claire's so-called life.

I gave my mom her Christmas present today--Season One of Arrested Development. She wants to laugh, she always talks about needing to laugh, so I figured that would work. Fortunately, it did. We watched something like 8 episodes of the show, and it got me thinking about how well-produced it is, how likable it is, how great the characterization is.

I spend a fair amount of time imagining a television show, roughly based on my life & circumstances. I feel like this is something everyone does, but I think I have that out-of-body perspective almost constantly.

Maybe it's because I write things on here, and while it isn't as though I get a million hits a day, I'm still fashioning my experiences and thoughts to be read by other people. Think of yourself as a writer, or a potential writer, with even an ounce of seriousness, and you've got a state of mind that's incredibly hard to shake. It's more of a pain than a benefit, I think. I frequently get lost in a conversation because I float away and watch the conversation. I sometimes have a terrible time speaking fluently because I stop thinking of my topic and start thinking of myself speaking. The self-consciousness is overwhelming sometimes.

That said, the hyper-observance has me forming my life into stories, my friends into characters (even my friends' lives into stories), everything manipulated to fit into a box, to place into a text. Conversations float immediately into words on a page, or re-spoken in a re-enactment.

It used to drive me crazy that no character you read resonates true like a real person, because in order to "characterize" someone, you package the person to be predictable. I don't think many real people are as predictable as characters necessarily are.

In creating a story, I think my ultimate goal would be to make it feel as close to reality as I can.

...I'm sort of digressing.

The point is, I've given a lot of thought to this show. The story of three college students at an intense university in the city, with a cheap apartment and widely varying backgrounds and families. I would manipulate us and sharpen us a lot, of course, for characters. T's character would be transfixed with language-learning (and maybe linguistics) and sort of all over the place with integrating different cultures into his life. He would be worldly. And also one of the few characters on TV who would be gay without it being the main purpose for his role (refreshing!) U. would be the econ major with a heart, confusingly enmeshed in a world of soulless I-bankers. (You would definitely be Sri Lankan, U., because I feel like there could be a running joke of people not knowing where that is.) My character would be a disheartened environmentalist with a lot of opposition and strange ideas. (Don't think I see myself as nearly as cool [or proactive] as the character would be.) I can see a lot of the supporting roles, too.

I think it would be cool to have environmentalism be the main attribute for the character I'd create because it'd put that focus right out in front of people. There've been enough doctors. I want to see a show with social justice as a main character's focus. I think that'd be seriously awesome. And I don't like using that term, so I don't use it lightly.

Also, I don't think there are a lot of shows with college settings. I saw one episode of Gilmore Girls last year, but I don't think that counts, really. And I also don't mean stupid, California college like the O.C. (if that ever got that far.) I mean nerdy, serious college. With ironic and funny jokes. Have there been any of these?

I've also decided that the opening credits to the show would go along with one of two songs:

1) Strange Apparition, by Beck, or
2) On the Table, by A.C. Newman

Maybe slightly edited to fit correctly. In my head I can picture it.

It'd be fun to try writing for my nonexistent series.

...in other news, I seem to have reverted to nocturnal functioning here in Michigan. And my brother is talking in his sleep.