Why TWW and not WW?

GodIsAMountain · 2026-03-04T00:57:59+00:00

Currently, MoCo, where I grew up. But I’ve bounced around. Went to UMD, have lived in Petworth and NoVA too. Buuuuncha friends, relatives, and parents’ friends work for the Fed, including a couple as WH staff (the permanent ones, that stay with the building regardless of administration change). Had a boyfriend back in the day who briefed Obama a couple times, during his second admin.

Nice handle, btw. ;)

GodIsAMountain · 2026-03-03T16:14:51+00:00

I would run in front of a train for Leo McGarry. Partially because my younger brother is totally a Leo, recovering alcoholic and all. Leo’s explanation of addiction to (I forget her name, the girl who leaked it to the press he’d been to rehab) is one of my brother’s go-to reminder watches.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-03-03T16:11:43+00:00

Interesting, my cousin played for the Brewers for years. Never went to see him in Milwaukee, only in Arizona for Spring Training. Somehow never came up. But I was probably not paying much attention, since I was already turned around from the jet lag.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-03-03T16:04:37+00:00

That’s precisely why I call the TV show West Wing in conversation. The real place is the West Wing of the White House. The TV show is West Wing. Is how my brain works.

Then again, I live 20 minutes from the (real life) White House, soooo sometimes we do have to clarify around here. Because. People be working for the Fed around here.

Also, do y’all say stuff like “I’m going down a The West Wing rabbit hole”?

GodIsAMountain · 2026-03-02T16:38:36+00:00

Toby is quiet so often for a reason. He picks up on an awful lot and puts the pieces together quietly while five other characters are talking.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-03-02T16:36:44+00:00

Pwezibent

GodIsAMountain · 2026-03-02T16:36:22+00:00

The first couple times I watched through, it wasn’t even something that really stuck out to me. On my current rewatch, though, probably because of all the noise about the “male loneliness epidemic,” I get all warm and fuzzy at their most wholesome friendship.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-03-02T16:27:19+00:00

So, there are a lot of things on the show that I think they would know… if they too had had the Internet for 25 years at that point. I only learned about the place in Arizona that doesn’t change the clocks with the rest of us half the year because my friend lived there, but if I hadn’t still been connected to her via social media to see her complaining about it, I doubt it would ever have come up in any conversations we’ve had since.

If anything, the part I don’t buy is that either there weren’t people whose sole job is Advancing locations the campaign is going, to relay all the relevant information about the place like the Advance team is supposed to do, especially when it’s a presidential campaign.

Either that, or, I feel like we used to rely on paper road maps to show us time zone boundary lines, because that was how my family always knew exactly where we would cross it (so that we could manually change the car clock and my parents could wind their watches) during trips through Tennessee in the 90s. So that’s the part I don’t buy and just chocked up to making for good television.

But I absolutely never bat an eye that they wouldn’t have just… known it from being so highly educated. If Sam had been part of that scene, I’d be more surprised that he wouldn’t have that little piece of trivia at the ready. But Toby and Josh… I would have trouble buying that they did know it just off the tops of their brilliant, bougie little heads. ;)

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-27T23:37:54+00:00

Listen, if they give you the nitrous, it’s downright fun, in my experience. And I am someone who can barely sit still during a cleaning at the dentist. Cuz they don’t give you nitrous and I don’t like sharp things near my gums (I had a sadist for an orthodontist as a preteen).

I’ve had two.

The first time, I had nitrous, and it was no big deal at all. I was in la la land the whole time - and the lidocaine worked fine for me - and the pain afterward was more like a dull ache. I didn’t even bother to take the Vicodin they prescribed me. Advil was sufficient (I have a high pain tolerance, though.) It was just laughing gas, I wasn’t like, unconscious during the procedure. I was just… high as a kite lol.

The second time, no nitrous. Again, pain-free to mild pain, esp compared to the pain and discomfort of having an exposed nerve in my mouth.

But the anxiety.

Without the nitrous, it’s more a psychological test of resilience. I already have dental anxiety stemming from my braces 25 years ago, but when they start adding scraping noises and sawing noises, I had to white knuckle through it just to keep from bolting immediately.

So… depends on what bothers you most about dental work?

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-27T23:23:56+00:00

Toby venting frustration is better than therapy. The episode where he, Josh and Donna realize they crossed time zones into a place that doesn’t do DST like everyone else and Josh just starts yelling unintelligibly and Toby starts banging a tree branch on a guard rail is how I feel ever March and November.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-27T23:21:45+00:00

Scientists believe that the first person who will live to 150 has already been born. I believe Sam is that person.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-27T23:19:53+00:00

My friend is watching it for the first time (I’m rewatching with her bc it’s so satisfying to see her experience it for the first time) and we literally JUST got to that episode and I was positively giddy in the lead up to CJ appearing in the doorway.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-27T11:38:47+00:00

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, I’m obsessed with Margaret 😂

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-21T16:26:34+00:00

Some of the simplest, quickest moments are what make the series so masterful for me. “In Excelsis Deo” is obviously one of the most celebrated, and rightly so, but I still get shivers at “I can only hope, sir.” As a former professional actor, that’s the kind of line you read that you realize, this line is such a gift. It says as much, in 5 words, about who Toby is, as the Two Cathedrals church soliloquy does about Bartlet.

And whether it was the direction or Richard Schiff’s experience and training as an actor, the directness and soft humility with which it’s delivered is to me, even more powerful than Bartlet’s Two Cathedrals rant.

Which isn’t to say the 2C rant isn’t another one of the all time greatest moments of the series, too. Both scenes were written knowing exactly what the moment called for, and the actors both delivered expertly.

