I don't think I got a wink of sleep last night.

That never happens to me.

The closest thing to a super power that I have is my ability to get a good night's sleep but not last night.

There wasn't anything different; I ate a lovely dinner of tilapia and barbecued shrimp, courtesy of the lovely Jay.  I didn't eat any chocolate after 8:00.  I paid no attention to current events or politics of any kind after 5:00.  I'm not even into my next book yet.

In fact, after dinner I watched a disk of season 4 of the Gilmore Girls, which is enough to irritate but not keep me awake.

Josie's been watching some of it with me.  A week or so ago, she told me she could only stand two episodes at a time. "Any more than that makes me want to blow my brains out." she said.

For years I've heard that the show was so well written, the dialogue so ratatat, the pacing so tight...I can't tell you how many people I know who love it.

From the first episode, I saw that it was all true; snappy dialogue, quirky but lovable characters...then, little by little, it's started to get to me.  Not: get under my skin and become a part of me, but get under my skin like a bee sting; the longer it's there the more it burns and hurts and the higher the danger of infection and gangrene.

What first comes across as clever, tightly written dialogue now just hits me as characters who WON'T SHUT UP.  Seriously, there's so much dialogue the scripts must weight a ton.  Josie's the one who first noticed that the two main characters, mother and daughter Lorelei and Rory, deliver every single line exactly the same.Lauren Graham sounds  like she's competing for the title of longest sustained Groucho Marx impression.  Alexis Bledel delivers everything she says with a whimsical lilt, as though it were witty when most of the time it's not.

Here's something that may have gone undetected if I watched the show one hour a week but when viewing it four or five eps a night becomes in-your-face, anvil-on-your-foot obvious; the writers think having a character repeat a phrase three or four times in a single monologue is high comedy.

It's not.

For instance, which is funnier:
"We don't have a tote bag?"
or;
"We don't have a tote bag?  Why don't we have a tote bag?  How can we not have a tote bag?  How can anyone who's ever bought $75 worth of cosmetic products not have a tote bag?"

If you thought the second was funnier, all I can say is REALLY?

REALLY?

This was bad enough when only Lorelei did it but now other characters are starting to do it.  Still think it's funny when everyone in town does it?  REALLY?

Shakespear never said "Repetition is the soul of wit."

Call me a snob but I like dialogue that sounds like it could conceivably be uttered by someone in real life.  Smarter and quicker than most people are in real life, but I like it to be within the realm of extreme possibility.  Aaron Sorkin does this brilliantly. 

If the writer's dispensed with this bit of cuteness, the actors might find time during each  episode to...I don't know...act?  I don't blame the actresses.  They have so many inane lines in every scene that it's got to be a monumental task just to spit them out. Every few episodes, there is a brief moment of silence when the actresses get a chance to show some emotion with their mouths shut and they all manage to pull it off.  But who has time when being forced to talk ninety miles a minute?  It's exhausting to listen to, much less do.

MJ runs 5 or 6 miles a day.  She puts her three year old (and sometimes the 1 year old) in the running stroller and off she goes.  She told me the other day that the running wasn't nearly as exhausting as the talking.  Her girls never stop talking.

That's what it's like watching the Gilmore Girls.  Lauren Graham's character never, ever, ever shuts her yap.  And she's not clever or witty or even remotely interesting.  She's a fookin' dimwit who seems to believe that if she can't hear the sound of her own voice, she'll cease to exist.

If I knew someone like her in real life, I'd strangle her until her eyes popped out, while screaming in her face "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!!!"

But that's just me.

No, I wasn't thinking of the Gilmore Girls while trying to sleep.  That's the other thing about the show; it never crosses my mind unless I'm actually watching it.  Once Jess left, nothing piques my interest. 

Anyway, last night seemed to get hotter and stickier the longer I lay awake in bed.  I'd taken a shower right before bed so I should have been comfortable. 

A storm blew in around 4 a.m.  the wind came howling in our bedroom windows and felt magnificent! 

I finally fell asleep somewhere after 6:30, had some weird ass dreams and woke up at 8.

This should be an interesting day.