Outside of the In-Crowd – Looking back fondly

Courtney Enlow

This past weekend saw the release of the much-awaited movie Watchmen. And I believe that if for no other reason, nerds rejoiced because this movie gave everyone a chance to talk about Watchmen again.

Time is a funny thing. Enough of it goes by, and for some reason, you don’t get to discuss certain things anymore. It’s like there’s a time stipulation on having an interest in something. I read Watchmen three or four years ago. The movie hadn’t been announced yet, and it was obviously years since the book/books was/were released, so I had no one to talk about it with, which is a really obnoxious feeling. And yet, all too common.

Music and movies are usually immune to this curse. You can talk about your recent discovery of the album Slanted & Enchanted and, depending on the crowd, still have a lengthy conversation about it (albeit one that prominently features the question “You just heard this album? What are you?”) But let’s say I just discovered the television show M*A*S*H. I would have no one with whom to discuss the program on an episode by episode basis. The most I could probably get would be a “Yes, that was indeed a show. Now please leave me alone.”

This is disappointing. Maybe there are things I desperately need to talk about. With whom am I supposed to gush? I believe it’s this exact line of thinking that brought about the Internet, which is all well and good. There are certain matters of pop culture discussion for which the Internet is the perfect place, such as my two favorite television shows of all time, MST3K and Doctor Who, for I am of the nerd variety. But dammit, I’m not so of the nerd variety that I don’t sometimes want to talk face to face with people. And you know that this need must be great, because I, as a rule, generally don’t like people.

If I had my way, my magical dream world way, these are things that would come up in conversation on a daily basis:

• Dave and Lisa’s relationship on News Radio

• Marissa Cooper

• that time Zack and Lisa hooked up on Saved By The Bell and no one ever spoke of it again

• the deaths of Fred Burkle, Wesley Windham-Pryce, Anya Christina Emmanuelle Jenkins not-Harris and Joyce Summers (Wash not included because that was a movie and people DO talk about that. Poor Book gets the short end of the conversation stick though, so he can be on my list too.) Damn you, Whedon.

• the season three premiere of Six Feet Under

• the Babysitter’s Club books, Sweet Valley, and the collected works of R.L. Stine

• iCarly (but this is mostly because I don’t converse with seven-year-olds on a daily basis)

• the end of Roseanne

• Stan and Dorothy Zbornak: should they have ended up together over her marrying Blanche’s uncle, Leslie Nielsen?

• the This American Life from March of 2008 about the NYC Board of Education building where teachers are sent to sit all day and do nothing while they wait to be fired

• how much I wish Jeff had stayed on Coupling, but how underrated Oliver really was

• seriously, Zack and Lisa like professed their love together and then NOTHING. People get all up in arms about the “Tori Paradox” but this bothers no one else?

• the fact that I just finally got around to reading Catcher in the Rye for the first time (I firmly believe that 90 percent of the reason I’m going to grad school is to have the ability to discuss books for a living)

• the South Park commentaries (I have them downloaded as MP3s and sometimes just listen to them. No one else does this, therefore I have no one with whom to talk about it.)

• Zack. Lisa. THEY BROKE SCREECH’S HEART FOR NOTHING.

The fact that I can’t talk about these things, but could easily have a 45 minute+ discussion of the movie Hot Pursuit is a sad state of affairs if you ask me. So if you want to discuss these things at great lengths, I’m your girl.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.