ER nostalgia

I had lunch with the Lee sisters on Thursday, which prompted an ER finale and chili date at their house Thursday night. Sidenote: Kelsey and Kayla are living in my dream home. It's in Manhattan, it was built in the 70's, complete with olive green appliances, a panic room and bright orange curtains. I had been wondering what kind of house I should live in when I grow up, and now I know. They even have a trampoline. They are living my dream life, and I'm just happy to stop in, watch their fancy TV and get fed chili and cookies. It's so nice to have them in town.

Anyway....

We watched the ER finale together, complete with the one hour retrospective. I, like most of America, stopped watching the show years ago, mostly because I came to college. I never had an obsessive reaction to the show, but watched it regularly when I was younger, because Mom and Dad would always look forward to it. It was a show that never made sense to me as a ten year old, and my constant memory of the experience is asking bewildered questions and being shushed my Mom and Dad. The only episode that really sticks in my brain circled around a novel that someone in the hospital wrote. I don't think the author was ever revealed, but it seemed to me that Dr. Carter was the one responsible. For this reason, I always saw the show as Noah Wyle's. In later seasons, the one's that no one watched, it was his show. But I think that shaded how I viewed the whole series. In reading about the favorite ER moments and watching the retrospective, I was maddened by these vague memories of big events in the show hanging at the edge of my memory. I remember Dr. Weaver singing the Green Day song at someone's funeral. I remember some Doctor getting accidentally poked with an HIV positive needle. I remember laying next to Mom on Thanksgiving, watching Julianna Marguiles do... something. Mom always had such a crush on George Clooney. From what I can remember, he was the only celebrity she ever admitted having a crush on.



And so, with my love of nostalgia, I rushed out after the finale to rent season 1 of the series. I'm now hooked, determined to chase down those distant memories, and finally put these pieces of history into a narrative context. I watch each episode with a sense of urgent anxiety. Every new episode could unlock all sorts of buried memories. I've made it through the first 10 episodes so far, and all I've really discovered is that every single bit of the opening stabs me with forgotten familiarity. Anthony Edwards rolling back in his chair, Eriq La Salle punching the air in the ER hallway. It's such a comfort to revisit these familiar scenes. It puts me back in that frame of mind, nestled into the couch, sitting on Mom's feet eating popcorn, or watching the taped version the next day with a homemade icee. No other form of escapism is quite as effective. The only downside is that it makes it very difficult to focus on my methods of metadata standards paper (due tomorrow).

Does anyone else have favorite memories, episodes, or experiences?