Lemon, Peeled

Did you lose a fight with a belt sander?
Did a lightbulb explode on you?
Did you like, have a nightmare and wake up while a cat was on your face?

These were all questions Liz heard many times on Sunday. The real story was much more interesting.

She had been a horse rider ever since she was eight years old. Her first horse, an evil-incarnate palomino named Midas, decidedly had some sort of vendetta against children and actively sought to kill her, unseating her on average 8 of every 10 rides. But because her trainer blamed the horse's depravity on her lack of equestrian skill, she became determined to learn, above all, how to stay on a horse's back.

It was over fourteen years later that she took a little refresher crash course-literally- in her childhood riding lessons.

Shootout is a weekend event that happens every year at Barefoot University. Groups of students come together to make 3-5 minute films in 48 hours, based on a few prompts given to them by the school.

The genre that Liz's group was assigned was a western, so the team journeyed to Stone Mountain, Georgia (home of Kenneth Parcell). Since a moving galloping shot was required for the sake of the story, and the owner of Stone Mountain was Liz's best childhood friend, she offered her services as a stunt rider and mounted up.

Sure, the weather was not optimal for a hard gallop. Sure, the ground was slick with mud and ice. Sure, she was riding in a tight space between a moving pickup truck and a fence on a hill. Sure, she could have ridden slower or stopped sooner.

But that would have made too much sense. Instead, she chose to hit the patch of mud with a horse running at nearly full speed, which is plenty fast enough to be considered break-neck speed. The last thing Liz remembered was her horse's feet slipping out from under her.

The next thing she saw was sky. It came in fuzzily as she blinked herself back to the world. Then she heard a voice. It was that of her best childhood friend, Rachel Dratch. Rachel, always sympathetic to a grim situation, said the first thing Liz remembered hearing:

"Well, don't you look like a rock star."

Liz gurgled back a response like, "rock on." She tried to sit up, but a pair of hands pushed her down in the mud. Then she heard Jenna's voice.

"You can't get up, hun. You had a bad fall."

Slowly the story came out while Liz was on the ground. Her horse had slipped and fell, throwing Liz headfirst into the road. She'd hit the pavement hard, rolled over, and blacked out for a few seconds. Then she was overcome with a seizure like something from The Excorcist.

At that point, everything went into crisis mode. Pete lunged twenty feet in the air out of the film truck while the driver slammed on the breaks. Rachel grabbed the horse and handed it off to one of the crew members, who took it inside the barn. As he opened a stall door to put the animal away, a miniature horse flew out and ran, bucking, into the chaotic swirl outside.

Jenna would later comment that while she was crouched on the ground, holding Liz still, she turned her head to clear her tears and saw a tiny horse running across her field of view and three crew members chasing after it.

Liz regained consciousness shortly before the ambulance arrived, but with dizziness and slurred speech. So they packed her up and shipped her off to the hospital, Rachel and Jenna in tow. After a few hours, a cat scan, x-ray, and one nurse Ratched who taped her head to the backboard, Liz was released with a fistful of vicodin and a massive headache. She slept well that night and bounced back to work the next day, her scratched face a real conversation starter.

Everyone was glad she was alive, to say the last, and Liz received various get-well presents, including a massive bag of cheese puffs, free calzones, and a box-mask to hide her face.

One night Dennis popped up on IM to ask her what happened. As she told her story, his responses came further and further apart, until she realized that he had lost interest. Ah well, she thought. You just can't make some people care. Those that do are worth keeping around- if only to cash in on the occasional free foods.

"In My Alternate Reality...

Dennis dies and I win the lottery." -Liz Lemon, 30 Rock.

And with an insincere invitation and a nervous (but full) stomach, our heroine journeyed to the Land of the Rat King to participate in a video project for Dennis and his band.

No she didn't belong there. No Dennis didn't really want her there. But the experience was really good for her, so Liz chose to defy all social norms and go anyway.

And face the rat king.

Apparently her presence caught the attention of the other rat, AKA Floyd. An evening of flirtatious exchanges turned into a text after Liz returned home: "Hey can I come over and watch Men in Tights with you?"

Liz was not proud of what happened next.

"Sure." Sure? No! Not sure! Relationship! With herself! No shaving! God damnit.

So Floyd came over and together they watched the hilarity of Mel Brooks. Floyd left the next morning with crumpled jeans and pain in his lower back from falling asleep on his cell phone. Liz briefly considered the situation she had put herself in, then pulled off her bra and fell back to sleep.

Liz was very proud of what happened next.

Later that day, her good friend K, whom we'll call Pete (who is actually a girl but has more balls than half the boys Liz knows) shared with Liz the story of one tired and angry Dennis who was late returning equipment he'd checked out the day before.

