HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER changed my life.

On September 19^th, 2005, Barney Stinson promised Ted: “I’m going to teach you how to live.” But really, he could’ve been talking to all of us.

Over the span of nine seasons, HIMYM became more than a funny sitcom. Thanks to one of the most talented, game and legendary casts ever, HIMYM became, like FRIENDS and SEINFELD, part of the family. It became a Monday night institution, a weekly tutorial on how to pick up women, to find true love, to live in NY, and mostly, how not to do all of those things.

I knew the moment that the pilot ended, when Bob Saget (as Future Ted) dropped the bombshell that Robin wasn’t the mother, but that we had just met “Aunt” Robin, that HIMYM was gonna be a thing.

True story.

Of course, I was an easy target. I was ready to love Neil Patrick Harris from the word go. I had seen DOOGIE HOWSER un-ironically, loved STARSHIP TROOPERS and wanted to be cool, so I also “dug” HAROLD & KUMAR. The only parts I’ve ever dug about those movies are the NPH moments.

As for Alyson Hannigan, I actually hadn’t watched BUFFY when HIMYM first began, but AMERICAN PIE was one of the most formative comedies of my young adult life (which likely says a lot). I also think my Future Self knew how big a deal Willow and the Whedonverse would be to me, that I always held a special kinship for Hannigan, before I truly did.

Cobie Smulders was smoking hot, but clearly more than a pretty face.

Josh Radnor had weird ears and a big heart, and I grew to love his semi-self indulgent hipster-y indie movies, like LIBERAL ARTS. And maybe I recognized him as the Tour Guide from NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE, but I sincerely doubt it.

Jason Segel was already a king to me, having loved FREAKS AND GEEKS and UNDECLARED and firmly in the Judd Apatow camp.

HIMYM had me hooked, and over 200 episodes later, Ted, Barney, Marshall, Lily and Robin have become a part of who I am.

I wanted to be Barney, the one-liner spouting ladies’ man that’d make Wilt Chamberlain blush, with an outrageous salary for a bogus job, espousing more wisdom than Broda, and most impressively, no STD’s.

I wanted to date and fall in love with Robin, the impossibly (Canadian) beautiful “one of the boys” women with a sense of humor, a knack for laser tag, Daddy issues and a devastating pop star past. Cobie Smulders joining the Marvel Universe as Maria Hill only made this a more pressing desire.

I wanted to have a relationship like Marshall and Lily’s. Has there been a better couple on TV than Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel’s characters? HIMYM has done a phenomenal job of adding layers to the pair, of adding conflict, humor and genuine ups and downs in their relationship, while never sacrificing or ruining the couple for the sake of shock value. It hasn’t always been Lilypad’s and Marshmallows, but that’s what makes them real, even while being the husband and wife we all strive to be. They haven’t been together for all 9 seasons, but there was never any doubt as to who they would end up with, and never any “won’t they” served with the heaping portions of “will they.”

But we’re all more like Ted than we want to admit. We over think things. We’re dreamers, optimists, architects of our own loneliness, creating impossibly romantic scenarios in our head that life can’t possibly supply. We hold onto things we love, for a painfully long time. We can’t get over them, or over ourselves, and yet, Ted is the everyman. The nice, funny, hopeless romantic searching for a happy ending, for meaning in this sometimes discouraging universe. HIMYM has proved unequivocally that the world needs Ted’s.

HIMYM changed television. HIMYM has the mythology and back story befitting a high concept drama like LOST or BREAKING BAD, yet it’s in a bite sized 20 minute sitcom package. No longer are audiences merely satisfied with a completely static cast of funky characters with no change like the sitcoms of yesteryear (or the cartoons of forever). We wanted events and episodes to matter, to have lasting effects, and HIMYM created a gripping story and addictive conceit with its pilot and never deviated from it. HIMYM changed the way we consume TV, a harbinger of high-concept obsessions and the binge-watching generation, presenting a new kind of sitcom.

Is there a show with more lasting and hilarious running jokes? A show that extolls more divine life lessons? More ingenious rules about dating? HIMYM created its own language.

I’ve used “Have you met—?” to start a conversation with women. It hasn’t really worked, but it’s never NOT worked. I’ve gone on dates in fear that they would use the Lemon Law.

