Tag Archives: twin peaks

3 Months Now

Yesterday marked 3 months since Larry died.  Yesterday was not a good day accordingly.  I spent most of the non-work day in tears.  Part of that was also watching the series fucking finale of Schitt’s Creek and it’s just not fair that such a wonderful show is ending.  It of course ended wonderfully with David and Patrick’s wedding and the Rose family achieving their happy endings.   It broke me up to see the beginning of a wonderful marriage with all the sentiments that I remember feeling.   But my marriage ended in death as Larry fought and lost his battle with cancer.  “Till death do you part” is a bitch of a thing, especially when it applies to you.   I think about death frequently, whether it’s the hopes that Larry is around in some form or fashion or if coronavirus, if and when I get it, will be how I go.   I think about all the things that probably need to be taken care of and who would actually handle those things, and then I remember that oh yeah, you’d be dead so it wouldn’t matter.  It’s morbid, I know.  But being alone with your thoughts while grieving is a fucking nightmare.  Highly not recommended.

It’s like week 4 of the coronavirus physical distancing / safer at home order we all live in within Los Angeles county.   It’s unbelievable that we’re in this situation.  Our national leadership is abdicating all responsibility for the matter, and today tweeted the hope that we’ll all forget about what we’re going through.   Yeah, not gonna forget that you were aware of the threat since January, took no action, delayed action because you considered it a hoax and a hurdle to reelection, and still just make shit up that you think sounds about right.   There honestly was an opportunity to solidify your re-election:  be a leader and lead the nation through this, and be aggressive and own the situation and help.  But nope, that’s not who he is.  Has never been.   And people who voted for him and will again can go fuck themselves.

So yeah, week 4.  I’m losing my fucking mind, honestly.  It sucks.  I have been doing yoga consistently – in fact, today I count 45 days straight of me doing yoga to start the day off.  That was even before the quarantine had started.  It has helped to calm me down, and frankly it has been great with regards to my overall lean muscle mass.  I definitely feel stronger.  It’s nice.  I play video games a lot – lately it’s been The Division 2, Anno 2250, and some Rise of Nations too, which is such a comforting game to play.  I have a lot on the backburner, especially a lot of my VR games and new ones I’ve bought.  I’ll get to them.  TV too:  Twin Peaks rewatch is in full effect (in fact, today is the 30th anniversary of the premiere of the pilot episode!  There was a rewatch led by Kyle Maclachlan and Madchen Amick which was fun.)  Westworld season 3 is still amazing.  Schitt’s Creek just ended but this past season was phenomenal.  Survivor is kicking all kinds of ass.  So I do have my distractions.  But having no human contact beyond the occasional delivery person (which is a risk in itself!) is no way to be.  I never considered myself that much of an extrovert, but yeah, I am.

Here we are though – I miss Larry unbelievably and talk to him still, as who else do I have to talk to.   I have plenty of texts and calls with my friends and some family.   Mom is safe, but she’s so unconcerned with me or anything besides her own immediate needs so that’s just what it is.  I just have to continue on – do I know what is in store for myself or the world?  No clue.   Honestly I don’t think this distancing will end anytime soon, not until a vaccine is created.   It sucks, but this coronavirus is a bitch.   So that’s my rambling.   I had hoped to have more cogent thoughts or something approaching organization, but nah, that didn’t happen.   Here are some pictures from the last few weeks to tide you over, most from me but also some from my friends too.

First Day of the Clinical Trial

Monday was the start of my last week of leave.  I finally got the process going for looking for a place for mom to go.  I ended up using links Mila sent me that connected me to A Place For Mom – and I’ve already spoken with some places in Tarzana.  Might go visit next week.  Mom is mostly on board, but I think she understands and gets that this isn’t a simple thing and is a big change.   Slow steps.

I found out my car had nothing wrong.  But I did learn that when you’re not actually using the A/C cooling feature in your car, you shouldn’t turn on the A/C Compressor.  Huh.  I did not know that.

Anyway, Monday was a chill day after that.  Shored up that we will be heading to Santa Monica on Wednesday, not Tuesday.

I met with a social worker that Mila set me up with on Monday afternoon. It’s a short term thing but will basically be some therapy for me.  I hope it can be something that helps.  I bet it will.

