Oh, the little things that make me happy

Denise made my day today. At 11:15ish today, she informed me that there will be not one, but two episodes of Chuck on tomorrow night. Not only will there be episodes of Chuck, but they will be new episodes!



Now the great debate is do we watch both of them tomorrow or ration ourselves on Chuck? Do I spread my John Caseyisms out over a week or indulge in two hours of bizarre pop culture references and geeky behavior?



I may just have to dig out the tape from before the writer strike to locate the very last episode we watched and review it in preparation for the new Chuck episodes.



I'm beginning to think I belong on the Nerd Herd.









Ok, so quite seriously, I very may need to be on a Nerd Herd. I have had music on the brain lately because of the music themed 101 class. Yesterday, I was rereading the introduction to Leonard Bernstein's The Joy of Music while Nathan was (yet again) playing Lego Star Wars on the Playstation. So, here I am reading about music and how inexplicable it is when I happen to hear the familiar strains of Star Wars theme music. I had a complete flashback to two moments. If you are picturing this in real time in your brain, it wasn't a split-screen experience; it was more like two images overlapping in my mind. The one was of my childhood living room. My sister and I were laying on the floor on our stomachs, looking up at the t.v. while Dad was in the recliner-- all three of us watching Star Wars, me reading the text at the very beginning of the movie. Then, either fast-forward 20 years or play the image simultaneously...a movie theatre in Kankakee, IL. The rerelease of the Star Wars movie. When that familiar music played, I got goosebumps. I was a little ashamed...until I remembered that at least I didn't stand outside in the cold all night for tickets or come to the theatre in costume.



A friend of mine has had his students write papers about their own personal theme song. He refers to how we all have soundtracks to our lives. I believe this too. It's just sad how many of my songs on my soundtrack are also songs on real soundtracks. Are these songs taking me back to the movie moment or a real moment in my own life? For me, the Star Wars theme and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" are both songs from movies that I watched when I was younger, but they mean so much more than those movie moments. They mean bonding with my sister and my dad. They mean recreating the "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" moment from Top Gun for my mom, who was reading a book in her bedroom. The one song from Ghost (also by the Everly Brothers) brings up no memories of that movie for me but instantaneously takes me back to when my college roommate and I were driving to Julio's house singing the song as badly and loudly as possible. "Rebel Rouser" from Forrest Gump has no Forrest-like associations. Instead, when I hear it, I can remember summer days driving down Schwaegel Road (now Greenmount) in my Volkswagen Golf, going as fast as was safe (to feel the bumps on the edge of the "pavement" a little less), with the windows down because the air conditioner had run out of freon long ago, and actually getting along with my sister for the length of those 15 minute rides from our house to the Mielke's house to watch World Cup soccer.