Dear Dan Rydell,

How could I have ever fallen for Casey McCall? I mean really.  Casey is not bad by means, but how did I ever overlook Dan Rydell. 

For those of you that don't know Dan Rydell is fictional.  He is one of the characters on Sports Night played by Josh Charles.  I love Sports Night.  It is the best and it is the best thing in the world for procrastinating and after eleven months of working hard it is now time for some procrastination. Between now and the end of June I have to write 35 detailed letters of recommendation for my fantastic students.  They are great, but writing a letter takes lots of thought and time.  Which means I need to find ways to procrastinate and nothing is better than Sports Night.

But seriously Dan Rydell is the best.  I don't know that I can articulate it at this moment but Dan Rydell is super dreamy.  Also neurotic.  The first few times I watched Sports Night I was all about Casey.  Maybe I've grown up. 

However, and please forgive my fangirling, this time through I'm shipping Dan/Natalie.  Something I've never done before.  Also the first time I have shipped a non-canon couple.  Maybe I haven't grown up.


love,
hannah

Dear Oswin,

You are awesome.  Excellent debut.  You might be my Halloween costume.  After one episode. 


love,
hannah

Dear Suarez family,

Ya'll are the best.  Seriously.  I've spent the last four weeks re-watching Ugly Betty which is a fantastic series.  (Surprisingly, it was a pretty good match for my search for post-graduation media about young women.)  It's so colorful, funny and approaches topics of identity more than other network TV shows. 

But most of all, at the center, there's the Suarez family.  So much like our own families and friends, they support, tease, and love each other in an incredibly real way.  And I love them for that.  Cause Mode magazine is crazy, but the family drama is so beautiful. 

I have a major crush on Tony Plana.  Major.

I adore Hilda.  And in this month of watching, I spoke to myself a little bit in a Hilda voice.  There were lots of flailing arms and gestures that highlighted my nails.

Justin's coming out episode/dance is so beautiful.  I teared up.  The best part may be watching everyone who loves him react to his dance with Austin.  So much love!

And Betty.  There are ways that we all wanna be like Betty.  And as hokey as it is, her charge to follow her dreams is damn inspiring.  Betty Suarez gets what she wants and challenges with balancing work, family and a social life. 

Interestingly, this time around I was way more invested in the Betty/Daniel relationship.  I didn't hate the possibility of their romance this time, like I did previously.  

Any case, I needed to share my love for that family.  Also, they are fictional. 


love,
hannah

Dear Aaron Sorkin,

You are among my heroes.  (A huge hero.)  I used to write letters to a friend which detailed how much I wanted to write like you.  You were a huge part of my growing up and an enormous part of my personal television obsession.  

Here's what's up: apparently right now you hate the internet, gossip and women.  And, apparently they all go together.  One of the things that I have always loved about your television work is that you show the families that we make for ourselves, particularly those that come from high pressure professional environments.  Your TV shows demonstrated the ways that we make powerful relationships that we simultaneously choose and fall into; groups of people that spend endless hours together and share some interests, values, but hopefully still argue about interesting things.  That was something that always appealed to me, maybe because I had little experience in the work environment.  In theses families everyone made mistakes, had their moment in the sun and supported each other the whole way through. 

However, The Newsroom is about a patriarchal family where the women screw up a lot, and Daddy swoops in to make everything better.  Or, on the off chance that Daddy makes a error, the women step up and make sacrifices because of their deep (either dying or denied) love for Daddy.  (There are several Daddies in this situation.)  Mr. Sorkin, what's going on with the women in your life? Cause clearly something's going on and it's all coming out in your writing.  (What's with that one character who so far has only clarified that you can in fact have sex in a bathtub?) There's write what you know, but you're still writing to entertain your audience.  But right now, that's all you want to talk about.  Except that it's not even now, you're obsessed with the now of eighteen months ago.  (It should be noted that I thought that would be really cool, but it's turned into lazy writing and spitting on the work of real journalists.) 

Dear sir, you are still one of my favorites, but I just watch old episodes of Sports Night after each episode of The Newsroom to make myself feel better.  Start writing The Newsroom in a way that entertains and respects me or I will mistakenly send this blog post in an email to everyone you work with. 

...because I'm a woman, and I don't understand the modern world or how to operate in it.  

Also, don't ever use the word "bitch" that flippantly ever again. 


love,
hannah

or, "Internet girl" if you please

Dear Beaver,

You might be my favorite character on Greek.  The episode following a day in your life, "All About Beav" is probably my favorite of all time.  "But what about the children?" I've been watching buttloads of Greek.  I watched a ton tonight and I got into a packing and cleaning groove.  It's awesome, and now I have to go to bed. Because I have to get up and go to work tomorrow. 