Tuesday – honestly a big day of nothing.  The three of us just hung out for most of it, got packed up for our 3 days in Santa Monica, as we are getting a hotel out there to avoid having to drive back and forth on that nightmarish 405.  We also got Arby’s – well, I went and drove to Reseda to get it and brought it back, and totally worth it.  Continued watching Mrs Maisel Season 3 and I also got my delivery of the Twin Peaks From Z to A box set, which has everything.  Everything.   And it’s got the pilot and Part 8 of theReturn on UHD – watched the pilot in UHD and it was great.

Wednesday – we got up bright and early and were able to get out to Santa Monica UCLA Health – the drive there sucked hard as even leaving at 9am for a 10:30am appt meant over an hour on the road.  Ugh.  The only activities happening today were to collect bloodwork for labs, and then to meet with Dr Goldman after he reviewed the results.   All of us had some stress that he was not going to continue the trial, but as of now, that isn’t the case.   Fran and I grabbed some lunch across the street and Larry had a chance to have some one on one time with the SIMM social worker, and it did help emotionally.   I don’t know – I hope so.  Crying can help and talking to someone external can let you reveal your true thoughts.  We need a miracle.  Anyway, our Comfort Inn is just a few blocks east on Santa Monica Blvd – and we spent the afternoon there.  Nicki (yay!) joined us there as she had been out and about from work early, and we got to hang out and chill.  Bought some wine at a wine store a block away, and then ordered in Tender Greens.   The hotel is what it is, but I miss home.  Tomorrow is the biggest day ahead of us – the first day of the drug, and then a day of monitoring.  Wish us luck, pray, anything.

Finally, the Roadhouse, to complete my 2017 Year of Twin Peaks

2017 may have been a shitshow for a whole slew of reasons, but one giant reason in its favor is that it was so full of Twin Peaks goodness.   Not only did the revival on Showtime kick serious ass, we got 18 hours of it and it still managed to confound and excite us.  I really should have known that with it being Twin Peaks, it wouldn’t end neatly.   Then obviously I posted about it back in September, which was when Larry & I went to Seattle & Vancouver for a week and tagged one of the days as a Twin Peaks day:

Finding the Real Twin Peaks 2 Days after the Return Finale

I said it enough in the post, but that day was seriously one of the best days ever.  I got to see nearly every Seattle-adjacent filming location that I would have wanted to have seen….except for the actual exterior location of “the Roadhouse.”  It was located in the opposite direction of where we were heading, so it had to be dropped and I figured maybe one day, we’d go back?  Well, may not need to as the Roadhouse came to Los Angeles!

Saturday, December 30, 2017 @ The Roadhouse in Los Angeles

This pop-up was incredible.  You enter and then walk through several corridors of Black Lodge goodness, passing into an outdoor area with some sycamore trees, the entrance to the Black Lodge, and Owl Cave scribblings.  Then you head into the restaurant area where you are now in the Roadhouse.   Great food and some solid, interesting drink offerings, all themed to Twin Peaks characters or motifs.   I ended up getting a fantastic Great Northern Steak & Frites while Larry got Betty Briggs Meatloaf Burger, and then I had a Laura Palmer drink followed by a surprising hot cup beverage called Cherry Pie That’ll Kill Ya.  All followed with Cherry Pie and Donuts.  Yeah, we might have eaten a lot.

At the end of our 90 minutes or so, we left and I bought two Twin Peaks t-shirts, and then we called it a day.  This excursion also served as our ‘going out for New Year’s’ event as basically there were so many unpleasant outings for a few years it is just not fun anymore.  But staying home?  Hella fun.  We ended up watching movies yesterday, starting with Diamonds Are Forever, then renting Despicable Me 3 from ITunes (it was okay – I think I liked the previous 2 more although I did like the 80s-themed villain), and following it up with Spy, which still is just so damn funny.    Larry made a wonderful chicken parmesan dinner and then we watched the Kathy-less CNN NYE for a little and drank a bottle of champagne.  And here we are now in 2018.  Let’s make it a good year – lots of exciting things coming up, notably buying and moving into a brand new house!!!

New Year’s Eve at Home, 2017 version:

Finding the Real Twin Peaks 2 Days after the Return Finale

There’s no other way to put it:  this was one of the best days of my life.

Cooper and Carrie (Laura) confused by what they’re looking at

I’ve posted very little over the last few months due to work and indifference, but the few posts I’ve done have largely involved Twin Peaks.   The 3rd Season, aka The Return, wrapped up its season on Sunday, Sept 3, and it’s very likely that is the end of the series too.  I can live with that and spend time reading all the many, many articles trying to decipher what the hell just happened with “Laura” screaming out the lights in and outside the Palmer House with a confused Cooper looking on.  I’ve been a fan since 1990 and as I got older, I wanted more and more to visit Seattle to go see all these iconic places for myself.  Finally, this dream came true as we came up to Seattle and I staked out one of the days as a Twin Peaks day.  And oh lordy, this day exceeded any and all of my expectations.

