:::Night Cheese:::

I love 30 Rock...when the show isn't filthy nasty. I laugh when they do something funny, but then I nearly split my seams when they do something funny that has another layer of funny to it (How many posts could I write about the racial humor? Oh, many).

One of my favorite things that they do is make commentaries about living in the city. DC is no New York, no ma'am, but it's enough of a big town that I'm hip to the jive, if you know what I mean. I find myself watching the show sometimes and saying, 'Oh my gosh! Yes! YES!'

This is one of my all-time favorite clips. I want to show it to every young college girl, like I once was, who dreams of moving someplace fast-paced and exciting and living the life of Riley. Here's the reality of that dream, in one YouTube clip --



That's my life, right there. The high flying 'I love the city!' feeling, juxtaposed with un-awesome urban grittiness. Okay, maybe I've never been pushed into street trash, but the old lady with the walker is pretty spot on.

Here is another of my favorite scenes from the show. Before I interned in DC back in college, I never really understood what it was like to live and work amongst a large homeless population. Here's how it goes most days --



Yep. I'm not lying. A guy at Union Station this week told me to give him my clothes. He wasn't being nasty or anything. Nasty sounds more like, 'Hey suga', I'm real lonely tonight.' For some reason he just really, really wanted my clothes. ??? Who knows.

These final examples, oh, these are legend. Too bad I can't find a YouTube clip for them, but they are all from last night's episode, which you can watch full-length on the NBC website.

The first clip starts at 1:10 when Jack is looking at all the nut jobs that Liz and Pete are bringing in for auditions. As he's going over the head shots he says, 'I'm already not liking some of these people, it reminds me of being on the bus.' Ha, ha! So true, Jackie D. Bus people be cuh-ray-zay.

Then at 9:17 you have to watch Jack's whole speech in the train car. I've only been to New York three times, but during each trip I heard this exact. same. speech. verbatim on practically every other subway ride I took. Always with the, 'I'm sorry to bother you,' 'I'm not homeless,' something about medication for an illness, and a final sign-off along the lines of 'God bless.' And that guy at 9:50 is totally Moonvest from the 'Give me your fingernails!' clip. I love it.

For an extra treat, scroll to the credits and watch Jack sing with the trio as he shakes his little paper sack of coins. Alec Baldwin, you are an acting genius.

So that's what it's like to live in a city. When it's awesome, I want to stride down the street in a designer pantsuit with a chic handbag on my arm. When it's bad, I just pretend that I'm sourcing material for Tina Fey.

Where am I on the scale these days? Well, it's cold, and the tourists have left (thank the sweet heavens), so I'm doing pretty well.