What We Talk About When We're Not Discussing The Unbearable Lightness of Being

So, you will recall the secret shame that is my love of The O.C. I got to the end of season 2 and then, after getting all addicted up, I was out of DVDs. We only had 2 seasons donated to the library. Fortunately, my boss owns the entire series, so I asked to borrow the final 2 seasons, which elicited this conversation:

Boss: Of course you can borrow the DVDs.

MBC: Evil cackle of glee.

Boss: I’m going to tell you honestly, though, that season three is no good.

MBC: I don’t care. I love it.

Boss: I know, right? Because, really, whenever Ryan and Seth are together in a scene, the dialogue’s great.

MBC: And I like the music. And Ben McKenzie is a looker. (Which made me sound like a 75-yr-old man. Oh, that Marlene Dietrich. She’s a looker.)

Boss: He is. (pause) Who’s your boyfriend?

This could mean so many things. Ben McKenzie? The real live boy trying to pursue me? One of the film boyfriends? A fictional character boyfriend? That guy I saw at the Blue Lagoon who I felt pretty certain would make a good life companion even though we never spoke and he got out of the water and got dressed right as I was coming up with a way to start a conversation with him in the hopes that he spoke English and wasn’t crazy, but then he left and my last view of him was as he stood on the concrete looking out over the lagoon steam in a pair of those great European shoes that just make an American girl want to cry?

MBC: Which one?

Boss: The one from Ella Enchanted.

MBC: Hugh Dancy.

Boss: Yeah, that’s not him. Maybe it was [Co-worker’s] boyfriend.

MBC: James McAvoy?

Boss: Oh, yeah. I just discovered . . .

This struck me as kind of a crazy conversation to be having with my boss. But it’s typical. It’s really typical.