measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- lots of thoughts running through my head... Note to readers: There are Buffy spoilers in this entry. If you haven't seen the series finale and don't want to read about it... don't read this entry right now. :) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm having my morning coffee (iced, since it's summer) as I type, so pardon my occasional lapse in English. It's one of those allergy-filled sneezy mornings for me. The cause of the allergies was quite evident as I got into the Jeep this morning-- the silvery hood, which I just got waxed last week with one of those cloth car wash polyurethane coatings, now has a soft yellowy sheen to it... pollen. Lots of it. Enough to make the silver jeep a metallic yellow. My nose is so ever-grateful for the chance to make my life miserable. Gah. I've taken my meds, but of course antihistamines don't start working very fast. I probably will have to take another couple doses before they really kick in. Until then, I'm trying to sniffle quietly so I don't disturb people in other cubes and sound like a snorting lout. Thankfully my allergies are usually just morning issues. Mild enough that I might take an antihistamine at night to keep me from getting too stuffed up overnight, but that's about it. Once I get a cup of coffee into me and the caffeine starts moving through my system, it opens everything up and I feel much better. But with spring exploding at once this year (and late, at that), it's all hitting at once and I can't cope quite as easily with it. Not to mention that my dermatographia has been acting up this year-- I've had random hives and welts showing up on my cheeks and chin for absolutely no reason this spring. I don't recall that happening since high school. I really should be taking the antihistamines more often anyway because of them. I guess I'm just going through one of those weird phases with it. *shrug* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I haven't read the journals of fellow Buffy fans yet, but I'm hoping people enjoyed the series finale last night. I did-- it was a good, well-written and well-executed ending to the show. Lots of the goofy dialogue that made the show so much fun in the first place. Lots of character development that had been established in earlier seasons but seemed to get muddled this last season. No whiny Buffy, which was a relief. Seeing Willow, Giles, Buffy, and Xander standing in the hallway talking about what they'd be doing tomorrow (like they did in the first season) was quite amusing. Spike? Yum. All I got to say. The solution to the problem made SENSE. It worked. It gave closure to the series and the ongoing storyline while also opening new doors for future writing possibilities. (Mel thinks: Damn, there will be impressive fanfic after this one!) And it wasn't a perfect ending. It was messy-- Anya died. It was a brutal death (quick, but brutal). Her body wasn't recovered. LGM liked that-- as did I. It gave the satisfaction that this WASN'T a victory without losses. Without pain and suffering. The people who survived had their physical bruises from fighting, but there was a sense of loss. Sunnydale was destroyed. All of the places we'd seen over the years are gone. Everyone's homes are gone. Their jobs, their lives. They've lost everything but each other, and now must go on. Watching Giles, Andrew, and Xander playing a version of Dungeons & Dragons made me crack up. We found the reference Andrew made to the evil Trogdor. It's um... whacked. But oh, that scene had me cracking up. Willow's goofy smile after tapping whatever energy to awaken all of the Slayers was oddly familiar. Granted, I haven't tapped any slayer-inducing power in my lifetime, but I recognized that giddy, semi-drunk expression from when I've done my occasional serious casting. What I've found, while thinking about the ending, is how it was so amazingly different-- and better-- than the X-Files series finale. Granted, X-Files had jumped the shark a couple years before it ended (it really should have finished at the end of season 6... MAYBE 7 was pushing it. I liked Doggett and Monica, but the last two seasons were pretty bad). A lot of it came down to the writing of the show. Chris Carter wrote the X-Files and kept no continuity in the series past the third season. Long plot points weren't planned out. They were written in as the series went along. Episodes became muddled. Details about the series started to conflict. And Chris Carter began isolating and then exiling his fan base from the show. While the last scene of the X-Files was touching and I enjoyed the episode on first glance, I've found myself not wanting to rewatch a lot of the episodes because I could not believe the ending. Plot holes were obnoxiously huge. Nothing was resolved. More questions were asked than answers given. While some of the plot lines that Joss Whedon had for Buffy wound up not being fantastic, the show had continuity. He planned out a season at a time (or more, in some cases for fine details). He wrapped things up and moved them forward. I hope the cast and crew of Buffy feels proud for that episode-- they ended a great show on a great note. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TranceJen's back. Yaaaa! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I started my gardening for the summer last night-- went to Home Depot and bought some pots, potting soil, and impatiens. I had purchased two nice, big geraniums while we were in Maine a couple weeks ago and finally transferred them to bigger, permanent pots. I also started to plant the impatiens, but could only get one pot done because I miscalculated how much I needed... so tonight I'll be getting more soil and maybe another planter or two. I'd like to get the impatiens planted before the weather goes bad for the next few days. We're supposed to get a lot of rain, and I'd like to take advantage of it so that they can get well-rooted with constant watering. I have some ideas for some other flowers, but finances will dictate how far I can go. We bought a four-tiered riser at a Pagan store in Maine that's really pretty, and I'd like to make some mini-pots with something that drapes over the sides of the pot if I can. I'll be checking some stores other than Home Depot because I didn't like a lot of the flowers they had-- they didn't look that healthy. There are a ton of little nurseries down Route 28 near us, though, so I have plenty of places to go explore. We have a deck that's a bit too tight for sitting on with a table and chairs, but I hate to waste the space-- might as well make a patio garden out of it! :) Ah well... off to work... got a lot to get done today... ~ Mel. 10:37 a.m. - 21 May 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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