I have tons more to say about packing and leaving and yesterday it was going to be really depressing but today I'm on a packing high excited about where all my stuff is headed.  


love,
hannah

Dear Amy Pond,

I didn't know how attached to you I was until they announced the new companion.  I knew that you were leaving and I didn't have much of a reaction then, but now... You better be good lady Jenna-Louise Coleman.

And I was just saying the other day that I now follow tv less obsessively than before...


love,
hannah

Dear Parks and Recreation,

You're catchy.  And you've worked your way into my daily speech.  For instance, I have a roomate named Ann, but now I only want to refer to her this way:

And then today I was talking about a relationship between two friends from home and I referred to it as "donezo."  Because now that is the only way to effectively communicate how over it really is. 

AND, I want to host a Galentine's Day event.  Sadly, Galentine's Day falls on a Monday this year which makes it challenging for my ladies to get together.  Maybe we will have to celebrate Galentine's Day earlier.  With waffles of course.


love,
hannah

Dear August 27,

You're a big day.  Congratulations.  

One- You are the return of the sixth season of Doctor Who.  I have been waiting for two months for your return! I have even written about your return on the blog before.  Let's Kill Hitler, I thought, that's a dubious title.  However, you might have instantly become one of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who ever.  And even besides that, you drew upon a conversation from one of my classes last year about how people treat painful histories that aren't theirs.  Our conversation dealt specifically with American dealings with WWII and how we use other people's pain for entertainment and that's not how it works in Europe; but apparently not! Moffat will mock the Third Reich all he wants.  And it made me very happy.  My professor LDN and I can discuss it later. 

Two- My brother moves into his first dorm tomorrow.  He will no longer be a resident in our home.  To be entirely fair, he's not moving that far, although I'm sure it's going to feel like another planet (at least for a while).  We've had his last dinners and tomorrow will be his last nagging wake up call before he heads downtown.  We will spend tomorrow moving him in, dragging his things up the stairs.  I will probably spend much of tomorrow (quietly) comparing his first move-in experience to my own.  

Three- My computer is currently being evaluated/repaired, so I'm using my home computer where the keyboard makes much more noise, so I'm typing much more vigorously than I would otherwise.  

I've had so much to think about today, and enough physical labor ahead of me tomorrow that I will be distracted, at least for a little while.  Really, I've been thinking lighting fast today.  Those are fun days.  Ugh, time to rest, I've got a long August 28 ahead of me.  

love,

hannah

Dear Chris Traeger,

You are a most ridiculous character.  (I've been watching Parks and Recreation.) His positivity is magnificently hilarious. 

Just so everyone knows, I'm going to read a book soon.  I mean it, ultimate lazy week is over.  Also, I have two plays in my inbox! Two plays, written by my friends.  Exciting reading ahead. 


love,
hannah

Dear August 27th,

Come faster.  I have questions.  And I can't keep gawking at pretty tumblrs recycling Doctor Who imagery. 

love,
hannah

Dear Tardis Blues,

"I love the Doctor.  He's the man of my life.  One day we'll be in the Tardis.  He'll ask me to be his wife.  Not just any Doctor, but Matt Smith cause he's fine."

A student I'm working with wrote and sang this for our "write some blues" assignment.  Mine was about how my back hurts from sleeping in the basement on a crappy couch two nights ago.  Really, I'm still in a lot of pain. 

Embarking on my last weekend trip in July tomorrow, completing my four state tour.  I'm headed to Missouri for a family reunion... and some frantic lesson planning.


love,
hannah

Dear Friends bloopers,

You always make me happy.  It's hot.  We installed the air conditioner. 

It's so hot I don't want to move or eat. 


love,
hannah

Dear Sports Night,

You are comfort food.  You're excellent background noise.  At this point, I cannot tell you how many times I've watched the entire series.  It's probably only like five, but it feels like more.  When I need something to distract me and to soothe me, you're what I turn to.  You're just familiar enough, but still exciting.  It doesn't take long to tear through the series. 

Yesterday when I got out of the shower someone was mowing the lawn right next to our house and so I pulled my shade down, which meant that I slept until noon today because I never knew when the world woke up.  It's the kind of day where I woke up and I could hear the sound of tires on the road after rain.  I had thought I might do things today, like go somewhere, but that sound cut those plans down fast.  I read a lot.  I finished Sports Night (again.) I've finally gotten the last little strange things out of my room.  I'm going to decorate my walls.  And I might go see a play tonight, just to make sure that I get outside. 

