"Society teaches us that having feelings and crying is bad and wrong. Well, that's baloney, because grief isn't wrong. There's such a thing as good grief. Just ask Charlie Brown."

I don't know if you guys have heard, but The Office is ending tonight. I haven’t seen anything on the internet about it, so I wanted to make sure you all knew.

I have mixed feelings about the show ending. I'm having feelings all over the place, really, as I sit here eating lunch at my sad desk in my drab office (womp womp). Part of me is happy that the show is being put out of its misery, though this past season has been pretty damn fun, Pam and Jim drama aside because THAT SHIT WAS STRESSFUL. But most of me is like, "NO MY FRIENDS WHERE ARE YOU GOING I'M GOING TO MISS YOU SO MUCH NOOOOOOOOO."

It is a truth universally acknowledged (on this blog) that I get far too attached to fictional characters. So when my favorite TV shows end, I tend to feel things a little too much. Sometimes I think I feel more deeply for fictional happenings than I do for most things that happen in my actual life but that is a (far longer) post for a different day. Long story short (heh), I'm Abed, basically, only not as skinny or Y-chromosomey.



Anyway. Long-time readers may remember my fascination obsession with The Office. It began as so many love affairs do. There was a chance meeting on a random Thursday night and our instant connection turned into a deep affection that lasted years. I was in love from Season 1. I bought it on DVD and made Heidi watch it so I'd have someone else to talk about it with, not having yet found anyone IRL who loved the show as much as I did.

The most important part of the show at that time, for my perpetually-single (or-embroiled-in-unrequited-love) self was the relationship between Pam and Jim. I, like so many others, was deeply invested in whether Pam and Jim would ever end up together. So when they did, it gave me hope, it really did, that things would eventually work out for me, too. (I told you I put far too much investment in fictional relationships.)

I mentioned on Tumblr that last week's episode of The Office, especially that moment when Jim gave Pam the letter he'd written her so many years ago, gave me a lot of feelings. Sometimes it feels like I grew up with Jim and Pam. Not the growing up you do when you, like, go through puberty or whatever, but the growing up you’re forced into when you leave home, get your first job, and have to learn how to do things like pay bills on time and navigate the complicated relationships that come with adulthood . When the show started, I had just moved out of my parents' house, I was working at my first "real" job, but I was still a kid. I don't always feel like an adult now but, like Pam and Jim, I've grown up a lot (sometimes more than I'd like).

When Pam and Jim got married, Joe and I had been together for a little over a year. We watched that episode separately, as we weren't yet living together, but talked on the phone immediately after. We were both emotional, having, I suppose, both identified with Jim and/or Pam at more than one point in our lives. We weren't engaged yet (though we would be two months later) but I knew at some point Joe and I would get married. I’d known for a while. Jim and Pam were just paving the way for us.



We haven't yet followed Pam and Jim to Kid-Land (that place is terrifying) but who knows what the future holds? Pam and Jim made marriage less scary (until this season, geez) so maybe they can do the same for having kids. Only time will tell, I suppose.

Though I lost interest the last couple of seasons, I never really stopped caring about The Office. I kept up with it, even after at least two episodes that should have ended the series (Pam and Jim getting married and Michael Scott leaving). Though the quality went downhill, and I wished more than once for the show's demise, I'm sad to see it go. I'm going to miss my standing Thursday night date with my friends at Dunder-Mifflin and I'm glad I stuck around for Jim and Pam’s journey, even through random Baby #2 (what is that kid’s name?) and Brian the Book Mike Guy. I guess what I’m saying is, I'd follow Jim and Pam anywhere, even if it's to say good-bye. And it's going to be really, really hard.

Also, Joe doesn't believe me, but "khaleesi" is really fun to say. Khaleesi khaleesi khaleesi.

Every morning, I get to work and make myself a To Do list for the day. Or I make it the night before. Or I have stuff leftover from the previous day and THAT'S my To Do list. IT DOESN'T MATTER, my point is, I always have a To Do list of stuff. Just always.

After spending the morning doing everything BUT things actually on my list, I looked at my sad little uncrossed-off list and started adding things I'd already done just so I could cross stuff off. I wish I could tell you that this doesn't happen often but I'm trying not to be such a liar because Joe doesn't like it when I tell him stuff like, I don't know, that I speak Urdu, which is the lie I told him BEFORE WE EVEN MET because Natalie Portman taught me that lying is adorable.

I guess my point is that I don't have one, I just haven't written anything in YEARS and so this is me. Writing stuff. And throwing it all over the internet. Hi, Internet!

So here's something you may not know about, I don't know, LIFE. It turns out that if you spend all of Sunday watching Game of Thrones, the weekend goes really, really quickly. Also, here is some advice. If you're at the store because you tried to rent movies but you've A) seen all the good ones or B) don't feel like delving into the insanity that is Tree of Life on a Saturday night, and you decide instead that what you'd really rather watch is Game of Thrones so you stop getting spoiled about everything and finally figure out what the deal is with this Joffrey puke, but the library never has Game of Thrones in because everyone else wants to watch it, too, and the video store (Sidebar: Why do you call it the video store when they no longer have videos? Discuss.) never has it either or they have every disc BUT THE FIRST ONE so, yeah, obviously your only option is to buy it but when you get to the store, they only have the blu-ray version which is way more expensive (probably?), so you decide to be responsible and only get the first season instead of seasons one AND two, and I'm just here to tell you, go ahead and buy the second season while you're there, screw responsible, because what's going to happen is you'll spend Saturday night and Sunday morning watching the first season and then you'll realize you're going to run out of show before you run out of Sunday, so your husband is going to have to go out and buy the second season while you sit and fret about whether the store will still have it and so, to make yourself feel better, you sing the song you made up about Game of Thrones that goes (to the tune of the Lord of the Rings music): Game. Of. Thrones. It's the game, it's the game, it's the game, it's the game. It's the Game. Of. Thrones.

Which is a TERRIBLE song, way worse than the Doctor Who song you made up that just goes: Doctor Whoooooooooooooooo, Doctor Whoooooooooooooo, Doctor Who, Doctor Who... and so on.

So I guess my point is, now we're watching Game of Thrones, which is really cutting into my rewatching The X-Files project, but I will make that sacrifice because KHALEESI'S GOT DRAGONS Y'ALL!