End of Television Shows (Contains Leverage Spoilers)

So, this Christmas season, two shows that I love aired their final episodes One of them I haven’t seen yet because it’s a BBC show and there is a painfully long delay between its airing in the UK and the ability to watch it Legally in the USA.  While it does mean I have to avoid sections of the internet as to not get hit with spoilers, I do like that for me, the show isn’t actually over yet.  And that’s nice.

The other show, well, I finally bit the bullet and watch the finale the other night.  Leverage on TNT lasted for five seasons, and aired it’s final episodes on Christmas 2012.  For those of you who want to see, but have yet to watch the Leverage series finale, stop reading now, because here there be spoilers.

So, as heartbreaking as it is to see Leverage go, his finale was one of the best finales that I have ever seen.  There were several references to the pilot episodes, and other popular episodes over the past seasons.  There were one on one scenes between each set of characters with heartwarming moments that often left me tearing up a bit.  There were fake outs that I didn’t believe for second and fake outs that confused me for a moment. And in the end of it all, there was something I never would have guessed, but worked brilliantly in the end.

Here are the real spoilers: I love Parker.  She grew from a comedic relief type character with an occasional heartwarming scene, to one of the reasons that I turned the show on every week, to the reason I continued to watch the show.  She went from a talented thief with no real emotional value but a love for money, to a genuine member of the family that the team had become, and the finale pulled Parker straight through to her full potential as the leader of the team.  I never would have predicted it through the series, but once it was revealed, it just made perfect sense for me.

This show meant a lot to me over the past five years, and I’m sure that it will mean a lot to me for years to come.  I was glad to see it get a proper ending, and a sendoff in style.

<3

People Talking

It is extraordinarily fun to watch people talk.  I don’t mean listening to people talk, but literally watching them.  It can show just how alike, and how different, people can be.

Everyone knows someone who talks with their hands—who gestures with every word and seems to be incapable of sitting still once a conversation gets going.  But it’s fun to watch the varying degrees of it.  There are people who just make little gestures, small hand movements to point in the general direction of people and things that they are talking about, maybe the occasional strong gesture to reinforce a point.  Then there are people who only make grand sweeping gestures—hands, arms, and sometimes full upper body movements to really send a point home.  In the worst cases, they just look like they are out and out flailing.  I can’t help but wonder sometime how many passersby they’ve hit accidently in their mission to tell their stories to their full extent.

But even in people who don’t gesture, it’s still just fun to watch people talk—especially people who speak the same language, but have different accents.  While they are technically forming the same words, their mouths and jaws move in different ways to form the distinct sounds.  I am guilty of watching interviews of people with accents different than mine, and getting so involved in watching how they form the words, that I’ve completely missed what the words string together to mean.  It’s a bit of a problem when I fixate on an accent for a little while.  Any visual medium in that accent is pretty much lost on me while I watch people talk...

So—maybe I’m weird, and no one else does this.  But if you have a chance, try it.  It’s likely that you’ll just think I’m crazy and move on—but it might prove to be a fun way to pass some time. And who knows, maybe you’ll find it just as fascinating as I do.

<3

Being Childish

I am often accused of being childish.  This could be taken a variety of ways, and I think that a lot of the time it is intended to be an insult. And sometimes it is rightly used as an insult. Such as when something serious needs to get done and I am throwing a temper tantrum about a small detail.  Granted, those instances have become less and less as I’ve gotten older, but when it does happen, I deserve whatever people want to say about me.

But more often than not, I am “Being Childish” when I am having fun.  Mind you, this is fun that doesn’t hurt anyone. Usually, it’s relatively simple things like spinning in circles, or walking so that I only step on the black tiles.  I am perfectly aware that the white tiles are not clouds that I will fall through, and that the red tiles are not lava that will burn off my feet, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to hop, skip, and jump from back title to black title.  If I’m not hurting anyone or getting in anyone’s way—then what’s the harm?  Just because you are miserable doesn’t mean you have to step on my happiness, does it?

Well, that took a grumpy turn.  And maybe it was a bit childish, but you know what? I won’t apologize.  I’m okay with being childish every now and then.

<3

Christmas and Fifty

Guys!  Today is two different and very awesome things.

 First and most obviously of all, it's Christmas!!  Christmas is easily one of my favorite holidays of the year.  It’s winter, which I love.  It’s got Christmas Music, which I love.  It’s got presents for me, which I love.  It’s got presents for other people, which I love.  It’s got wonderful religious services and performances which I look forward to every year, and love.  All in all, what’s not to love.   Well, what’s not to love is being away from my family this year, which stinks, but I did get to skype in with them earlier this morning while they were opening presents, and I’m probably going to skype into the “dessert party” at my Nana’s later tonight.  And, my mother and sister will be coming up to visit in a couple of days, which is very nice. And right now I’m all alone in my apartment, which is very nice and relaxing and a very good present in its own right.

Secondly, and only obvious to the keen observer, this is my fiftieth blog post here at Building a Door.   This also means it is officially the longest blog I’ve ever managed to keep going.  I know. Shocking, right?  I’m pretty stunned myself! 

So, here’s to baby Jesus and Fifty more posts!!

May your stomachs be full, and your hearts be light. I hope you get cool things to play with and are surrounded by people who love you. I hope these things are true whether you celebrate today as a holiday or not.

<3

Tragedy

The worst kinds of tragedies take two forms: those involving large, almost inconceivable numbers, and those involving children.  Even the most hard hearted of people suffer heartbreak when a child dies needlessly.  And when several children die needlessly, it grows exponentially with each loss. 

Tragedies are bound to bring about a hundred different things.  Heart break, Anger, tears, controversy, prayer vigils, political debates, news reports, people who only want to talk about it, people who never want to talk about it, blog responses, and the list goes on and on.  Maybe these are good things.  Maybe they are bad things.  Maybe they're neither, they just are.

