The West Wing

I have a faint recollection of my mom and dad watching the West Wing when I was younger – I remember watching parts of it with them occasionally, not understanding anything, but still thinking that Charlie was one of the cutest people I’d ever seen on TV.

I sort of forgot the show existed until last spring, when I was in DC at training week for my spring semester internship. There I met this Aussie girl, complete with vegemite (no joke) and a lovely demeanor. She was heading to Guatemala for a year and I thought she was so cool in her stylish brown suit and Sydney accent.

One of the things that made me think she was ridiculously cool was this thing she had going on with one of her friends who was living in a different country at the time. They both had Polaroid cameras, and as a way to keep in touch the took Polaroids and sent them to each other regularly along with descriptions of what the photos contained.

On one of the last days of training week, I happened to be around when this girl asked several people (including me) to pose at the front desk of the NGO we work for so someone could take a Polaroid of us for her to send to her friend. She told us to look very serious and important, because she wanted it to look like we were in The West Wing because she and her friend really liked that show.

So ever since then, the few times I’ve thought about that television show, I’ve thought of Jo.

These past few weeks, my lovely, vegemite-toting, Polaroid-taking Aussie roommate and I have been watching Season One of West Wing on her laptop in our apartment here in Guatemala. It has a sort of complete feeling to it, like the world really is ordered and things do all fit together eventually.

Maybe to make the experience really complete, we can take a Polaroid of us lazing around on her bed watching CJ, Sam and the team kick butt.