Written in class one day in 2003.

See, folks. Religion was bouncing around even before CJHS.

Stultifying suburbia, or, Stuck in the middle with you.

I like the Gilmore girls.

I discovered them last year on ABC Family. They were on every day. Twice. 10am and 4pm. The 10am show was the same as the previous day's 4pm show. (Or the 4pm show was a preview of the next day's 10am show. But then the glass would be half-full of distinction without any difference.) It didn't matter much -- I was at work during both showings. But I had a dvr last year. So I taped the 4pm episodes and watched them each night. (Or in mini-marathons on the weekends.) I caught up rather quickly that way. I think I've seen most every episode at this point.

I don't watch the current season. The original writers are gone now. And the dialogue is less quick and witty, the drama less biting and more sappy, the characters less tortured, more lovestruck, and seemingly stupider.

All that is to say: I don't defend the current season. I would, in the past, if pressed, defend the previous seasons. Not in that I would argue it wasn't a ridiculous, soap opera-y, Dawson's Creek reincarnate. I would just suggest that the dialogue was quick and witty, the drama was biting, and the characters were smart, rational, and tortured.

And then. Given that squinty-eyed, eyebrow-lowering quizzical look in response. I would shrug and wander away, either with my feet or with a change in topic.

But the shrug was never just a shrug. (No shrug is. Much like cigars. Despite what you may have heard.) The shrug hid what no one quite understood. The shrug disguised what you noticed when you first started reading this, but passed off as a missed shift key and a miscued pronoun:

I like the Gilmore girls. I like them.

Their show, I think, is (was) worth defending. Somewhat meekly. But I like them. I like their lives.

Lorelai struck out on her own and didn't give a damn what people wanted from her. What people expected of her. She raised an intelligent, funny, sarcastic daughter. They have best friends and movie nights. They live in a small town. They meet in the gazebo in the town square. They eat all their meals in a diner. They play their roles.

There's still something romantic about small town life. The closeness of individuals. The acceptance of anonymity in the face of the world. The drawing in of boundaries. Knowledge of next moves.

I expect my borders will continue to expand. And my next moves will never be so clear. City life is different. And I like it. I like it better, I think. More gritty and thought-provoking.

But the refreshing and thoughtful gets me sometimes. So I love Jeff Daniels and Charlize Theron in Trial and Error. I daydream occasionally about the witness protection program. I spend a week or two when I can in the various East Coast halcyon homesteads of a best friend raised with rural sagacity. I dreamt of two idyllic years writing at Sarah Lawrence.

And I picture myself in Stars Hollow. A troubadour for our romantic inclinations.

There is a passage through the darkness and the mist.

I found myself thinking about time.

I'd awoken with no idea of the hour. But I didn't know that at the time. So I wasn't thinking yet. The thinking (despite the limitations of our past tense) came later.

But. Then. (Upon awaking.) There was only wondering.

The immediate reaction to such wondering (in fact, really, the concurrent reaction) is to ask yourself (without ever, of course, actually asking yourself) what you can intuit.

My intuition was confused. The way I felt (so often so accurate) was no help at all. Truth be told, the way I felt was part of the problem. I was (warning: understatement approaching) hung over, and quite possibly still a bit drunk.

So it was. So be it. Plan B. I struggled to open my eyes, struggled against the contacts that had turned to double-sided suction cups (if you can imagine that) in the night.

I looked at the VCR display.

But. My VCR--the only clock I can see from my bed--was fucking with me.

Of course, I didn't know that at the time. No. At the time, I assumed it was right.

6:55 AM it blinked. (Looking at it now, the time doesn't blink. It must have been me that was blinking. It also doesn't say 'AM.' But that, at least, it seemed safe to assume.)

6:55. (More accurate.)

Anyway. I had no clue when exactly I'd put myself to bed, but I knew I wasn't ready to wake up. So I rolled over and fell back asleep. I believe I also moaned aloud. And clutched a pillow to my chest. (Those may seem unimportant details. They seem so to me. But there's no telling, really, what a reader might read into. Or. I suppose. There is only the telling.)

Then I woke up. (Again. It wasn't a dream. This isn't one of those.)

This time, I didn't attempt to feel the hour. I did, however, feel less full of tequila and beer, and more full of urine. I looked at the VCR clock (which was, of course, still fucking with me).

8:15. I stood up slowly, giving my head ample time to follow. It came less begrudgingly than I'd thought it would. On the way to the bathroom, I noted the clock on the stove.

10:15. I peed. As I stood in front of the toilet, I noted the clock next to the sink.

10:15. This time it surprised me. I took a double take and almost peed on the floor. (Almost.)

I washed my hands (two hours was only so surprising). I re-checked the stove. Checked the microwave. (10:15.) Lay back down in bed and turned to the TV Guide channel.

9:15. And I remembered. Daylight Savings Time. And somehow the VCR got confused. (I understood. We can only expect so much from each other.)

So it was 9:15. Despite the 8:15 and 10:15s surrounding me.

I'd awoken into involuntary uncertainty, between two points on an artificial human spectrum. Like a corpse forced to weigh the pros and cons of heaven and hell.

I rolled over, moaned aloud, clutched a pillow to my chest. And then I got up.

I spent 5 minutes resetting all my clocks. Tv. VCR. Stove. Microwave. Bathroom.

My phone and computer had reset themselves. Lucky bastards, I thought.

And then. I shut off the tv. I opened the windowshades. I turned on music. James Taylor's "Shed a Little Light" came on. (Actually, Jimmy Buffet's "Get Drunk and Screw" came on. And then Bon Jovi's "Bad Medicine." And then "Shed a Little Light." But it was still shuffle's doing.)

I listened. And heard.

And. I found myself thinking: about time.