, for the camp factor (because, actually, there is no camp factor--which, I guess, is the ultimate irony of a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Why I love this show: because, unlike every other show on television ever, this show is hilarious, heartbreaking, intelligent, heroic, unafraid to be bigger than it is, unafraid to tell the small stories, full of the best-written characters saying, by turns, the most inane or insightful thing you ever heard. Because this show has fundamentally changed my worldview (from the belief that friends and friendships drained one's power to the belief that true friendship is the most empowering force in this universe), changed the way I talk, given me comfort from the storm, allowed me to forgive, to grieve, to think, to philosophize, to giggle, to clap my hands in excitement, to weep and to laugh, sometimes all at once.

Joss Whedon said this which I just read and it's making me giggle: "And of course the captain was the me figure because he's very tall and handsome, but cranky and also slim."

I just love the way he constructs sentences. Of course, he is also the most soulful television power person ever in addition to the best, most witty, constructor of sentences. I adore him, I rilly rilly do. Anything he does, he has all my media loyalty.

The scene that I always think of, which, to me, is terribly moving in a way that never, not once, underestimates the emotional intelligence of its audience is in season three. When Willow, who loves Oz (the best boyfriend EVER) and who has long given up her long and mostly unrequited love for Xander, when she finds out that Xander had sex with Faith, there is this very small scene, never discussed or analyzed: Willow goes into a stall in the bathroom and just weeps. And that's it. The show never connects the dots and tells us that Willow goes into the stall because Xander had sex with Faith. Willow never talks about how hurt she is or how that's the final letting go of her life-long Xander hopes. The show doesn't ever act like her love for Xander undercuts her love for Oz. None of it. Man. That's why I love this show. That, and the sometimes frighteningly real belief that these characters are my actual friends.

So yeah. Make fun of Buffy if you want. Call it campy if you want. Call it silly or call it just a television show, or say you have better things to do with your time. But if you do, I will always think you�re an idiot. Buffy is one of the great texts of our time, one of the great works. Frances made me this excellent Spike card and she put this quote, said by James Marsters, underneath his picture: "Chekhov, man, it's all the same thing. Chekhov and Buffy the Vampire Slayer--it's all about beautiful losers."

Addendum #1

Ok, so I'm not quite done talking about Buffy. You are officially excused from reading this entry if you are not a fanatic.

The moment that Buffy became a hero I could get behind came in the very first episode. She's new to Sunnydale and she's awfully cute and looks and talks like a popular girl. And so the popular bitches, headed by one Cordelia ("what's your childhood trauma?") Chase, decide to take her under their one giant respective popular girl wing. But Buffy rejects them. And makes a conscious effort to befriend the shy and geeky Willow and the goofy and sex-starved Xander. That's why she's my hero.

Some critic said: "Buffy is an ode to misfits, a healing vision of the weird, the different and the marginalized finding their place in the world and, ultimately, saving it."

Joss Whedon's version: "a show by losers for losers."

Love. Him.

Oh yeah, here's the picture on my desktop at work. Handsome fellas. I'd take either one of em any day of any week of any year.

Addendum #2

Email from pops, just in:

Buffymania

Buffy, Buffy, Buffy. People talkin' 'bout her at work, NPR does a feature on Buffy "studies" (?) on college campuses, and today's New York Times has a feature askin' the writer 'bout theme's of the soul, redemption, and other trivia matters?! Wazz up wit dat? Inquiring minds want to know.

My response:

It's the final episode ever tonight, meine pater. And since it's the BEST SHOW EVER ON TELEVISION EVER, well...people are talking. I just checked out the following book: Fighting the Forces: what's at stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Pops, face it, the show is the Shakespeare of our time. You just haven't caught on. Yet.

That gave me the big happy.