Dennis arrived fifteen minutes after his return deadline in a very sour mood. When Pete asked what was wrong, he responded: "Floyd was supposed to help me pack up this equipment an hour ago but he left for some girl's house last night and hasn't come back."

"Gee dude, that really sucks," Said Pete. Her face looked something like the picture.

In Liz's alternate reality, things like this happen all the time. Sometimes, though, it's pretty gosh darn awesome sauce when they turn out that way in this reality every once in a while.

Besides, in Liz's alternate reality, Tracy runs her over with a jet ski.

The Rat King is Real

"Yes to life! Yes to love! Yes to staying in more!"

That's what the 30 Rock Liz said to Jack when it was discovered that she had said "Oui" to the French minister who accidentally married them.

And staying in more was definitely seeming like an involuntary vow that Liz had made. It was the first Friday of the quarter that she didn't have to do anything, now that her movie was nearly wrapped, and she had absolutely nothing to do.

Every interaction with Dennis was becoming increasingly more negative. The boy refused to acknowledge her existence in public or otherwise, but would readily call her to do something for him or fix his film problems. After Liz responded to one such call with the comment that "this has nothing to do with me," He replied rather snottily, "well, thanks for all your cooperation."

And things with Floyd were no better. According to Liz's friend Jenna, Floyd had been seeing other girls after he had seen Liz.

So she went online for her answers.

She googled "rat king" and wikipedia told her the folklore of rats becoming fused together by their tails and even about real-life instances, mostly in Germany.

Liz was aghast. It was true. Dennis and Floyd were best friends fused together in some disgusting fashion, both of them sickening unto themselves.

The rat king was real!

So sitting alone on her couch, Liz realized that she was facing her worst fear- being home alone on a weekend- and discovered that, at the very least, she was cutting herself off from the rat king.

She was free! Maybe she really was a Lemon to her core, dumping sticks of melted butter on popcorn and spilling soda on her sweatpants- but she was free.

No more Dennis. No more Floyd. Liz was going to be in a relationship with herself, where the only bullshit she had to take was her own, and she didn't have to shave as much. This idea was beginning to grow on Liz.

Lemon Zest

Well, that happened.

That being last weekend's shoot. It went well, all things considered. Because of some carelessness on the part of one actress, shooting was shuffled around and everyone was pressed for time. This naturally caused some tension between folks, the most notable being between Liz and her friend Jenna. A very heated argument had acted like a meteor on their friendship, obliterating the strong foundation that Liz thought they had. It left her not knowing what to say to Jenna, but Liz was a very proud person and not likely to apologize, especially when she knew she was right.

(Confrontation is something Liz seeks to avoid at all costs.)

Monday had been the weirdest day of all as Liz had gone over to Dennis' (and Floyd's) apartment to retrieve the footage of the shoot. When informed that it would take nearly an hour to download, Liz waited in Floyd's room and the two "chilled," as it were, with other friends and roommates that happened to be present at whichever moment. When Dennis finished his work and joined them, a certain herb was passed around and consumed by the three. It was tobacco, duh.

As the vignette of drug consumption began creeping its way around the corners of her brain, Liz realized what an odd situation it was for her to be sitting with both of them. She could see the way Floyd was careful not to look at her directly or refer back to any of their inside jokes. She also noticed that Dennis was completely oblivious. As the boys played music with their strings and picks, the world around them melted away and Liz understood why Floyd would never, or could never sacrifice his best friend for her. She had never held it against him, but the thought made her sad.

But she had to shift her attention from the romance drama that kept playing in her head to the work she still had to do. she had to reorganize the shots with Dennis to make sure the shoot this weekend would run smoother. She had to give footage to the sickly little mole people in the editing bay. She had to order a new lens. And a new tripod. She had to finish some photoshop lessons and set up a shoot for her lighting class. And to top it off, she should really be looking for a job.

Liz decided on a New Year's resolution for 2011. She would start taking control of her life. Control her behavior, control her procrastination tendencies, control her relationships with others.

A little more zest for the Lemon.

Oy Vey

She had a shoot in the morning, two giant scheduling conflicts, ominous weather approaching, and a knot in her stomach that would take even a boy scout a solid hour to undo.

She had the house to clean. Monologues to write. People to deal with. Could a girl ever get a drink?

She'd dumped Floyd. Not only had she dumped Floyd, she'd straight-up obliterated him, reducing him to a whining puddle of pathetic boy. It had felt really good. It was actually the first time she had ever stood up to a boy, and the way he'd been acting toward her, he'd definitely deserved it. So far, she wasn't feeling the breakup effects yet- the loneliness, the lust, and so forth.

She was missing Dennis though. And the more she hung around him, the more it became apparent that he was not only not interested in her in any sort of romantic fashion, but seemed to be getting annoyed with her as a person too. She had just called him, freaking out about tomorrow. His exasperated response was cut short by a dropped (she hoped) connection that he never bothered to remedy, which made Liz feel even more uneasy.

