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.