The In Depth Gilmore Purpose

Today was an interesting day. Not interesting as in "hey, I experienced something interesting" or "look at that interesting sight" or even "wow, isn't the combination of flavors in this food interesting?" but rather, interesting in the sense that I behaved in a way that was completely unlike my usual self.

For the last 46 days I have been living in California. I moved here hoping for better luck in the job market but have so far failed to find such luck. This lack of luck has been wearing on me, and last night I had another breakdown; this one set off by nothing significant. I had a good cry, a nice long conversation on the phone with a geographically distant friend and then read until I passed out.

In the conversation I had with said friend she advised me to sleep in until one PM and sort of take a day to emotionally patch myself up. Well, I didn't sleep in until one. I got up as usual, searched for jobs, got dressed, unloaded the dishwasher, and made myself a bagel. Then I returned to my room, shut the door even though no one else was home to be bothered by my noise, and I turned on the first season of the Gilmore Girls. The interesting part of the day was the fact that I didn't just watch an episode or two like I'd normally do and call it good; I watched episode after episode for roughly SIX HOURS stopping only briefly to find more food or use the restroom until I eventually dozed off during an episode I caught on TV a week and a half ago. I don't remember another time I've watched TV for that long except for when I was sick. Maybe this was my way of doing some emotional patching like my friend suggested.

I've watched the Gilmore Girls a lot. I believe it was my older sister who got me hooked on the show, and I thank her for that. I now own all seasons except for number 5. Why? I was probably living in S. America when it came out on DVD, so when I came back I just borrowed it from a friend and then went on to purchase the 6th and 7th seasons on my own. One day I'll get my hands on it - after I have found that pile of luck needed to secure a job.

It's always been a personal game of mine to try and follow the random references to literature, music and pop-culture that are mentioned in each episode of the show, and with each successive viewing I'm happy to find I understand more and more of them. Last week when I once again decided to watch the entire series from start to finish I found myself not only playing my little game, but I started randomly writing down some of the works of literature that were mentioned that sounded interesting to me. Some are classics that I've heard of, others seem more obscure. But even without a job I have access to a library that doesn't cost me anything - as long as I return my books on time.

So now, the brilliant idea came to me: how about I make a list of all the works of literature mentioned in the Gilmore Girls, read them ALL, and blog about each one? Then, because I don't want this blog to just be one big book review I decided I'll include other things from the show like music/bands and other pop-culture snippets that come up. Obviously this will take a while, and I'm okay with that. I think it will be fun to learn more about the make up of the characters that Amy Sherman created while expanding my own literary knowledge in the process. I plan to post which book I'm reading when I first pick it up, so that if anyone else wants to join in and follow along they can. Let the reading begin!