despite all odds, i still think Jen R is going to come back. i have no reason to believe it, it's sheer blind faith, the same faith Jen R used to convey to me when we talked of church. we share a tiny shack of a room in an abandoned dorm on the neon campus.
me: why did you leave me?
Jen R: it wasn't about YOU, bub.
me: i know i know. but i can't escape the glut of my feelings choking my trachea. you gave me hope.
Jen R: this hallway is filled with mice and boys trying to be men and failing.
me: i know. because i know you. i know you're an Instagram girl at heart. i know ONE DAY you will want to post that Beatles thing, your body BURNS to post that Beatles thing!!! YOU SIMPLY HAVE TO POST that Beatles thing NOW on Instagram!!! it's a musty must. and so you'll come back. in a month? hopefully. but i'll wait MANY more years after that for you.
Jen R: chill out. okay. i'm here. i'm back. Ash Wednesday Miracle here we go. so what's your heaven?
me: Saturday night. no, it's THURSDAY NIGHT. just you and me on this ratty couch here. that's it. we're watching a very obscure Canadian series from 1990 called Saying Goodbye on TVOntario.
Jen R: oh yeah i remember that dank-as-fuck show. but i'm not watching the suicide episode "A Promise Broken," i can't watch that one. i told you about that, right? i warned you about that stuff.
me: yes, you are my moral compass. i used to watch this show back in the day back at my folks' summer home in Indio in the '80s. the show had that trademark Canadian gloom background affect in the atmosphere, everything grey, the entire picture onscreen is grey.
Jen R: your parents had a summer house? but you were dirt poor. what are we drinking?
me: Coke Nitro.
Jen R: what are we eating?
me: bagels.
Jen R: the good stuff, right? made with genuine New York water? i can tell.
me: i tried to make them for you in my summer cottage but i can't get the taste just right.
Jen R: you gotta boil them first. don't take the chlorine out of the water. then don't bake the bagels, you FRY them.
Julia Ioffe: i'm hot. but not as hot as Jen R. i do have that Jen R vibe to me tho but i can never hope to BE Jen R.
Greykid: you CAN herd cats you know. you just have to be polite about it. treat us with respect, you know?
Farrock: not fuck u, friendly.
Farrock: that's Far Rock...
Margherita Hack: you don't need New York water if you got Italy water. let me show you how i make my homemade salsa through this youtube video...
lozzo: lotsa staying loose and going with the flow...
Lizzo: ...
Rubikon: so of course I liked the Ballmastrz Special!!! it was fun hearing "balls deep" and "biatch" used again.
Takahashi: are there still new episodes of Space Battleship Yamato going on in Japan?
Rubikon: did you see that trick at the end of the special, Laertus?
Dirg: ...
Laertus: ah yes, when you're writing your script always end it with The Name Of An Item, The Name Of An Object...
Casey Corn: so i kinda have the perfect name to be a recipe foodie...
Casey Corn: i'm kinda the Rachel Maddow of food...
Mankato: Doryce's favorite place...
Kato Kaelin: ...
Kato Kaelin: can i crash at your pad? with my name i shoulda been either a superhero sidekick or a porn star.
Green Lantern: i'd be nothing without my sidekick.........the ring has nothing to do with it...
somehow i manage: double-entendres are for winners, not for office head.
bank drivethrus in the '70s: the pneumatic tube was cool cos it made banks in the '70s Space-Age Futuristic. then Costco got its cavernous hands on the pneumatic tube and made it dystopian.
McDonald's: there was never any cash in those pneumatic tubes, just rolled-up credit-card applications...
bank: oh it was real money, real cash, real tender, real banknotes. no coins in the pneumatic tube tho, that's a carnival game. but the cash was that Richie Rich cash, you know? those greenbacks didn't have 1s or 5s or 100s on them, they just had the $ symbol on them.
Eye Luggage: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and go.........the 1992 one.
Joss Whedon: why do i still have a hard-on for Donald Sutherland.........STILL?!!! it's been 30 YEARS FOR FUCK SAKE!!!
Joss Whedon: i mean does hate last forever?
Donald Sutherland: the hate inside YOU does. i was just trying to make the script better.
