holy moly i'm a grouch today

Putting my classroom together for the coming school year; using "Gilmore Girls" as background company for the long hours of tedious solitude. Bulletin boards. Textbook distribution. Trying to quell the irrational anger that flared up when I discovered that once again, because of late enrollments, my numbering system is screwed up. It's nothing but a pet peeve blown severely out of proportion. Although I do wonder about the circumstances that lead people to put off registration till less than a week before the beginning of school. Kindergarten, sure, it's all dazzlingly new and a tad confusing. But five years later, it should be old hat, no?

Much to my dismay, I've discovered that I love my Gilmore Girls a lot less than I used to. In fact, there are moments, entire episodes even, in which I find Rory and Lorelai completely unlikeable. I guess one always has to remember to note and appreciate the un-reality that is a WB sitcom, and the even prettier, less realistic, perfectly-timed charm of Stars Hollow. That aside, I watched/listened to Season 4 with some amusement, a little boredom, and a lot of sheer disgust.

Most people who come to find Rory unappealing cite her relationship with Logan Huntzberger, or her fight with and separation from Lorelai. Those who become annoyed with Lorelai find that one-too-many reunions with Chris curdled the show. For me, it's the little things in Season 4 and beyond that grate on my nerves. Things that are supposed to be quirky/cute are just annoying, even when, once again, factoring in the surreal, almost Riverdale Gang-veneer quality of Stars Hollow.

1) Lorelai and Rory hovering over people who are eating at Luke's so that they can be seated faster - in what universe would that not get two self-important tarts punched in the face?

2) Lorelai pouting like a spoiled baby because she didn't get cast as the Renoir Girl in the Festival of Living Art, and Rory using her pull as Antea to get Taylor to give her mother what she wants? (Then of course the Baby Beeper goes off, essentially wrecking the piece de resistance of the whole show and proving Taylor Doose right about casting Lorelai in the first place.)

3) Rory, the gifted aspiring journalist, being genuinely shocked when her cruel review of a really bad ballet incenses the lead ballerina. She mentions the ballerina's rolls of fat and compares her to a hippo, and still has the sheer nerve to be surprised and defensive when the dancer hunts her down and yells, "Die, jerk!" at her.

4) Lorelai doing that "I'm sooo cute" thing she does by calling her father's high-school sweetheart (whom she's never met) her "Almost Mommy" at the Harvard-Yale game. When Emily tells her to knock it off, and makes it known that "We do not speak to Pennilyn Lott!", instead of taking the opportunity to side with her (albeit incredibly difficult) mother on this one thing, she decides to strike up a conversation with Pennilyn outside the ladies' room. Yes, Emily completely overreacted, but I was already so annoyed with Lorelai's character that I gave her ten more moron points for that one.

5) Rory, you can't claim a tree. YOU CAN'T CLAIM A TREE. In a gratifying turn, Lorelai actually told Rory off in this ep, in which Rory mopes through scene after scene because her dorm room (sorry, her SUITE) is too noisy, the library has the wrong vibe, and some dude is sitting under the incredibly ergonomic tree that she has discovered is just perfect for studying under. Get some real problems, people.

6) The opening scene of Episode 5. I can't stand women who scream when their hands get dirty.

7) When Jason Stiles takes Lorelai to a swanky restaurant and she actually makes them LEAVE because she doesn't like their table. Okay, she doesn't demand to leave, but she's whiny about the table as soon as they're seated, and then when he offers her a raincheck, she accepts, and they leave.

8) Lorelai fires a perfectly good designer that she and Sookie both love - for the sheer crime that the designer knows her mother. I'm hard-pressed to find another season in which I find Emily more sympathetic a character than the two younger Gilmore Girls combined.

Overall la-la land factor. I know with dramedies of this nature you have to allow for some discrepancies and let go of some details. And above all, just laugh the 40 minutes away. I don't know why it suddenly irks the crap out of me that everywhere they go, these two place themselves above everyone else. Somewhere in Season 6, I believe, the feuding mother and daughter actually ruin a baptism so that they can go outside and argue with each other. I used to find these things so human, and so amusing, and now I just want to slap the bejeezus out of both of them. It's supposed to be funny, Lorelai constantly disrespecting the diner's No Cell Phones rule. It's supposed to be human, the way Lorelai threw judgment out the window and made out with Max Medina at her adolescent daughter's school. It's supposed to be hilarious and quirky, the way these two order and consume food, but it just makes it entirely unbelievable that they are as skint as the writers make them out to be. The way Lorelai talks in movie theaters, it's completely implausible that she hasn't had all her teeth kicked in yet. Her character is rude (but it's okay because she's charming and pretty). Rory wrecks a marriage, steals a yacht (and goes all wounded puppy eyes when the judge doesn't let her off with a slap on the wrist), drops out of Yale, loses her marbles and all the audience's respect over Logan Huntzberger, and still manages to waltz off the sound stage, at the end of Season 7, poised to be the next Christianne Amanpour.

People make mistakes, and the conflict from mistakes is what great literature, movies and TV shoes are made of. It just seems that neither of the GG's ever learns anything or loses anything significant as a consequence of any of the dumb things they do. Like I said, I don't know why this bothers me TODAY. It's like people who brawl at football games, how you want to shout at them, it's only a game! And a bloody stupid one at that! ... Well, it's only a TV show. And, some would say, a bloody stupid one at that. I'm just harrumphing because I've loved these characters for many years, and these annoying qualities never jumped out at me before. Maybe tomorrow I'll shake my head in amusement at how seriously I'm taking it all today.