Conner is My Hero!

Here's my random thought of the night that thankfully has nothing to do with Darwin or French philosophy...

So - I have chosen to invest the 10:00 hour watching the new show Trust Me.  Why?  You mean aside from the fact that Tom Cavanagh and Eric McCormack are hot?  Don't answer that.

The point is that Tom Cavanagh's character--Conner--went to a meeting with not one, but TWO venti coffee cups.  Yep, they were sitting there right in front of him, side-by-side.  There's no way you could miss the point--he clearly intended to consume both of those cups of coffee, hopefully before they got cold (because I am personally not a fan of cold coffee).  Seriously.  If only my stomach could handle such caffeine madness I would aspire to the same kind of consumption.

Whipped Cream = Rocket Science?

Yes, I know.  This post is entirely indicative of just how much my caffeine addiction shapes my perspective on the world--okay, maybe that's an overstatement.  It at least shapes my very first perspective on the world once I leave my happy home and venture out.  

So this morning, I wake up, and it's snowing outside.  I don't drive in the snow if i can absolutely help it.  The snow wasn't supposed to start until tonight, but even yesterday i was thinking it would start early.  Anyway, the snow--and my general dislike of driving in it--made me change my plans for this morning.  Rather than driving myself to campus, and stopping for coffee on the way, I decided to walk downtown to the coffee shop and get my coffee there and then catch the bus to campus.  So I do what I always do--order a 16oz. nonfat mocha with whipped cream.  Now, before I go further, you have to know that the coffee shop I go to has this thing where they put a little dollop of whipped cream on top of the lid.  I could do without that namely because it just helps me get more lipstick on the lid than is necessary, but whatever.  This morning, however, it occurs to me that asking for whipped cream on a nonfat mocha is in fact rocket science for some baristas.  Some of them just can't seem to get it through their heads that just because I want nonfat milk doesn't mean that I don't want the whipped cream.  Why would I specifically ask for the whipped cream if that was the case?  I'm so used to people wanting to deprive me of the whipped cream that I have just worked my request into my order. Well, for the barista making my mocha this morning, putting whipped cream in my drink is apparently rocket science.  She hands me my drink, with a dollop of whipped cream on top.  Okay, that's just my indication that she remembered the whipped cream and I walk away happily to go and catch the bus.  When I get to the corner of the street and am waiting for the little white pedestrian to replace the big red hand on the walking signal, I realize that she didn't put any whipped cream in my drink.  She only put it on top of the lid.  WHAT KIND OF SENSE DOES THAT MAKE??!!???  None, I tell you.  Seriously?  Someone asks for whipped cream in their drink and you're only going to put it on top of the lid and NOT IN THE DRINK?  HELLO? I mean, talk about ridiculous.   

And see, I'm not usually one of those people who makes a server fix something if it's not 100% correct.  You put onions in my enchiladas when I asked you not to? Okay, I'll just have to pick them out.  You accidently put mushrooms on my pizza, okay, I'll pick them off.  Coffee, however, is the primary exception to this rule.  You don't make my $4 coffee correctly and I usually make you fix it.  EXCEPT when I'm worried about missing the bus, which was the case this morning.  So...I drank my nonfat mocha this morning without the heavenly luxury of whipped cream.  But truly, tomorrow when I get my coffee, if one of the people who's usually there in the morning is there, they're going to get to hear this story.   