Joss: thanks for the shade, thanks for the dig at my writing ability, grandpa.
Donald: i like to tweak things so the words match the cadence of my deep husky voice, i'm a trained Shakespearean actor you know.
Joss: Shakespeare sucked, Chaucer was better.
Donald Sutherland: how can we remedy this?
Joss Whedon: make me the STAR of the next 24 reboot!!! i was BORN to be an action star, look at my pasty white New York thighs. i called Kiefer and he said it was okay!!!
Eye: why were you so inspired by vampires?
Joss: i'm a ginger, i've been cursed since i was a little kid.
Kristy Swanson: i'm ready for the sequel to this that Joss PROMISED he'd write. yes there's really gonna be a sequel to THIS movie that won't involve Sarah Michelle Gellar. i hate Sarah Michelle Gellar and it has everything to do with politics. blondes will never get along with each other.
Sarah Michelle Gellar: i just gotta say that if it wasn't for THIS SPECIFIC MOVIE i wouldn't have had a career AT ALL.
Luke Perry: can you do this in three days? three is a good number, i gotta get back to Beverly Hills to shoot my shot...
Paul Reubens: i always thought Pee-wee Herman would have looked better with makeup on...
Paul Reubens: imagine Pee-wee Herman with long hippie hair.........oh wait nevermind don't think of a theater.
Hilary Swank: what am I thinking here? little ol' me went on to win an OSCAR after wading in this movie's 90210 dreck.
Oliver Pike: hey. be kind. rewlnd. Oliver Pike is a RAD name, shoulda kept that.
David Arquette: i did this as a favor for my brother then sister who's the best DJ and PERSON who ever lived.
Stephen Root: i am the principal in EVERY school of EVERY movie and TV show you have EVER watched...
Natasha Gregson Wagner: even back then i had that mousey guppy Fraggle Rock mouth and Meg Ryan nose-wrinkle and Bewitched-twitch cute face to me.
Candy Clark: this film taught me empathy...
Candy Clark: you can't have empathy without warmth.........i did Burning Man in Indio...
Ben Affleck: wait i'm Basketball Player #10? i couldn't even be Basketball Player #1? what am I thinking here? i'd be another faceless forgotten Hollywood extra if i hadn't met Matt Damon. this scrawny kid before you---though i still am tall enough to be a basketball player---this skinny kid before you who was a Boston bully went on to marry J.Lo!!!
Jennifer Lopez: that's Jennifer Lynn Affleck to you...
Ben: i mean i would have been satisfied, i would have had a satisfying career, if i had done Teen Wolf with Michael J. Fox instead!!!
Ricki Lake: one of my first topics on my new talk show was in fact teenagers who think they're vampires and the mothers who love them...
Hemery: a very strange name, a beautifully awkward name, a name that evokes Transylvania. what does it mean, Joss?
Joss Whedon: it's not Satanic, it just means sewing.
Doryce: i remember Buffy Summers. she became a Slayer cos the bitch couldn't hack it as a witch.
Gladyce: be nice, dear.
Doryce: that blonde bitch killed my friends!!!
Merrick: you have been Chosen to kill vampires.
Buffy: i'm a cheerleader, i already slay. what's your damage, grandpa? omg that's the first use of that since Heathers!!!
Merrick: if i was a creepy old man would i be wearing this Castlevania hat?
Buffy: um, girls don't play video games. if you had said Indiana Jones i'd get it cos i'm into hunks.
Merrick: i have to meet you in a locker room every time cos that's where you are!!!
Merrick: i will prove to you that what i am saying is not crazy. do you ever have dreams of being Joan of Arc fighting vampires with cheese?
Buffy: sure but all girls have that dream.
Merrick: it's gonna be cool, we don't use metal stakes for some reason, that would be kind, we use obtuse wood stakes to make it as painful as possible in the vampire's chest.
Marilyn Manson: it's cos the wood is sprinkled with holy water by a priest.........sorry, i know i'm persona non grata. i slayed in this costume...
Edward Cullen: vampires have hearts you know.........which are perfect targets to get slain.
Merrick: this is very important, Buffy, you're here to kill vampires. vampires are not the same thing as DEMOCRATS, okay?