For some of my Twin Peaks bonafides on this here site, I present some of my posts:

Twin Peaks: Up Close and Personal

Also, lots of other Twin Peaks-related stuff at this tagged collection:

https://www.hobiebarnes.com/?tag=twin-peaks

And to make it easier since this post is looooong, I’ve created some links to be able to jump ahead to the major section headings:

Twin Peaks Locations:

 

You can’t go on a Twin Peaks adventure and not start it off with doughnuts.  Larry’s boss had recommended an outstanding place, Top Pot Doughnuts, that we could walk to in the morning before picking up the rental car.  It was a very cool space in and of itself (Barack Obama also had visited there) and the doughnuts were delicious!

Top Pot Doughnuts

We obviously had not driven from Los Angeles to Seattle for this trip, as that is a vacation all on its own, and while I had pondered if taking an Uber all around would make sense, I ended up realizing that was a terrible idea.  So for $48, I rented a car for the day from Enterprise.  And while I was expecting something like a Nissan or Chevy mid-size somethin’-or-other, and was disappointed when the initial check-in guy hadn’t offered any potential upgrade, when we got up to the level in parking lot where you pick up your car, the clerk there took a look around and asked if we wanted the silver Cadillac!  For a second I was like, I don’t wanna have to deal with driving that big ol’ thing, but then I immediately reconsidered and was like, HELLS YEAH.  Gimme that Caddy!

Continue reading Finding the Real Twin Peaks 2 Days after the Return Finale

Twin Peaks: The Return – I AM the FBI

OH MAN!  Yes, Part 16 of Twin Peaks: The Return was enough to finally knock me out of my posting laziness.  It was really that fucking good.  Agent Cooper is back, and just in time for the last two parts next weekend, and then I can be utterly distraught at the fact that Twin Peaks will yet again be over.  It’s not clear if it’s for good, but likely this will be all there is.  But to no longer have “How’s Annie?” as the endpoint will be magical.  It really is hard to believe that my favorite show is back and not only back, but has been balls to the wall fantastic.  It’s yet again in a class by itself in terms of how it tells its stories, and I eagerly anticipate a complete rewatch of this season.  But in the meantime….

The Diane scene, including her reveal of what happened with “Coop” many years ago as well as the reveal that she “isn’t me”?  Amazing.  The resolution helped explain a lot while still providing more to chew on.  And I loved her final ‘fuck you’ while chilling the Black Lodge before getting disassembled.

And our dear girl Audrey finally got to the Roadhouse to see a performance by Eddie Vedder, and while it seemed that maybe everyone’s theory that Audrey was still in a coma from the bank vault explosion (and all the associated trauma that we also learned about, including Mr. C confirming Richard was his son….ugh…) was getting disproven because “hey, here she is outside of that living room FINALLY” and then we get the emcee introducing “Audrey’s Dance” and the whole floor clears out for Audrey to yet again dance to her music and everyone is swaying along and it’s like, OKAY NO, none of this is happening for real.  Is the Roadhouse real?  It has to be, but maybe it isn’t sometimes???  And then that moment after some fight breaks out and Audrey is shocked out of this reverie and we see her…somewhere:

All we can hope is that with the happy turn of events occurring now, maybe Audrey will also be free of whatever prison she’s in?

But the best part of course during this episode?  Dale motherfucking Cooper waking up and affirming to Mike (and us) that he’s “100 Percent” and taking charge and knowing exactly what he needs to be doing.  I literally was screaming with joy at what was happening and every moment with Dale was so fucking amazing.  I definitely appreciated that it took this long and will honestly miss the Dougie stuff, but this Return was so fucking cathartic to have occur.

I loved that he remembered everything that had happened with Janey-E and Sonny Jim and have high hopes that he’s asking Mike to create a “Dougie” off of him, so hopefully one that isn’t a piece of shit like the original model and treats his family with love.

People, next week will be fucking amazing and the anticipation is killing me.  At the same time, I hate to think about this feeling ending too.  🙁  These last few months of Sundays have been stellar entertainment, with Twin Peaks, Season 7 of Game of Thrones, and Big Brother 19 occupying my happy place all on the same night.