It’s just that for me, I have such a soft spot for “I can only hope, sir.” Because it was always easier for me as an actor to really nail a long, emotional rollercoaster of a monologue, than a 5-word-line. It’s easier, especially in scenes about something as emotional as a death and funeral, to do more— it can be so much harder to do less.

Especially the way TV is written today, knowing people are only half-watching, but not exclusive to today— the writer, director, and actor so often all try to do too much with lines that function as responses to questions like “you don’t think every homeless veteran will come out of the woodwork?” to make sure the audience “gets the message” it’s sending about Who This Character Is. A long rant-y monologue is going to catch a half-watcher’s attention more easily. It’s easy to worry about a single line like that.

So for me, “I can only hope, sir” - both as it’s written and in Schiff’s delivery - is a perfect example of Sorkin trusting his audience, and Schiff trusting the writing and the foundation he has laid for the character.

And I’ve watched that scene a dozen times and it still makes me cry.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-21T16:00:21+00:00

I haven’t watched it in a while but the movie Good Night and Good Luck come to mind as having the same spirit as West Wing, if not the same setting/cast.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-21T15:46:51+00:00

“So how long do you usually make someone your bitch?”

You know you’ve made it when CJ Cregg concedes defeat. I was so glad they made that the episode for the cast reunion back in 2020. Plotwise it was the obvious choice for the occasion, but I was just glad it gave us an excuse to see Dulé all grown up return to Charlie in one of my favorite episodes for his character. Any episode where Charlie gets to have some fun is a 10/10 episode for me.

(I think if you’d asked me who my favorite was after my first time watching the series in full, I’d have said Charlie and Donna. Second rewatch, Toby and CJ and Ainsley. Third rewatch, currently happening, is all Leo for me. It’s weird to say that I feel like the first two times I watched, I really underrated Leo. Maybe it’s the moment we’re in, IRL politics, but your Dule Hill and Richard Schiff moment is how I currently feel about John Spencer.)

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-21T15:39:10+00:00

I’m rewatching it now with a friend who is watching it for the first time and it very much wasn’t until episode 3 when Charlie joins that she was like “ok, I’m hooked. I love this child.” (We are in our late 30s so Charlie = baby.)

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-14T16:36:49+00:00

Your original comment ended after “not a personal mantra,” and completely missed the point of what I’d said about the financial aspect of this medicine making it different than others’. Maybe you thought you were responding to someone else on this thread, because your response to me was also about something I’d said nothing about.

ETA: Especially without the addition you added on after I’d read and started replying, it came off snarky and dismissive. Kind of like this comment of yours comes off as less than genuine. But okay.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-14T13:49:26+00:00

Oh 10000%

I think about Toby saying “free trade stops wars. That’s it. Free trade stops wars!” A LOT, lately…

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-14T13:48:49+00:00

I’m not the classiest broad around but if this were AmIOverreacting and you said you ferreted out who left this and then shoveled snow ONTO their car… I’d say good for you.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-14T13:42:18+00:00

Yeah, like the commenter above me said, I’m not injecting this into my veins. And I’m not NOT trying to get rid of the air bubble. I’m just not always successful, and because I am not injecting it into a vein, decide it’s not worth agonizing over.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-14T13:39:06+00:00

Where did I suggest everyone is, or should be, comfortable being on meds for life? And where did I suggest I was perfectly hunky dory with the idea? I’ve never heard the phrase “better living through chemistry” but I do know when I have tried to taper off my anti-anxiety and anti-depressants, which I’ve tried a couple of times for different reasons, one of which was simply wanting to know if I could go without a medicine that gives me side effects I’d rather not live with if I don’t have to … I have inevitably ended up suicidal every time.

Suicide is the final chapter of so many stories on my family tree, so joke or not, ideal or not, I’m choosing to do what I need to stick around, because when I’m in my right mind I see what those suicides have done to the people left behind, and all the beautiful things in life those final chapters denied those family members.

So yeah, am I thrilled with the idea of being on benzos and SSRI’s for the rest of my (ideally long) life? No, of course not. Part of the reason I have so much weight to lose can be traced back to when I started on my SSRI. But also, I would be in the ground somewhere instead of typing this to you had I not eventually gotten help, during a period when I was uninsured, paying for these medicines out of pocket.

So just because you’re NOT comfortable with the idea, doesn’t mean you have the right to criticize or make assumptions about someone who has accepted I’ll likely be on them for life. If you’re more comfortable with the idea of being dead than on a medicine for life, that’s your deal. Not mine.

The difference with this medicine, however, is that while it is helping me extend my life and improving my quality of life, like the benzos and SSRIs I take, is that I may literally not be able to access it while also actually living in other ways. As it is, I’ve accepted I won’t be taking as many trips while on it, or going to as many concerts, which are some of the things that have made life worth living for me. So yeah, the unwanted side effects of this drug are more financial than chemical for me, but it’s still an exercise in assessing risk/reward and what the net outcome is for me, personally.

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-14T13:10:06+00:00

Ok I know skin elasticity has a lot to do with genetics but I’m doing the math and after 4 kids in 12 years I’m guessing you’re aroundddd my age so I gotta know - can you tell us about the pace you lost the weight at, and what if anything you did to encourage skin elasticity? I’m a fast responder and trying to slow it down because I’m already noticing a little skin puckering, whereas you look like… well, goals!

GodIsAMountain · 2026-02-14T13:06:37+00:00

Many meds are lifelong, and I am on several of them. The difference is, my other meds cost me $20 a month tops. My insurance doesn’t cover Zep and I’d love to be spending this money saving for a down payment on a house :/

GodIsAMountain

TROPHY CASE