I went to parties convinced I’d find the Slutty Pumpkin, and was discouraged when I didn’t. I wake up hung over hoping to find a pineapple on my bed stand. I wanted to meet someone that stirred something inside me, spurring me to steal that Blue French horn.

I’m always disappointed when I don’t make friends with the Taxi driver. I’ve never tried the Naked Man, but I’m convinced it’d work (2 out of 3 times). I want to correct everyone’s pronunciation of the word “Renaissance.”

I force Bro into random words and I didn’t make fun of a friend when he bought The Bro Code. I firmly disagree with the “Nothing Good Happens After 2 AM” mantra, but I can attest that most of the bad things in my life have come after that fateful time.

Of course, it hasn’t always been pretty (Daphne. “Son of a beesh.”).

To me, the first five seasons were practically bliss, some of the funniest, most inventive and heartfelt sitcoms in history. It was my favorite show during early seasons, and probably the only show that I would save on my DVR after watching it, leading to innumerable repeat viewings. I listened to “Sandcastles in the Sand” and “Let’s Go to the Mall” an embarrassing number of times. The Slap Bet is probably the best long-running joke in the history of TV. If I had recorded The Perfect Week on a VHS tape, it would’ve been destroyed. Who hasn’t felt like the Sexless Innkeeper at some point in their lives?

When I was backpacking in Europe, one night I found myself returning from the clubs of Barcelona (well after 2 AM). I was heading into my hostel for sleep when I bumped into a girl named Karlee. She was Canadian, and more importantly, was as obsessed with HIMYM as I was. We talked beside a fountain, which would’ve been romantic had it not been for the thieves and vagrants circling us like vultures, asking us for money and preparing us for the sex trade. But still, we chatted passionately for hours about our hopes and dreams, about marriage, TV, the future, the important things. We were both playing a part in re-enacting HIMYM…both falling in love for one night.

The problem was that we were both Ted’s. It was a perfect conversation, where everything the other person said made perfect sense and enlivened the heart and loins…and we both built up the other person impossibly in our heads, that the next morning…when the illusion (and drunk) had worn off, that it felt weird. We maybe weren’t the ones for each other, and probably never had been. We had played our parts perfectly. For that night, it was exactly what we wanted and needed…and by seeing each other again, we had kind of ruined it. Like Ted, I met the Slutty Pumpkin again, and it simply wasn’t the same. How do you follow that? You don’t.

The same problems plagued HIMYM. The last four seasons have been more like a rollercoaster, with a few unbearably long waits to get on the ride itself, as CBS and its creators dragged out this tale with seemingly no end in sight. It was becoming a major bummer (*salute* Major Bummer). The characters didn’t feel as fresh, and the relationships didn’t crackle with the same electricity, and the guest stars felt more like stunt casting than stumbling upon treasure (does it get better than Wayne Brady and James Van Der Beek?), and we all were just ready to meet the damn Mother already. Like the immortal Murtaugh, we were getting too old for this stuff, and so was Ted and the McLaren gang.

It’s taken three seasons to get us to Barney’s wedding, and 9 seasons for Ted to tell us the story of how he met the mother of his children. Sometimes it’s been like pulling teeth. At first, I would be practically giddy with a small morsel of information about the mother. She’s in a band? She has a yellow umbrella? Soon these “revelations” were met with sarcasm, eye rolling, and impatience.

Like Ted, we were tired of waiting. The show needed an intervention, and an endgame. Plus, with this massive snowball effect of expectation…doubt seeped into my brain. After 8 seasons of buildup, how could they possibly find a woman that would be worth the wait? This “Mother” wasn’t just for Ted. It was for all of us.

And then, in the finale of season 8 (“Something New”), we met Cristin Milioti.

Her hiring was probably one of the greatest TV casting decisions of all-time.

Sarcasm, doubt, impatience, all of it gone. Cristin Milioti is everything.

