LUPINUS

Well this is my first blog here on the site. Its going to suck more than likely because I have no clue what to write about. I guess I can start by saying I have been watching my box set everyday, regardless of how many times I may have seen each episode. I guess I can also say that I have seen the movie many times. There really isn't anything to say. Also check out my website at

REGINAROADIE

Last night, I saw for the first time what many consider to be the best episode of BUFFY last night. Goin in, I was a bit dubious. But after the first ten minutes, when I saw Buffy put her hand to her mouth after she refers to Joyce as "the body", I'm inclined to agree with them. I knew it was coming a mile away, but just seeing Joyce sprawled over the couch, her skin already pale and that wide eyed vacant look in her eyes, just terrified me more than any monster Joss could come up with. And seeing how all the characters reacted to the news and how they cope with the whole thing also really moved me. Especially Anya's little speech where she says "She's dead and I don't know why." That's it right there. That one line sums up the human race's attitude towards death. I like how the ep deals with the physical aspect of death and the initial reaction in those first few hours of the news that someone close to you has died suddenly without warning. It leaves the spiritual aspect of it aside, which is something that you would expect to be dealt with first. I think the only other bit of tv that deals with death on such an intimate level that "The Body" did is all of SIX FEET UNDER, especially the last few episodes of the series. I know some people might think "How dare he compare that ep to anything that other show had produced", and vise versa. I'm a fan of both of those, and I actually think they're good companion pieces to how tv deals with actual death. I'd be interested in hearing what Joss Whedon or Alan Ball would have to say about each other's work. The ep actually made me think about how I actually have perceived and dealt with a death in the family. It's happened twice for me. In 97, just before my 12th birthday, my Aunt Jill and Uncle Phil were expecting their third child. And we were cleaning out the combine (it was harvest around the end of August), and my grandpa had come to us to tell us the news that the baby was a stillborn. We stopped work then and we went back to the house to tell my mom the news. My brother and my dad had gone ahead to tell her the news and I had to go to the house first for some reason or another. But when I got to the shop where she was working on a project, she was already sobbing and cursing. We had a group hug, but then we kinda went our own ways. I agree with a lot of Joss's comments about death and how it actually splits us apart more than brings us together. I remember after that, I was in the basement by myself, just grieving. And to deal with the grief, I put on a movie. I didn't want to watch an action flick, or anything in which someone died. So I ended up putting on THE SOUND OF MUSIC, of all goddamn things. In retrospect, it didn't really do anything for me (the movie never did anything for me any time I had watched it). Eventually, I did get over it, and we went back to work that afternoon. It was actually a few days before Princess Diana was killed, so I always thought that Di was taking care of the baby up in Heaven. Unlike Joss, I do believe in the "Big Sky Bully", and I think that death is an essential component to life. Life and death is the ultimate ying/yang principle. One cannot exist without the other.

BOWOLF31

It's up to us Firefly fans. We've got to give Serenity a bigger boost.Get anyone you can to go see THE BDM! Send messages to every website possible.Go to SCI-FI.com and ask for a FIREFLY MARATHON.Call any and all radio stations and talk about the MOVIE.Then other listeners will go see the movie out of curiosity.CALL EVERYONE! This ain't the time to be without grenades. "LETS BE BADGUYS!"

REGINAROADIE

The second time it happened was a few years ago, actually. It was with my Grandma Fran. Of the two gma's I had, she was my favorite of the two. She was really into movies, she was friendly and funny and warm. Everything you want a grandma to be. And she was also a chainsmoker. She went in for a checkup at the hospital, and she didn't come out. She had lung cancer and brain tumors. She only had a few months, if any at all. I only saw her twice when she was in the hospital and she looked bad. I was still able to talk to her and tell her all my feelings. All of us did, so there wasn't that sense of "I'll never get to tell her how I feel". It was a few months later that I think I got a phone call or my brother Matt told me that she had died, and I didn't like bawl or do anything theatrical. Instead, I was a bit ambivalent to it. I mean, it was inevitable, so it didn't hit me or anything. This was just a confirmation. And I think at the end of April was when we had the service. Her body was already cremated, and so the whole family came to bury her ashes. They said that we could leave some stuff with her, so I wrote sort of a final letter to her with some dialogue from an ep of SIX FEET UNDER about death, where this one character asked "Why do we have to die?", as well as a toonie (a two dollar coin, for those unfamiliar with Canadian currency) as to pay the ferryman. I don't remember if anyone else did that, but I felt like someone had to do it, so I did. After the service, I kinda walked around in a daze through the graveyard with U2's "Kite" playing in my head. But the one thing I remember the most was seeing my Grandpa Maynard cry. I had never seen him cry before, so it really struck me then that she really was gone. That one comment that Joss made in the commentary track for "The Body" ep about how we fantasize/deny the death during that early process actually happened. My mom was the first one of our family to actually see my gma's body. The nurse had called her to tell the fam that she was dead. And the nurses wern't supposed to touch her before my mom got there. And when my mom got there, when she saw the body, she though "Well that nurse was an idiot. She's not dead. She's asleep." Her body was positioned so that she looked like she was sleeping, and not dead. But then it hit her that she actually was gone. A year later, my Mom and I went up to Unity (small town where they lived), since everyone was there to go through the house, because he was selling it. In a year, he had met another widow and got married that weekend. And so most of my mom's side of the family were there to go through the house to see if there was anything that we wanted. I went through their vinyl collection, and the only thing I found of interest was a Simon and Garfunkel album and a The Who album. My cousin got The Who, and I got S and G, as well as some books off my gpa's shelf and a magnifying glass. And when we were driving home with the truck full of furniture, my mom told me how my gma and gpa actually were. And it was a toxic relationship. How my gma was just miserable living in Unity. And how this dent in their kitchen sink was created when during an arguement that was so heated, my gpa threw a coffee mug into the sink hard enough to make that dent. And how my Aunt Joyce, who was the youngest of my Mom's siblings would be caught in the middle of it and how she's call my mom or my Aunt Joan just sobbing in a phone booth. That weekend was the hardest on Joyce actually. She was a complete wreck the entire weekend (I actually walked in on her when she was crying and was weirded out by the whole thing). And then today, I was talking to my mom about this (I made sure to tell her that I loved her), and she told me some stuff I hadn't heard before about all this. She said that me and my brother actually brought the best out of her. That she was better to me and Matt then she ever was to my mom. This, as well as the knowledge of how toxic of a family situation my mom lived with, really startled

REALLYKAYLEE

[b] OH MY SHINY TERRIFYING SPACE MONKEYS! [/b] i'm captain of my high school forensics team and this year i had a shock. i may not have been actually on the team but do not fear-- i'm on the forensics team! i was kinda worried because i had auditioned for storytelling (which i've done the past two years [9th in the state of va one year]) but i kinda did not so well on my audition. so i went back and auditioned for humorous interp and got in with a piece from America the Book by Jon Stewart. language [spoiler] perhaps no one put it more eloquently than the third duchess of Kent (regarding the boston tea party) "fuck with mother-fuckah's tea and the shit be on!" [/spoiler] my teacher hates language- never mind the fact she swears like a sailor come tech week. i proved my point and it paid off! i'm so happy and wanted y'all to know! now- to reward myself with firefly and serenity! after the SATs tomorrow that is. send prayers my way!