Fun Facts about Summer! (the blogger, not the season)

I don't watch a lot of television, but when I do, oh man do I make it count.

(Gossip Girl spoilers to follow, in caps and with extraneous punctuation all over the place.)

Once upon a time I was an avid viewer of such socially acceptable programs as House, Entourage and the first season of Prison Break. Granted, I still watched Laguna Beach and subsequently The Hills, but, eh, no one really picked on me.

As my work (and play) schedules continued (and continue) to evolve drastically every couple of months, my tv-watching patterns sort of continually failed to develop. Due to a lengthy-ish illness and the wonder of TV-on-DVD, I had a passionate but brief love affair with Grey's Anatomy that ended when I just kept forgetting to watch during Season 3 and then woke up one day and realized I didn't care anyway. House and Entourage both fell off my radar after I missed enough episodes, and I hear the later seasons of Prison Break suck anyway. So, of late, I'd been pretty comfortable settled into a television routine that included only The Hills and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (because really, nothing like starting the week off in tears) with occasional amazement at Meerkat Manor and a magnetic pull toward those stupid RW/RR Challenges because I'm sort of in love with Evan the Canadian giant.

But then the force of nature known as Gossip Girl ATE MY BRAIN. No, seriously. On the suggestion (read: shrieking insistence) of The BFF and my close college friend Kirsten, I tuned in for a few episodes and marveled at the pretty, pretty children in spectacular clothes running around my favorite city in the world, but it wasn't until Kirsten and I held a series of three Girl Dates dedicated solely to watching the final three episodes of the abridged first season of this masterpiece that I truly found myself addicted. Large portions of days at That Job Blogging Got Me Fired From were spent GChatting with The BFF about whether or not the dude who plays Nate is in our age group or if we're verging on cougar territory, how we'd really appreciate Blair Waldorf as a style consultant because her level of ridiculousness is incredible, and how we'd pretty much pay to be able to write for this show. And then I'd go to sleep at night wondering if Nate and Chuck are ever going to make up and how I can pull of those over-the-knee boots Serena was rocking that one time despite being a good 7 inches shorter than the actress playing her. Really, it was all sort of inconvenient.

And wonderful.

Thanks to the CW's brilliant decision to re-air all 13 episodes in order (before new ones in April OMG), I've been catching up weekly on all the episodes I've missed. I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally utter the absurd phrase "god, is it Monday yet?!" My love only grows. I don't think I've ever had a Girl Crush run as deep as the one I have on Blair, who makes me proud to have spent ridiculous amounts of credit on Wolford tights when I was 20 and running around London drinking my face off and making out with everyone I met under the guise of being a studious American college junior and eases any shame I may have had about never really wanting to grow out of dresses with bows or lots of pearl bracelets. As for Nate, I've actually stalked him all the way to imdb.com (and I promise I'm speaking honestly when I say this is out of character for me) just to confirm that he is indeed an appropriately few years younger than I am as opposed to, say, in high school or something. I send my friends (all also adults, as am I) text messages they probably could not care less to receive, gushing and speculating.

So, you see, I'm beginning to think I have a problem.

Last night did not help.

Last night's episode of Gossip Girl blew my mind. I mean, first Blair and That. Valentino. Headband! God, love. Love. Burlesque! Hilarious dream sequences in which Serena and Dan are finally not boring! Nate being more than just the hottest man-boy in my world these days and conveying an emotion! AND CHUCK! OMG! Since when is Chuck so hot? That suit?! The 'you sure?'!?!?!! CHUCK AND BLAIR!!! Am I acting sufficiently like a 16-year-old yet? I was squealing from my parents' couch. I mean, having seen the final three episodes, I knew this had occurred. I did not know in what capacity, however and I did not know that CHUCK WOULD BE SO HOT and that BLAIR AND CHUCK WOULD BE SO HOT and that CHEMISTRY WOULD OOZE OUT OF THE TELEVISION.

Whew. I have to go lie down.

And probably keep myself up all night in a panic over the fact that I now don't know who I want my TV Girlfriend to end up with because, I mean, it's a question of bringing the pretty v. bringing the HOT, and I'm actually torn.

This is what my life has become. I need a job. Stat.