While getting a few random curly fries with your regular fry order is cause for celebration…Cristin Milioti is the dream. She’s the most adorable, sexy, funny and wonderful woman, and the  brilliance with which Carter Bays, Craig Thomas and Pamela Fryman have weaved her into the HIMYM tapestry has cemented their esteemed status on TV once again. “How Your Mother Met Me” is one of (if not) the best episode(s) of the entire show, injecting years of backstory and emotional investment in a character that already had an unfair amount of baggage and expectation before we even met her, all in 20 plus minutes. Cristin is the best part of every scene she’s in, and every interview or moment I’ve seen of her off camera has made me melt into the 5^th grade version of me after discovering my first crush.

After I watch/cry continuously during the two-part finale on Monday March 31^st (I’m debating whether or not I should eat a sandwich first), I’m going to miss HIMYM. For a few years, I was ready for it to be over, discouraged enough to consider removing it from my DVR entirely. Had I done so, I clearly would’ve been the Blitz. But come Tuesday morning, after HIMYM has no doubt come to an emotionally satisfying conclusion…I’ll want HIMYM back, and I likely won’t wait three days before trying to call her back.

Daddy’s finally coming home, with the Mother in tow, and it really was, impossibly, worth the wait.

It really was Legendary.

Full Disclosure: I’m writing this while listening to the “Once More With Feeling” soundtrack from BUFFY. But, of course.

Sometimes things so bizarre, weird, or perfect, just fall in your lap. That was exactly what I felt like when a Facebook friend (so you know we’re close) of mine posted a status update that related the following news to me:

Lusty Kitten Productions (naturally) was putting on an Joss Whedon-themed burlesque show in Los Angeles, THAT night (Friday Feb. 7th), entitled Across the Whedonverse.

Um, what.the.fuck?!

It was two hours until show time, I had no ride, and would be bailing on my roommate’s burgers and movie night…but I didn’t really have a choice.

What was to come reminds me of what Whistler said in “Becoming, Part One,”:

Bottom line is, even if you see ’em coming, you’re not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are.

This night was one of those “big moments.” I’ve never been to a burlesque show. Not for lack of…trying? No, that’s not the right way to put it (though I do want to go to David Lynch’s writing spot). Not for lack of desire? …I guess. The idea of women getting naked and dancing holds much appeal. Obviously. The idea of these women getting naked with a FIREFLY or BUFFY back drop? That gives me every kind of boner possible, while also confirming how great the universe is.

Of course, I was imagining semi-beautiful look-alikes with decent production value and mildly clever jokes.

I got none of those things. Well the jokes were mildly clever, if you consider ketchup mild.

But, even so, it was so worth it. It was the kind of awful you want to experience. The kind of awful you can tell your friends about, and the kind of awful that reveals beauty and brilliance and what life is all about.

Joss Whedon is the greatest. There’s no disputing it, and his fans, acolytes and believers are also the greatest by extension. Joss Whedon is everyone, a patron saint for the average guy and girl, the nerd, the recluse, the nerd recluse who gets the courage to wave his nerd recluse flag amongst other like-minded nerd recluses at Comic-Con and Slayage Conferences, or as it so happens the Fais Do Do club on Adams Boulevard.

It also allows these same people to get close-to-naked on stage for others Whedonites amusement and pleasure.

The night began, after a long wait in line, bursting with men and women donning their Jayne hat (above), with another interminably long, single file line to an uninspired bar (HELP US GET DRUNKER), and a magician who gives low-energy magicians a bad name. It wasn’t even a diverting experience; it just made the crowd that much more restless and impatient for boobs. At one point he was “floating” paper flowers or something, and the string he was using was as clear as day. It was painful, and certainly didn’t get one pumped up for what was to come.

And then, before the show had even started…it was time for an intermission. Fuck off, really?

At this point I was painfully sober (two weak $8 Dark and Stormy’s didn’t cut it) and impatient for this trip to work out. I had met my aforementioned friend, and two of his friends, including a guy who managed to tell me he had slept with 70 different women in his opening introductions and was now dating this cute girl from Seattle who was on his arm. Yeah, I wasn’t going to like “Rob” ever.

And then it was time for nerds gettin’ naked time! Things kicked off with a girl Dr. Horrible (dancer Tas DeVille), then a “shy” Willow blossoming before us (Rynie Das Wreckless), and an Anya (Spy Kitten) not only removing bunny stuffed animals from her robe, but also articles of clothing. Plus, her pasties accidentally fell off. Now I know what it must’ve been like for those at Super Bowl XXXVIII.

