I highly recommend “American Splendor,” which I saw last night. I was thinking of writing about the parallels between Harvey Pekar’s comic book and the world of blogging, and yet now I see that Harvey Pekar has a blog.

This has been the most social weekend I’ve had in a while — hanging out with friends, making new ones, meeting new people. It’s been a welcome change. And all against a background of invigorating fall weather.

Friday evening after work, before meeting my friends at NYU for the movie, I sat at Au Bon Pain on Fifth Avenue near Union Square, eating a bowl of delicious pumpkin soup near the front window, doing the difficult Friday New York Times crossword puzzle (and completing it!), watching the world walk by. Everyone in their fall jackets, either heading home from work or heading off for their Friday night plans. The beginning of the weekend. There is nothing so optimistic as a fall Friday night with plans.

I’m finally getting used to the fact that it’s October. Part of my brain still thinks it’s August; I have no idea what happened to September. But suddenly it’s chilly, and it’s getting dark earlier than it used to. I like it. It was strange to put on a jacket last week for the first time in months, but then I remembered that my fall jacket makes me feel good.

October is one of my favorite months; the weather is cool enough to give everyone a burst of energy but not so cold that it drains that energy away. Autumn is when everything is new. The arts come back in full force, the Oscar-worthy movies start to appear, new people move to the city, new activities begin. The *click* of the year’s calendar turning that final corner.

I left Au Bon Pain and walked down to NYU, happy with the weather and happy with weekend plans. (Within a matter of hours that day, I’d gone from having no weekend plans to having three different social engagements.) And then, while walking, I ran into a college friend of mine and his girlfriend. We chatted for a while. Then, when I got to the movie, there were more friends than I’d expected.

And then yesterday I got to hang out with two different good guys, I ran into a third, and early in the afternoon I even got a long-needed haircut. I was freshly shorn, I was happy with the way I looked and felt, and I was With Plans.

“Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff,” as Harvey Pekar says. A nice weekend is one of the many things in life worth appreciating.

Last night I went to NYU and saw a documentary about gay youth called “Jim in Bold,” created by a group called Young Gay America. Not only was it free, and not only was there free food, and not only did the room have a great view, and not only were there lots of cute boys in the audience, but it was a really great documentary, too. It interspersed a cross-country road trip in which the Young Gay America guys interviewed gay youth from various towns and cities with the story of Jim Wheeler, an immensely talented gay artist and poet who committed suicide when he was 19. You can read his poem “Jim in Bold” here. The juxtaposition of happy young optimism with sad young despair was enlightening. Gay youth is not all one thing.

After the movie, the three Young Gay America guys who’d conducted the road trip sat at a table at the front of the room and took questions for about 45 minutes. If you’ve ever watched a documentary and then stuck around afterwards for a question-and-answer session, you’re familiar with the strangeness of seeing these two-dimensional faces you’ve been watching for over an hour suddenly appear before you in three dimensions. Oh my god, they’re actually real! And they’re right in front of me! And of course all three of them were hot. And of course two of them used to help run XY. And of course I felt artistic envy that these guys have created projects and have followed through on them.

I want to see my screenplay (which is about gay youth) made into a movie, and now I’m interested in the idea of doing a documentary, too. And I want to keep writing.

Creativity is infectious. I want to be Jeff in Bold.

I think the WB made a brilliant move in putting “Smallville” and “Angel” together on the same night this season, primarily because those are the only two shows on the WB that I watch. I’m glad they took my needs into account. The only problem is that I’ve also begun watching “The West Wing” again after a year and a half away from it, and it’s on opposite “Angel.” So two nights ago I watched the season premiere of “Angel” and taped “The West Wing” to watch afterwards. It’s just a wonderful night of TV joy.

I’m glad “Smallville” is on at 8:00 now. It’s more appropriate as an 8:00 show than a 9:00 show. The odd thing about Tuesday nights last year was switching the channel at 8:59 from UPN (“Buffy”) to the WB (“Smallville”), instead of the other way around. “Buffy,” which was on at 8, was really a 9 p.m. show, while “Smallville” was the opposite. But now everything’s in alignment and I don’t even have to change the channel. (Except that in a perfect universe we’d be in the eighth season of “Buffy” right now, and it would be better than season seven.)

I have to confess that although I’ve been watching “Smallville” almost since the beginning, I don’t think it’s a very good show. There’s just something… off about it. The acting sucks. And Lana and Chloe are annoying (even though I kind of like Chloe). And the show is too much “The Colbys” meets “Dawson’s Creek.” (Does anyone besides me remember “The Colbys”? I used to love that show, at least until Fallon disappeared in a UFO.) There’s too much melodrama and not enough humor — or depth, for that matter. But I’ll keep watching it anyway. It does look like Lex is finally turning into the insane villain we all know and love — and damn, I didn’t realize his body looked so good.

As for “Angel,” I thought the season premiere was delightful. It’s a brand-new show now. It looks like it’s going to be “L.A. Law” meets… well, “Angel,” I guess. I’m sure there are lots of Spike-haters who are incensed that James Marsters has leapfrogged over J. August Richards and Amy Acker in the opening credits to grab second billing for himself, but he must have a great agent. I was pleased to see the words “Written and Directed by Joss Whedon” at the beginning of the episode, and I was pleasantly surprised at the end to see that Joss has become executive producer. He’s gone from having three shows on the fall schedule last year to having just one this year, so I guess he has the time now. I’m glad.

I don’t know how I feel about Gunn’s brain being zapped with all that legal knowledge. Or perhaps I’m just resentful that I had to pay $50,000 to get what he got for free, and I’m not even very good at what I do. Anyway, being trained in the law doesn’t mean that you know facts — it just means that you know where to find the facts, and how to think about them. (That’s why it gets tiresome when people ask me for arcane bits of legal advice. I don’t know any more than you do, OK?)

It sucks that Cordelia, who has been a part of the Buffyverse since Day One, has been unceremoniously dumped. But it was a nice surprise to see Harmony again. And Jonathan Woodward (who plays Fred’s geeky scientist pal and also played the vampire/psychoanalyst in “Conversations With Dead People” on “Buffy” last year) is cute. More him.

I guess we’ll see how this goes.

Meanwhile, there’s “The West Wing.” I don’t really know if I’ll be able to watch three whole hours of TV every Wednesday night, but maybe. It was anticlimactic how the FBI found Zoe — I was expecting this story to go on for at least another two episodes. We still don’t know why Acting President Walken was having secret meetings with the Republican leadership in the Oval Office, but maybe we’ll find out.

Wow. I guess summer’s really over when I’m blogging about TV again.