The Diva Factor
By Karen (LadyFOLC@aol.com)


Well everyone, color me lonesome. The best roommate I ever had is gone - not because of anything bad between us, but simply for the bittersweet fact that the summer semester at my college is over, so we had to leave the cramped luxury of our dorms. I won't miss the dorm, just my roommate - Jenny.

Now, for L&C reasons alone, she was perfect. I didn't have to break her in to the show like all my other roommates required. She loved the show, used to watch it on Sunday nights on ABC. But the best part was - she hadn't seen all the eps. Only about half, in fact. Enter yours truly, who has every ep on tape to fill in her L&C gaps. For once, a roommate who didn't think I had a psychological defect for having all 87 episodes.

And of course, she met the most important L&C requirement to meet the title of "Best Roommate Karen's Ever Had" - she was a fashion diva, same as me. So she was absolutely horrified and traumatized by the majority of Lois's third season outfits. "Ultrawoman" drove her to tears and fits of nausea. She also cooed and fawned over Lois's fourth season outfits - a huge requirement since that's the year the costume designers said, "What's with us dressing Lois up to look like a cheap 80's reject from Dress Barn? Aren't we supposed to make her look good?" and introduced Lois Lane to the wonderful world of Calvin Klein.

And of course, Jenny received gigantic bonus points for being a Buffy fan and wanting to see Titanic with me without my having to drug and drag her. Jenny and I called each other Buffy, made daily sacrifices to the Buffy shrine, and watched and taped every episode we could get our hands on. We made it a crime to speak badly of Buffy, Angel, Xander, Willow, Giles, and even of Cordelia. We searched high and low for "Buffy outfits", and watched our Buffy tapes religiously at least 5 times a week. And of course, she was completely fascinated by my collection of Titanic memoribilia and didn't even run away when I told her I'd seen the movie 20 times in the theaters. When I received a bootleg copy for my birthday, we sat down and watched, and cried.... and cried..... and cried....

I'm going to miss Jenny so much, you guys! How often do you find an L&C fan with the right mix of interest, dedication, and ignorance of the show? (Ignorance allows me to fill her in and feel extra cool, of course.) I even played my Dean message tape, which is a sacred thing and only a few select lucky individuals have heard it. OK, that's a lie, for a while I tried to play it to everyone in the Western Hemisphere, but that's all changed now! All I can do now is hope to room with her again someday, and make the daily sacrifice to the Buffy shrine.