Home Alone

My roommate Seth is finally coming back home today after a week down in Mississippi. Last week was a rare opportunity for me to spend an extended period home alone. If 80's sitcoms have taught me anything, there is a checklist of things that you are supposed to do when left without parental/roommate supervision:

#1 Trash the house and then race to clean it up in the last remaining hours alone: FAIL. The house was totally trashed when Seth left and I spent most of the week fixing it up for a get-together on Saturday night.

#2 Plan a small gathering that balloons out of control when unexpected guests show up: PASS. Saturday night I hosted Brian Presents: Hoop Dreams, the last in my summer series of supposedly more intimate film screenings, since many of my friends still haven't returned from their summer adventures yet. However, people kept streaming in at an alarming rate, completely exceeding the comfortable capacity of my poor little apartment. All in all, it was the best-attended (and most cramped) Brian Presents: of all time.

#3 Destroy a piece of furniture/family heirloom/beloved pet and replace it with an exact replica before the owner returns: FAIL. The wildest event at the party on Saturday night was a lengthy group discussion about the issues of class, race, gender, and the American Dream addressed in Hoop Dreams.

That gives me a failing grade of 33% for the week. I guess I'll have to bone up on my 80's sitcoms before I'm home alone next time.

Speaking of 80's sitcoms, I went to a farewell party for my friend Katherine Downie last night before she heads off to do her MFA in Grand Rapids, a whopping two hours away. They passed around a notebook wherein we were supposed to write her a farewell message. As I tried to summon some inspirational thoughts, these great words came to mind:

Thank you for being a friend.
Traveled down the road and back again.
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant.
And if you threw a party,
Invited everyone you knew,
You would see the biggest gift would be for me
And the card attached would say,
"Thank you for being a friend."

Sitcoms in the 80's used to have such inspirational theme songs (which look really silly when you write them out). Here's a chance to test your inspirational 80's sitcom theme knowledge (click on the last line for the answer):

#1

Sometimes the world looks perfect,
Nothing to rearrange.
Sometimes you get a feeling
Like you need some kind of change.
No matter what the odds are this time,
Nothing's going to stand in my way.
This flame in my heart,
And a long lost friend
Gives every dark street a light at the end.

Standing tall, on the wings of my dream.
Rise and fall, on the wings of my dream.
The rain and thunder, the wind and haze
I'm bound for better days.
It's my life and my dream,
And nothing's going to stop me now.

#2

Show me that smile again.
Don’t waste another minute on your cryin’.
We're nowhere near the end
The best is ready to begin.
As long as we got each other
We got the world spinnin' right in our hands.
Baby you and me, we gotta be
The luckiest dreamers who never quit dreamin’.
As long as we keep on givin’
We can take anything that comes our way
Baby, rain or shine, all the time
We got each other sharin’ the laughter and love.

#3

I bet we been together for a million years,
And I bet we’ll be together for a million more.
Oh, it’s like I started breathing on the night we kissed,
And I can’t remember what I ever did before.
What would we do baby, without us?
What would we do baby, without us?
And there ain’t no nothing we can’t love each other through.
What would we do baby, without us?
Sha la la la.

#4

You and me, babe, livin' for dreams,
Lifin' for love, drinkin' for free.
Sittin' on top of an old robot,
Sharin' and carin' it out.
The memory's scrubbing you down!

How did you do? Hope you have an inspirational Tuesday!

P.S. - When I first arrived in Brazil, practically every Brazilian I met told me that I looked like the kid from the movie Esqueceram de Mim (They Forgot Me). I had no idea who they were talking until a few months later when we dropped in on a family that was watching They Forgot Me on T.V., known to us English-speakers as Home Alone. Mystery solved, but I was not exactly flattered by the comparison. Look at the picture at the top - do I look anything like that? Fortunately, the Brazilians collectively stopped comparing me to Macaulay Culkin when the first Harry Potter movie came out. I remember a few times when I knocked on a door, a little kid answered, and I asked them to go get their parents. They ran off and I heard them yell, "MOM! HARRY POTTER'S AT THE DOOR!" That's cool - I'd take Harry Potter over Macaulay Culkin any day.