Buffy: it's a Rambo training montage but with cool Joy Division music.
Joss: see Buffy was supposed to be this vapid cheerleader character but then when she speaks she has MY smartass voice so it becomes jarring, you root for her despite yourself. the best writing is when you'e a SMART-ASS the whole way through...
Oliver Pike: look at my face. come on, i'm supposed to be a social outcast?!! are you okay, man?
Benny Jacks: i'm fine.
Oliver: take off that black shirt with the skull on it, i told you NOT to join that motorcycle gang. i don't care if you're a vampire.
Benny: we could live forever and go joyriding in this town forever if you let me turn you.
Oliver: you're my best friend but my neck is ticklish.
Benny: will you let me in?.........i've got the Hoyle Book.........i'm testing out the first true jetpack...
Cassandra: it's okay. i wanted to die. i got to fuck a vampire, that's pretty good for a glasses girl, right? i'm okay.
Buffy: you're okay being the beta male to my alpha?
Oliver: well you do have some big tits.
Joss: call me every name under the blood-red sun but i do write strong feminist characters. females as LEADS. warrior women.
Buffy: wanna make out?
Luke Perry: yes.
Buffy: okay but you gotta put a big black ash cross on your forehead like i do.
Luke: no i can't do that, i don't believe in dust-to-dust, i believe in Elvis. i can do the vampire ashes in a pile after staking but i can't do the Ash Wednesday weirdness.
Buffy: why you creepin' me?
Lothos: you're the first girl i've met in my 3000 years on this planet who smells like Old Spice...
Buffy: my mentor is dying in my arms but i'm having trouble conjuring up real tears for this scene.
Donald Sutherland: you're not a very good actress, are you, Kristy Swanson?
Kristy Swanson: fish food.
Buffy: prom committee is NOT important in the grand scheme of things.
friends: this is our LIFE. it's the be-all, end-all, and be-all again. it's the only time we can muster up mascara in our eyes cos we certainly can NOT muster up tears.
Buffy: i'll burn the school down...
friends: i mean......what does that mean? school shooters aren't a thing yet.
Buffy: any wooden stick will do, right? i'm gonna dispatch Lothos with Carol Burnett's mop handle!!!
Lothos: i have a SWORD.........but it's made of wood, shit.
Joss: the audience is smarter than you think, audiences LOVE abstract jokes they have to figure out after on the lobby escalator. it would have been so much better if they let me burn down the school. if all the sets burned down then we all could have wiped this movie from our memories. what can i tell you, suicide is a part of life.
Don Lemon: you became an atheist after reading Sartre and then going to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind? i don't see the connection.
Joss: Donny, Sartre is obviously an alien who was WAY too smart for this world, his concepts flew over the heads of us human lower lifeforms.
Don Lemon: okay then so is was Jesus an alien, too?
Joss: i mean.........technically yes.
Don Lemon: who's the Anny to your Antoine?
Joss: Gal Gadot.
Don Lemon: now see? THAT's the shit that makes me nauseous.
Joss Whedon: i don't care what anybody says, the next Buffy show i write will have a person of color as the Chosen One Slayer main protagonist. and that Slayer WILL be Will Smith. g'night folks.
me: don't you see? we're not gonna fuck on this ratty couch, this won't be another in the long line of one-minute loosening of the lust latch to let out the juice. no lascivious alien cannolis here. we're not another human couple, we're better than that. sex is boring, what we do is we MAKE LOVE 100% GUARANTEED. making love is wholly different. making love unlocks the power of the universe.
Jen R looks at me with her patented jaundiced look of taking the measure of me. she does not remove her librarian glasses, her blue eyes remain part of the sardonic sea.
i know it's going to be a good night. a night of warmth and compassion. because i see Jen R in my chair working on my computer and her pink grandma sweater sleeve gets caught on the Chromebook corner.
Jen R: your little tiny Chromebook computer here. i'm calling it the Sock Sleeper. cos it rests at night snuggled deep inside a pile of your socks in your dresser drawer.
Jen R smiles puffing her puzzled lips out. puzzling through a smirk. her lips, they're still not puffy.