Here’s the thing: Statesboro, Georgia hates Stanley Kubrick. Or, okay, maybe not hates, but definitely dislikes.  Or just has no freaking clue who the dude was, I mean, is that the guy in Streetcar Named Desire?  I had to go to five video stores before I finally found a copy of the DVD, and then I only found it after I explained to the girl who was working there that yes, it is indeed a movie.

The copy I did find was a Super Used copy. Seriously. It went past the term “used” and became “Super Used,” much as my Barbies, when ill, for some reason went past having “the flu” to having “The Super Flu.” I had to make sure it worked before the Tweeting began — and then the title screen reminded me about the Space Fetus. I’d totally forgotten about the Space Fetus. This is when I started to get nervous.

The 2001 Belle Reve the Second Live-Tweet Station, in all of its glory. Please note: I decided that the challenge of making jokes about classical music and random colors flashing by on-screen for sixty batrillion hours wasn’t enough of a challenge, so I also challenged myself to perform a self-manicure, which, incidentally, also takes me sixty batrillion hours.

Here you can see both the beginnings of my manicure, which ended up being every bit as epic as the space epic on-screen, and my reaction to the monkeys, or, as Wikipedia calls them, the “herbivorous early humans.” I forgot how violent the “herbivorous early humans” were. I also forgot that they were preceded by like sixteen days of a black screen and classical music. It was a lot to deal with.

At this point, I was about an hour or so into the movie, and I’d seen enough centrifuges to get where things are going, so I decided this was a far better idea than watching the movie.

I should note that I was not the only resident of Belle Reve the Second viewing 2001 that night. Though Alice B. Toklas ran and hid in the bathtub as soon as she heard “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” Gertrude Stein refused to move from the chair in which she was comfortable napping — that is, until she was forced from her comfortable nap by that weird ear-piercing noise that the obelisk makes when they find it on the moon and pose for pictures in front of it. Or whatever happens in that part. I couldn’t really tell. I think the monolith was involved? I know people were standing around and looking at stuff? Which I’m guessing was the monolith? Though maybe there were herbivorous early humans there? Or a giant space fetus? I’m not sure. Anyway, here’s Gertrude Stein’s reaction to that part. Then she went and found her unicorn toy and threw it around for a while, much like a herbivorous early human throws around an obelisk bone.

At this point, I’d watched approximately seventeen thousand, four hundred fifteen hours of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Okay, this is actually a photograph from Tuesday, but it’s important to the narrative for several reasons. One, it features a force more powerful than the monolith: Diet Coke. Two, it features a discovery more dangerous and life-changing than the discovery of the monolith: they make twenty-four ounce bottles of Diet Coke. Three, it is the only extant photograph of the 2001 manicure, which was epic. I mean, there were nail stickers involved, and those nail stickers involved rhinestones. It was a lot.

Twenty-seven days and sixteen hours later, the movie was over, and so was the Live-Tweet. I got a little freaked out when I turned off the television because it looked like an obelisk. I made sure to lock all of my windows and doors so no herbivorous early humans could break in. It was entirely possible — I’m pretty sure the guests at my neighbors’ thrice-weekly Skrillex party were herbivorous early humans, post-obelisk.  I’m also pretty sure that a Skrillex song is the sound the obelisk made.

This is how I awoke the next morning. Imagine this picture in motion with some creepy classical music in the background, and you’ll understand why I almost screamed.