It's been almost exactly a week since I dropped Brian off at the airport – and ironically enough, it looks like he'll be coming back in a day or two. Apparently the combination of travel-stress and best friend-stress and sprained back-stress is proving too much for him, and that along with the fact that everything's so darn expensive in Britain made him decide to come home early. I'm not telling anyone at work for a few days, though – the poor boy needs to stay home and rest for a while.
For what it's worth, he's had a fair amount of fun while there – I've got pages of emails from him with enthusiastic descriptions of all sorts of museums and such. But he's looking forward to doing it again, this time with me – especially since I'm interested in things like theatre and nightlife and such. (Apparently this has been something of a sticking point between him and Rachel.)
As for myself, I've been keeping busy. I got kind of lucky today with my weekend job – it was pissing down rain literally all the way up until the boat docked, but as I was unloading the boxes of coupon books to hand out, it let up to barely a sprinkle. So what could have been a pretty miserable few hours was actually quite tolerable.
I went over to Monica's and tried to watch Magnolia with her, but (for me anyway) the film suffered from “Why?” syndrome – specifically, “Why do I care?” It probably didn't help that some of the characters completely rubbed me the wrong way, but even the ones who seemed mostly inoffensive just didn't hold my sympathy at all. It didn't help that there seemed to be almost no comic relief in the film. I mean, c'mon – even Romeo and Juliet had the gravediggers, right? (Geez, I hope I'm not botching that reference – it's been a long time since high school Shakespeare.)
ETA: Hamlet. Hamlet had gravediggers. Romeo and Juliet had the nurse. Darn me and my faulty memory.
I have started watching Six Feet Under again. Brian more or less gave up on it after the third season, but Mum gave me the fourth season for Christmas last year and I thought I might start watching it. In a way it's almost like having old friends come into your life again – there's that familiarity of knowing the characters and being able to guess what they're going to do in any particular situation. Which isn't to say that it's become a predicatable show, by any means – one of the things it does best is allow the characters to grow and change while staying true to the core of what makes you like or dislike them.
In a way, it was interesting to contrast with Magnolia – the characters often do equally unlikeable things, but I've always been able to identify with them enough to the point where I want to see where it takes them and what they learn from it. It probably helps that with a TV series, you have time to establish a relationship of sorts with each of the characters as they grow and change. So even though you might not like what they're doing now, you stick with them.
Anyway, I suppose I should go to bed soon. I'm really looking forward to having someone else there soon…