How was she going to pull this off tomorrow? How was she going to make a decent shoot and juggle actors' schedules, weather, and every other little crisis that kept popping up at the last moment? There were a bunch of people looking to her to see that everything went well. If she screwed up, it was on her head. Seeing as the real Liz managed to do it every week and not die from ulcers or heart attacks, it was now up to our heroine to stiffen her upper lip and get through it. Crises be damned.

The knots were tightening.

Lemon Feels the Squeeze

10:35 pm.

Liz: Hey, what's up?

Floyd:

10:51 pm.

Liz, irritated, decides to shed him forever.

10:52 pm.

Liz: ok forget it.

11:04

Floyd: nm u?

Seething now, Liz shoots back an irritated text:

Liz: WTF?

11:15

Floyd:

grr.

She knew to expect this; she knew that he wasn't worth it. But still it was late, she was lonely, and just wanted to watch a movie with someone and forget the world.

The world meaning Dennis.

Dennis had caught on to her upset demeanor during the film meeting. After it was over, he asked how she was doing. When she shrugged, he pulled her aside and told her not to worry. As they walked and talked, they realized they had split off from their friends as Liz was heading to her car. Dennis asked for a lift and Liz agreed. Driving to his apartment, they gabbed and joked like old times. When she pulled up front, he again told her not to worry and gave her a hug. They batted back and forth for a minute about her concerns and he joked, "the people outside are going to think we're fighting."
"Haha, yeah, the one time we don't fight." she replied caustically.
"Yeah."
They looked at each other again. She flubbed.
"I- I'm sorry."
"It's cool, dude."
One last glance. She was reading too much into it. She knew it. She knew he was over her; she new she had to try to get past it somehow. He would like someone else, find a new girl. And Liz would do the reading at their wedding. Because such was her life.
But god damn that was a cute look.

So she drove off home, and texted Floyd. Who didn't respond. Then she got mad.

Now she was locked in a toilet swirly of pent up rage, stress, and regret, and smashing Floyd's face into it without mercy. There was only one way this could go.

Man was she not going to feel good tomorrow at all.

In the Beginning, pt II

It lasted roughly six months. In that time, Dennis had accepted a position with the Globetrotting Beauty Queens (GBQ) organization as a videographer. He was to spend the better half of 2010 based in New York City, flying to various five star hotels across the world and pointing his fancy camera at, well, beautiful women. He would stay there for the summer and miss the fall quarter of senior year at BU.

Meanwhile, Liz jetted off to LA for the summer to play filmmaker. The time difference(s), not to mention the stressful work schedule Dennis had to deal with, put the couple at odds more often than they'd like to admit. Even before he made it back home, Dennis decided to put an end to relationship. Liz was heartbroken to have lost her beeper king, but tried not to let him know that. She held her head high and went on about her business.

Soon that business began to include someone else. His name was P. We can call him Floyd.

Now here's where it gets tricky.

While Floyd had always been a pretty good friend of Liz's, he was actually Dennis's roommate, band mate (Dennis played guitar sometimes), and, well, best friend.

The relationship had carried on through fall quarter and the winter break between that had spanned over six weeks.

Liz knew that Floyd was never going to bring it up to Dennis. Not even if he actually did love her, which he proclaimed to. Floyd was about as action-packed as the 1958 Blob movie. Not that Liz expected anything, but it would have been nice.

This phenomenon became compounded by Dennis's return to Barefoot U. When he and Liz had been an item, they had decided to put together a short film that would be shot when he returned. She had been in pre-production while he was in NY, and chose to remain his partner in this endeavor.

Now, three days into the new year, Liz was spending more time with Dennis than was comfortable for her, including helping him shoot a short project for a video class. In a completely twisted moment, she found herself holding a camera in her ex-boyfriend's bedroom while he and her secret boyfriend played music on their guitars. Now that's what you call dramatic irony.

Liz decided to make a New Year's resolution for 2011. She decided to swear off men, at least for the rest of her college career. She knew she wanted Dennis's old internship with GBQ, but it was a long and difficult obstacle course before she would be ready. Her plan was to graduate on time, get credit for an independent study, and move to New York.

The odd thing about Dennis was that he seemed to be the only person at school that took her and her dreams seriously. He supported her, both emotionally and in teaching her. It had always been a quality that drew her to him, and now she had to rely on it if she wanted to succeed.

How does Liz accept an ex as a friend and mentor? Especially if she still has feelings for him?

What should Liz do about the best friend, who held a love racket but had no balls?

Would Liz be able to secure the school's most coveted internship by graduation? What back-up plan must she create?

Your guess is as good as mine.