Weeded

So the F-word has gone on vacation with some friends in Switzerland, which I couldn't join them on due to my approaching trip to Portugal, which means I have a couple of evenings to myself. And what did I do with my evening last night? Catch up on my reading? Corresponding? Calling? Cleaning? Anything? No. Got dangerously high and watched Weeds. As I wrote previously, it had made a good impression on me, but less so on the F-word, so we haven't been watching any more of it - I mean we have sites that stream the Simpsons now, and Four Corners, and stuff. I love the Internet.

Certainly can't argue with the F-word for not being crazy about Weeds. It is a bit silly - certainly in terms of storylines it's hard to maintain suspension of the old disbelief (which is why me smoking the reefer is essential) and every time Kevin Nealon opens his mouth I know I'm more likely to groan than giggle. And as always the product placement annoys me and blah blah blah. But I have a real attachment to the lead character, played by, uhm, that pale chick with the big eyes - you know, Nancy - and to her bitchy friend Celia.

Despite the reefer being essential for the watching, it isn't the reefery subject of the show that has hooked me; I just really like its exploration of suburban life in the States. The reefer in the show just sets up a nice contrast between public and 'secret' personalities that aren't secret. Obviously I don't know anything about suburbs in the States, and hardly know anything about suburbs in Canada, and the consequence of not knowing anything about it is that I can watch Weeds and go 'ooooo, PTA meetings? Range Rovers? Cookie-cutter houses and neighbours you don't like? You have all that money and you spend it on that?', and then get some explanation of it from throwaway lines. Like when Nancy's brother-in-law was trying to get into the pants of his nephew's friend's mum, and telling her he sympathized with her horrible plight living in that suburb where everybody was all emotionally isolated from each other, etc., and she dismissed it by saying 'you do it for the kids.'

I can understand that, I suppose. My own middle-class family used the 'ex. geographically isolated city w. <100,000 inhabitants' strategy to let us grow up in a place where we could run around without being hit by cars - besides Elvis, of course, it was like the poor guy was carrying around an industrial magnet in his pocket. I don't think my parents were so unwise to go for that formula. I was so fucking cripplingly bored in North Bay that I thought to myself I'd never do that to my own children - and I won't. But now the F-word and I are considering eventually moving to an even smaller, more isolated city, in fuckin' Australia. I figure that the sub-tropical weather should make a big difference to the boringness, though. We'll see.