burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

This episode has been repeatedly prefaced by Mary Alice saying "You're all going to fall in love with Toby."  The best part of this was Eric deadpanning, "I look forward to falling in love with Toby."  [He hasn't been a big fan of Toby.]

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[transcript]

My first conversations with both Alyssa and Nicole this morning of course included "So I hear you have plans on Friday," so watching this episode at lunch was extra... whatever.  Especially with everyone's insistence that this is a date.  Nicole was all, "If it would make you nervous to think of this as a date..." and I kept insisting that it's not so much that it would make me nervous to think of it as such but that I don't think he is at all interested in me That Way, so it really isn't a "date."  We discussed briefly what would make me consider something a date [other than the obvious explicit "Would you like to go out on a date with me this Friday?"] -- I think I decided on mutual attraction or at least some indication thereof -- and I joked about referring to it as a NotDate [though I think fandom has eaten my brain sufficiently that I thought "not!date"], which of course got me thinking of the coffee exchange in "Reptile Boy" (BtVS 2.05), though I didn't say that to her.  She's not the first person to talk about the possibility of it "turning into" a date, and I find it interesting that while I totally obsess and mentally rehearse all these scenarios of how an interaction might go, at least in this instance I seem to have a realistic sense of how things actually will go.  (This is especially amusing given how bad I usually am at navigating social cues.)  There's also this idea that I would want to go home, change clothes, separate the event from work, which really, I don't want to do.  That would make it very clearly a date -- the boy isn't that dense -- which I think would make him feel really awkward.

Anyway, ( the West Wing episode )

Shortly after lunch I got an e-mail (to both my work and personal accounts) from Eric:

Subject: Bad News....

Just found out that Friday's a really bad day.  There's a family birthday party for my cousin Samantha on Saturday and I'm going to have to tkae the commuter rail Friday to my dads house.  Unfortunately, with my family, sometimes this is as much notice as I'm likely to ever get (especially my uncle mike).  So we need to reschedule...sorry i really though tthat was a good day, guess things always come up.

I have a better idea - next time i have a party at my house (usually have one once a month or every other)  I'll let you know.  I'll probably do something right after halloween.  I'll let you know anyways.  If you don't liek that idea, we can storm and coem up with something else.  Let me know

Eric

I called him just to say "I hate your family" and ended up leaving a voicemail.  He recognized my number (duh) and e-mailed me (again, to both accounts):

Sorry im on the phone with my mom.  I'll call you in a minute.

Yup, he's a sweetheart.

I had in the meantime replied to his e-mail:

::sighs dramatically::

So now I'm the one who gets stuck at a party with a whole lot of people I don't know? ;)  I wouldn't mind getting to meet some of your mythical friends, though.

And non-structured midweek hanging out remains an option (as an additional option -- not saying they're mutually exclusive).

-Elizabeth

I ended up spending much of the rest of the afternoon doing stuff for people I don't even work for.
Prof.N. e-mailed re: a reimbursement that should have been sent in months ago -- CCing me and Eric 'cause it's from back when he worked for her the second time, but I was also involved 'cause he was away on vaca for part of this and it got given to me.  My immediate first reaction was "Not this again!" and then I just started laughing.  Eric was up using the copier, so I called him over, made him look.  Of course he was all "I'm so not getting involved in this" -- which was a completely appropriate reaction.  But as we know, when he knows something's messed-up he can't let it go, so we spent the next, I dunno, hour?, trying to figure out exactly what had happened.
I told Alyssa I'd color scan a document for one of her profs, which took an eternity 'cause the scanner is so slow -- which is mostly not a big deal 'cause I can do other stuff while it's working, but it's still a bit of a hassle.
Yeah, whine whine whine.

I decided on a sub-tag for this "dating" thing -- to separate it from the usual Eric anecdotes.  Is from the Iron & Wine couplet, not the Blondie classic.

My Payless order came today!  Yay for new boots.

I'd meant to go to the bank/ATM today and forgot, so I actually did cashback at the grocery store for the first time.  (I needed to get groceries anyway and it occurred to me that I could use the cashback option.  It was making me nervous that I only had $7+change in my wallet; plus we're going out to lunch at some point this week.)

I may need to start taking notes, 'cause I get back to my desk and forget what I wanted to remember. (Doesn't help that we took an extra, what, 30-45 minutes? talking about religion etc. afterward.) Though online transcripts help. ( Though then they result in copious quotage from me. )

I edited my post on the pilot of The West Wing 'cause I'd forgotten about the disagreement Eric and I had about the song that was playing in Mandy's car in her first scene.  (I was right, of course.  Though I honestly almost expected to be wrong because it's music, which is not my forte.  Hee, pun.  Feel free to debate the pronunciation if you wish.)  I e-mailed the group this morning with the info ('cause that's what I do).  Eric responded: "Dorkiest….E-mail…Ever…"  I think that's overstating things 'cause really, we have a long history.  It's possible that he's even sent dorkier e-mails.

***

As for this episode...

::shrug::

[Quotes from westwingtranscripts.com.  Reading the transcript I definitely caught how some stuff connected/progressed that I hadn't when actually watching the episode.]

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Sam is cute. (Physically. The only one I think this of so far. Though the young females are mostly v. pretty.)

Eric was all "How can she not know what 'Potus' means?" I did not mention that while I recognized it had to be code (since I knew what show I was watching) I had absolutely no clue. (I actually assumed the whole thing was code.)

CJ is way prettier in the scenes after the press conference. (As opposed to during it.) What up with that?

Leo starts off as someone I hate, but his jackass-ness grows on me. (Obviously the NYT crossword bit helped.)

The [spoiler] girl is Cuddy from House! I knew I recognized her from somewhere.

Oh, and that error about Leo's daughter? Even working casually with someone you don't like, how do you not absorb that kind of information.

The bruncheon with the Christians? Made of win. Huge fan of the President, but the whole thing was made of win.

And I do really appreciate the balance of the show on political issues.

Sidenote: The show moves incredibly fast (and the subtitling as often so different from what people were saying). So for once there probably won't be any talking during the show from the peanut gallery.


P.S. I forgot to mention it when I first wrote this up, but early in this episode a song plays, something about standing out in the rain, and I totally thought it was Bif Naked ("Moment of Weakness" -- also heard in BtVS 4.03 "The Harsh Light of Day" -- which prompted my purchasing of Bif Naked CDs, in fact), but Eric thought Gwen Stefani/No Doubt. I was right.