The truth of the matter is I’m not okay.  I won’t be for a while.  It was too close, and they were too young, and it never should have happened for so many different reasons. I won’t be okay for a while, and in a way I’m okay with that, because this is something that shouldn’t leave me okay for a while.  I’m talking in circles, and I apologize, but there doesn’t seem to be a better way to say what I’m trying to say.

What I’m trying to say is: I’ll walk and talk okay.  I’ll post on here like I’m okay.  And eventually, I will be.  But until then, please forgive me if I’m a little off—maybe a bit too eager to be happy about something, or a bit too upset over something minor.  I’m doing what I can with what I have.

<3 

Fiction: Legal Theft Project--Coming Home Late

He swore quietly as the key got slightly jammed, and he had to rip it out of the lock and start again. Normally, he wouldn’t have been so irritable, but it was four in the morning, and he was just getting home from work.  The lock was just lucky that he had the next day off, or he might have just kicked the door down in anger and desperation to get to his bed.  This second time, though, the key slid in smoothly and the lock turned without a hitch. 

The house wasn’t as quiet and dark as he had expected.  Coming from just off the entrance way was the flashing lights and repeating forty five second audio track of a DVD title screen.  He locked the front door behind him, and then followed the sound to the living room.  Decked out in a pair of sweat pants and a tank top, his angel, Emily, was sound asleep on the couch.  Logan looked up and watched the DVD title a couple of times.   He couldn’t remember what the show was about, but he remembered Emily telling him about how she used to watch it in fifteen minute intervals when she was trying to stay up to finish an assignment in school.  “Something about it seemed to wake me up better than a shot of caffeine,” she had said, “It’s hard to explain.”  The fact that the show was on coupled with the fact that she wasn’t covered in a blanket despite the fact that the room was freezing meant only one thing to Logan. 

Emily had been trying to stay awake to see him. 

Instantly, all his anger from work, his drive home, even the sticking lock, just melted away into nothing.  He flipped on one of the small lights on the desk that Emily used to write by, and then walked forward and turned off the television.   Making his way back to the couch carefully, he leaned down and kissed her gently on the forehead.  She woke up slowly, blinking at him in the dim light.  “I’m awake?” Her voice was soft and cracked just slightly as she asked the question.

“You’re awake.” He assured her.

“Oh good.  I was having the strangest dream.”  Her voice was a little bit stronger as she woke up a little bit more.

“Oh?” He invited.

“Yeah. Daniel Jackson and Mal Reynolds were trying to convince me to go out dancing, but I knew I had to stay home and cook a birthday dinner for Neal Caffery.”

There was a moment of silence before Logan smiled. “Stargate, Firefly and White Collar.”

“Ah, but which Stargate?” Emily teased.

Logan hesitated. “SG-1?” It was more of a question than an actual answer, but Emily smiled sleepily and raised her hand to pat him softly on the cheek. 

“Oh, he learns. I’ll make a TV geek out of you yet.”   She let her hand drop back to the couch.  She shifted a little as she laid there, pushing her shoulders back a little deeper into the cushions.

Logan made a face.  He knew that look.  Emily wasn’t nearly as awake as she was pretending to be.  “I’m not going to be able to convince you to get up and walk to bed, am I?”

Emily raised her hands half heartedly, her eyes already shut again. “You can carry me if you want me in bed so badly.”  There was half a dirty joke behind her words, but he decided to ignore it for now.

“Alright then. Budge up.”  Logan grabbed a blanket off the nearby armchair, and crawled into the empty space Emily had made on the edge of the couch.  He covered them both with the blanket.  Almost automatically, Emily turned and curled into his side, which he used to scoot her back towards the cushions, and give himself a little bit more room.

“I love you,” Emily muttered against his chest, more so that he felt the vibration of the words than heard them.

He leaned down and kissed her gently on the top of the head.  “I love you too.”  In that moment, Logan thought he wouldn’t mind working nineteen hour days for the rest of his life, as long as he got to end every single one of them like this.

My wonderful friend, Gwen, legally thieved the opening line of this piece for yesterday’s post on her blog, http://apprenticenevermaster.wordpress.com/. Check out her blog today to see what I thieved from her.

Fiction: Legal Theft Project--A Quick Paint Job

Jordan smiled at Kylie through the small window beside her front door, decked out in painting supplies.  Kylie tried to suppress her smile, and gestured to the mail slot in the door. Jordan put down everything in his arms, and squatted down, lifting his side of the flap and peering inside.

“If you think that I am letting you into my house with all of that, you have clearly lost your mind.”

“Come on, Ky.  You want to get that room done, don’t you?  If you don’t let me in now, it will never get done.”

Kylie considered her options for a moment.  Jordan had a point.  Kylie wasn’t exactly a poster child for productivity, or getting things done in a timely manner.  And Jordan had come prepared to work.  She locked eyes with Jordan through the mail slot.  “Do you promise that you will paint the study, and only the study, in the manner that I will instruct you?”

For just a second, there was an evil little glint in Jordan’s eyes, but as quickly as it came, it went.  “Yes, I promise.”

Kylie decided to give him the benefit of the doubt despite all her better judgments. She stood up, and heard Jordan collecting all his equipment on the door side.  Kylie pulled the door open, and Jordan stepped across the threshold.  He took a deep breath, and let it out in a happy sigh.

“I’m going to regret this, huh?”  Kylie closed her eyes as she imagined the inevitable.

“Probably.” Jordan shrugged, and headed up the stairs.


The first line of this story was legally stolen from my dear friend Gwen. See what she did with the line I gave her today, and see what she originally wrote for this starting line tomorrow over at http://apprenticenevermaster.wordpress.com/.   <3