After Anya, it was time for an oddly dominatrix-y Echo (Estella Detroit), and then, Buffy, performed by Holly Rock-It! Later that night, feeling like I needed to do, I managed a very awkward “conversation” with Ms. Rock-It!, that consisted of me complimenting her on her dance and Holly thanking me politely to leave her alone.

How do you follow Buffy? You don’t…you just get another intermission. Thanks.

The most uncomfortable I might have ever been was when Mae Lust, one of the organizers of the event, a red-headed Wonder Woman, came to the stage and began reading…Fred and Harmony erotic fan fiction. As a friend told me, “That’s the dream.” It was the worst, but such a brilliant idea. I would’ve had two dancers as Fred and Harmony act out the events in the background, but that’s just me.

My favorite performer might’ve been the Rave inspired Black Widow (Lyra La Belle). Next up was some not obvious blonde character, brought to life by Cici Stiletto.

The cherry on top of weirdness was the awkward, short, quiet Mercury Troy putting a spin on Drusilla I’ll be trying to forget for years. But this show wasn’t over yet. The three most eclectic acts had yet to happen.

Enter Princess Kida Kidagakash (above), the hottie from ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE, a 2001 animated feature that Joss Whedon wrote a treatment for. Yup. We’re digging deep, even with Inara, Kaylee, Zoe, River, Sierra or any of the characters from AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D left to play. And no female Spike?! It was the kind of off-the-wall choice to be expected from the show, and also brought with it one of the more elaborate costumes of the night (one of the few good ones), filled out by June Au’Purr Darling.

Thrown in for good measure was also live music, supplied by Gemeni, a band formed by Lisa and Gina Gomez. Nerd rock is a thing, and they’re a fine example:

Then it got hot.

Who would’ve thought a near naked female Reaver with a man’s face covering her naughty bits would be so hot? Apparently Lusty Kitten, and Donatella MeLies made it happen.

Throughout the festivities, VV Trippple acted as the undead “pick-up artist,” meaning she was a zombie who picked up the clothes of the other performers. I could’ve done without it.

CABIN IN THE WOODS fans didn’t get a Merman. Instead, they got a Unicorn (Dia Blow…I think).

The finale was supplied by Sgt. Die Wies, a massive black woman (?), who brought more attitude, flair and gravitas to the character of Iron Man than even perhaps Robert Downey Jr. himself. Her performance was easily the most ridiculous, crazy thing I saw all night, as she bounced around stage, with lit-up arc reactor pasties and all. Her dance, and ACROSS THE WHEDONVERSE itself, was summed up perfectly by Captain Hammer’s closing line: “Fuck the arc reactor, we can power the Stark Tower with that ass.”

It took me far too long to really get and appreciate this night, but Sgt. Die Wies drilled the message home. The Whedonverse is about acceptance, and being yourself, and standing up for yourself, and doing what makes you happy, and that’s what these girls were doing all night, while showing off cleavage for charity. Jesus would be proud. Some dancers were better than others, but each were emblematic of the Whedonverse in every fashion, and every number was accompanied with truly bizarre and great music.

The evening was tied together by Mr. Snapper, or the aforementioned Captain Hammer stand-in, who was oftentimes unbearably cheesy, and other times, the only thing that didn’t make me want to impale myself on the Unicorn’s horn. It helps that we all came together to sing the Firefly theme song. Afterwards, he tried to rally us to sing Jayne’s Song…which should’ve been a roaring number, but instead ended up being just one dedicated and drunk Jayne fan singing along…and it was glorious.

Proving that he truly has nothing better to dois a tremendous sport, BUFFY and FIREFLY artist Georges Jeanty was there to sign autographs and cringe at the festivities with the rest of us.

While it didn’t prove to be a night of extreme socializing held together with expert storytelling, there was enough in-jokes, Whedon quotes and a stellar video clip featuring moments from all of our favorite series to make it worthwhile. The memorable experience will leave me as a leaf on the wind, at least until Accio Burlesque! returns…

A blurry photo of the cast