A week from Tuesday I start the next phase of my summer working with Summer Institute.  I'm nervous, but it's going to be good.  I need to get something going during this season, I've been a bum.  A pleased bum, but a bum nonetheless.  I have to get ready to wake up at 6 in the morning.  That's going to take some preparation...

We'll see how that goes.


love,
hannah

Dear Bones finale (GIANT SPOILERS--SEASON SIX FINALE)

Okay, so it's like this:

(Seriously, giant spoilers for season six of Bones)

Bones has been my one true television love for the last three years.  This season has been seriously disappointing, and I tried not to hate it, but in the end I was severely disappointed.  I will own the fact that I ship Booth and Bones in a major way.  So one would think that I would be excited by tonight's revelation that they are (Final spoiler warning) going to have a child together.  I should be seriously pumped. 

But I feel cheated.  I've watched six seasons, and I've watched them grow (and not grow) and suddenly we jump to the end where she's pregnant? No! I wanted to watch them grow in the new phase of their relationship.  The voyeuristic part of me wanted to watch them move into their new relationship - and I didn't get that.

That's all, and I promise that this is the last tv related post you'll get from me for a while.  It's been almost a week straight of television, and that's coming to an end.  You just needed to know my thoughts on the television circling my life. 


love,
hannah

Dear season finales,

You're hard to keep up with.  There are so many of you.  And I don't watch that much television anymore. 

The winner? Castle.  Without a question.  That show gets a lot of respect from me these days because it used to be the show that I watched when I really didn't want to do work and wanted something stupid and now it's the first show I want to watch.  (Lies, that's Doctor Who, but since we only get six episodes of that, it barely even counts.)  Castle has grown so much, and developed characters that I care about, and I'm invested in.  I used to say that it was a cheap rip-off of Bones, because I thought that I would be forever faithful to Bones, but Castle has grown into something much much better.  I can't bring myself to say that it's better than Bones, even though it probably is. 

Anyway, if you were curious what I thought about the end of this season of TV, that's what I think.  Castle is the big winner.  Last night's finale was incredible.  Had me texting furiously throughout. 

Thanks Friday Night Lights, I can't stop listening to this song.


love,
hannah

Dear new fall TV shows,

Because, apparently, this is all I care about these days.  That's not true, but I pay special attention to this issue.  It makes me laugh because I know that my piece "Personality Pin-Ups" with the Performing Feminisms class creates a bit of an expectation about my opinions about this. 

This is disappointing.  I know that I've only been given less than three minutes for each show, but nothing looked good.  Nothing here looks promising.  There's not a single (lead) female character in this clips that caught my attention.  They change nothing about how I want women to be seen on television.  There was maybe one supporting female character that interested me, but not a single woman in a lead role that was even interesting. 

Again and again there's not a female character onscreen that I want to identify with, there's not anyone I can aspire to be and not be ashamed. 

So maybe it's time to write something for myself.  We'll see how this summer goes.  Because I'm sick of waiting around for a pilot that doesn't look like it's going to disappoint me four minutes in. 


love,
hannah

Dear Friday Night Lights,

I've never packed at the end of school like this.  I've never had the time, the space.  I've never watched episodes at a leisurely pace. 

Most of the time I'm packing frantically, Sound of Music in the background, saying my goodbyes cause I'll be the first one to go in the morning.  To have the time to sit and think about where everything's going to? It's weird.  Also, I have way more stuff this time.  It always feels like too much stuff, but I have to move everything four blocks this time.  To eventually move into our house!

In return for her watching Bones last summer, I will spend this summer watching Friday Night Lights.  That's our trade.  All I have to say so far is that that is one hell of a pilot.  Well done. 


love,
hannah

Dear River Song,

I am more excited than ever to know your story! I want to know! The Impossible Astronaut was awesome. 

So excited for more Doctor Who.


love,
hannah

Dear Little Mosque On The Prarie,

Thanks to our Black Feminist Thought discussion board, I was reading articles about the idea of a Muslim Cosby Show to which one author said, it already exists! So then I watched the pilot of the Candaian program Little Mosque On The Prairie.  The writing may not be great, but I get what they're doing and I like it.  Also, it takes place in Saskatchewan, which is one of the funniest place names I have ever heard, and they say "sorry" a lot in a very Canadian fashion. 

I recommend watching it, the pilot was entertaining but I liked the second episode a lot.  Second Episode  While not a surprise at all, I like Rayyan.  Enjoy my bizarre Saturday YouTube viewings!


love,
hannah

Dear Klaine,

You kissed! Now I can stop watching Glee.  For real. 

Klaine=Kurt and Blaine for ya'll that don't know. 


love,
hannah