Reason #2 I'm Excited That Gossip Girl Is Almost Back

I have been remiss, and I apologize.  I’ve been enjoying the holiday weekend and didn’t get around to posting this yesterday.  Without further ado:

Reimagining My Experiences to More Closely Resemble Those of the Gossip Girl Characters.

First, I need to point something out to those of you who may not know me: geographically, my life has not been so different from Serena van der Woodsen’s: I was born on the Upper East Side, and I spent four years commuting there from the ‘burbs on the New Haven line (the very same line that Serena takes to Grand Central in the premiere episode).

I can’t help but be reminded of the David Sedaris story “Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa,” in which he remarks that while his childhood memories and his boyfriend Hugh’s share certain verbs, the nouns in Hugh’s stories are much more exotic and exciting.  Similarly, while the Gossip Girl characters and I have a setting in common, their verbs, the stuff they actually do on the UES, absolutely trounce mine.  Let’s consider:

They go to the Met to socialize.  I went to the Met for homework assignments.

They go downtown when they want to party.  I went downtown for weekly mandatory volunteer work.

Most importantly, they get to stay and live on the UES.  I always had to go home at the end of the day.

Still, there are enough tangential connections that I feel like Gossip Girl validates the awesomeness of my high school experience.  Like this one time, I actually did eat lunch on the steps of the Met (I think it was the first day we were allowed to leave school for lunch), and when it was nice out, we had gym class in Central Park (I never did witness a field hockey fight, unfortunately), and over the summer when I worked at my mom’s office, I’d walk by the hotel they use for the Palace all the frickin’ time.  Actually, this was more recently (2007), and I probably walked by filming a bunch of times.

I think, though, that the moment that most justified my high opinion of myself was finding out that Blair’s Christmas tradition includes going for tea at the Carlyle Hotel.  Because that’s totally part of my Christmas tradition with my aunt.  Christmas tree at the Met, a walk around Central Park (which is a little depressing, as the Christmas Eve crowd is a pretty old and dismal one), and tea at the Carlyle or similarly fancy hotel, e.g. the Stanhope.

Incidentally, this provides a pretty decent segue into the top item on my list, which I swear I will have done by midnight.