House

Okay – so I love House.  Well, let me amend that.  I love it in its earliest version.  I can’t really say I like the new interns that are on the show currently.  But when Chase and Foreman and Cameron were the interns, the show was at its best.   I watch the reruns on USA, and I love that they show so many episodes back to back, and I can’t believe just how many episodes I still actually haven’t seen.  That’s basically how I spent my evening—watching probably 4 episodes (I think I started at 6, but who can be sure about these things?).  Anyway, back to why I love the show.  It’s because House is this tortured character and Wilson is really the only one who understands him.  House doesn’t really enjoy miserable, as Wilson so succinctly stated in the last episode of my TV watching binge tonight.  No, I don’t think he enjoys being miserable.  I think it’s more that he just doesn’t know how to be happy.  He can't have the woman he loves because she’s married to another man, and seriously, letting her go was the best thing he could have ever done for her.  That doesn’t mean he likes being miserable.  It just means that he doesn’t want to hurt her again and yes, selfishly, that he doesn’t want to be hurt again.  I can understand that.  Well, I can understand the motivating behavior behind that choice.  The thing about House that no one else on the show seems to get, is that House knows who he is.  He’s one of the most painfully self-aware characters on TV today.  That’s one of the reasons why so many people love his character even though he’s a total ass.  He deludes himself, but he knows that he's deluding himself.  I've been having this ongoing conversation with a friend (yes, you know who you are!) about characters that you feel conflicted about, or characters who are conflicted.  House is one of the great examples of this kind of character when it's done correctly.  He's conflicted, and we're often conflicted because we know he's an ass, but he's an ass with good intentions.  So we forgive him, even though we may not want to, and even though possibly, deep down inside, we think we could never ever be like him but thankfully there are people like him.  (Otherwise, none of these people would ever get cured and who would watch the show then?).  

But here's the thing that has me on this blogging rampage.  A few days ago there was an episode where the patient told House that he had one thing—one thing that he knew he could always rely on, one thing that defined who he was, one thing that he was better at than most other people, and because of that one thing, he was alone in life—not married, no children and probably not many friends.  For House that one thing is medicine.  Ever since I saw that episode I wonder if I have that—one thing that makes me who I am and that I am more dedicated to than anything else, one thing that takes precedence over everything else in life.  You’d think I’d be able to say that I do, considering that I'm not married with kids and have no current prospects on the horizon.  But I don’t think I can say that, and I wonder what that means, if it means anything at all that is.  I’m driven, yes.  I have priorities, yes.  But I don’t have that one thing that makes me lose sleep at night or that gets me out of bed in the morning.  I just have a seemingly never-ending list of tasks to complete.  I just move from one task to the next, one day to the next, looking forward to the next vacation period.  Sure I have goals and things I want to accomplish, but I don’t think I go after them single-mindedly.  Knowing that, realizing that makes me wonder what the hell I’m doing with my life and what am I doing it for?  Should I be looking for that one thing?  Because truly, I don’t want to be miserable like House.  But at least House has his work and it means something to him.  And even though he's just a made up character who only gets 22 new episodes a year, I still envy him for that.  

The Return

Well, I'm finally back in Pullman.  The trip home was much less dramatic than the trip to Houston, and for that I am truly thankful.  however, i had to shovel snow out of my driveway yesterday, about two feet high and about oh, i don't know, 8 yards and then of course wide enough to fit my car through.  yeah, that was so not fun at all.  but it's done and that's all that matters.  luckily, it's not supposed to snow for a few days, and with the rain that's been falling and the above freezing temperatures, the roads are pretty much clear.  i even drove myself to the coffee shop where i am now, because i can't get my wireless router up and running at home.  yes, now that i've switched from a PC to a Mac, i had to get a new router, and that's all fine, but i need a user ID and password from my landlord to complete the setup process and well, let's just say that my landlord isn't real responsive and has a poor memory.  who knew ten years ago that not having instant access to the internet would be such a headache?  it's like i'm just unable to function without it.  

now that i'm back, it's interesting that all the things i put at the very back of my mind on the trip home are coming back to the fore of my mind with a vengeance.  when i got in my car yesterday to drive home from spokane, it's like the floodgates on my mind just opened up and i had to start thinking about things that i had not had to think about while i was in texas.  the problem is, i want to continue to not think about them.  i know, this is my avoidance behavior kicking in and my tendency to avoid conflict.  awareness of why i'm doing what i'm doing doesn't change anything though.  eventually i'm going to have to find a resolution to the issues i so happily escaped from three weeks ago.  hopefully it's really true that every problem has a solution, all i have to do now is find it.