But I will say that lately there are not as many shows I love passionately, unless you count how I record even the billionth-repeated marathons of America’s Next Top Model. And that’s OK, because I believe a lot of pop culture and media is cyclical, and if TV isn’t doing it for me right now, before long it will again.

I DIGRESS.***

Early last season, I totally started watching The Good Wife only because my beloved Josh Charles was in it. No, really, it’s that simple for me. I will EVENTUALLY write more entries in the popular**** MY FICTIONAL BOYFRIENDS series, and probably the longest and most passionate will be devoted to Dan Rydell, so, uh, I pay attention to the man. So I started off a reluctant viewer, but before long I realized I was paying attention far more often than when a scene involved Will Gardner. Yeah, I was hooked.

I won’t get into show specifics, because I think good shows are rarely beloved because of what they literally are. Right? I mean, Uncomfortable Plot Summaries lists Doctor Who as “elderly man serially abducts young women” which is just about true, but even being less reductive can’t describe the feeling evoked in me by watching Donna Noble talk the Doctor out of leaving that family in Pompeii. So as far as The Good Wife goes, I can talk about how it’s a serial about a politician’s wife, post-sex scandal, or I could talk about it being a law procedural, but, seriously, who cares?*****

The stuff I like about the show is the stuff I like about lots of good writing, actually. Even though I write novels and not television shows, there’s something inspiring and educational about watching the pieces of wisdom you know to be true play out in front of you:

1. Don’t overload with background info or exposition. Holy crap, has a lot happened between everyone on this show. (We won’t talk about how much time I’ve devoted to thinking about Alicia and Will’s WTF-happened-back-at-Georgetown?-ness.) Holy eff, has a lot happened, period, by the time we’re dropped in in the pilot (and then, very quickly, thrown six months further). The show doesn’t dwell there, though. The show just keeps on chugging along and trusts that we can keep up.

2. Let grownups be grownups. OK, yes, I write YA, and, yes, I like to race my tiny car around town while singing along to soundtracks to Disney movies, but I truly am a grownup and when I watch TV (or read books) I expect adults to behave as adults. Yes, some people are immature, and some people have devotions to pop culture for people a third of their ages******, but I hate watching people who are supposed to be professionals in their thirties and upward behaving like junior high students. It’s much like how deeply I hate YA where teens seem like… well, no teens I know, just the approximation of what an out-of-touch writer thinks. But, anyway, I like the drama on the show playing out between adults. Sure, adults who aren’t perfect, who sometimes make very bad decisions, who sometimes seem to cling to romantic notions straight out of middle school, but adults nonetheless. And it’s funny that I hadn’t quite noticed how often this doesn’t happen until I saw something where it did.

3. Have patience. It’s tough, because a book should hook you on its first page, and if a TV show doesn’t grab you in its first scene, well, why are you still reading/watching? That said, there is something incredibly appealing to me in an enthralling but slowly building narrative that then can drop bombshells on you… after earning them. I mean, I wanted to see the kiss that happened in the episode “Heart” from about episode… 1.02 on? But how much more did it mean because we saw it in 1.17? (Holy hell, people, A LOT. IT MEANT A LOT MORE.)

SWOON AMIRIGHT

Guys, seriously, can we talk again about how janky Google Image Search has gotten? That image came up the other day when I searched for “the good wife” but this time it didn’t, so I searched “good wife will gardner” and lo and behold, luckily it did again, but on the same page of results was this:

I mean, Google, you’re not even trying now, are you? ARE YOU?

4. Get me to love, get me to hate, get me to reconsider. WHAT! I know it sounds like I’m talking crazy, but, man, one way to three-dimensionalize a character is showing me so many of their sides I have no idea if I’m for them or against them. YOU KNOW, LIKE REAL LIFE. Most of us aren’t all good or all bad.*******

Maybe the most obvious example of this on the show is Peter Florrick. Right? Talking about Peter Florrick would give me an excuse to say for the billionth time that Chris Noth looks like a really hot Sam the Eagle from the Muppets:

  

BUT! Instead I’d rather talk to you about Cary. Cary! Remember when Matt Czuchry was on the Gilmore Girls and he was such an effing tool? I am so glad his toolishness doesn’t have to follow him. One time I was waiting at the stage door area after seeing a play Mr. Czuchry was in, because I wanted to say hi to a super cool actress in it who I had met before and had super shiny hair, and when Matt came out, he thought my friend and I were shy girls too nervous to approach him, so he waited it out and gave us muchos smiles! And then I was like, OMG, this is awkward, I don’t want to break his heart and say “ACTUALLY I DON’T WANT YOUR AUTOGRAPH I AM HERE TO SEE SOMEONE ELSE” so I just kind of kept smiling and looked away and he understood and left.

MATT CZUCHRY IF I MET YOU TODAY I PROMISE I WOULD SAY SOMETHING AND NOT JUST BREAK EYE CONTACT IN A WEIRD JUNIOR HIGH DANCE MANNER.

Anyway. CARY.

ADORBS!

When we first meet Cary, we do not like Cary.******** Cary is smug and bratty, and when he makes that comment about his mom, we’re certain he’s sexist and ageist too. Right? RIGHT? Except then, dammit Cary, you wormed your way into my heart. Was it the shrooms? Was it telling Alicia you didn’t want her to lose either? Was it thinking about how, despite that Alicia is our protagonist, perhaps with my student loan debt and my frustration at paying bills in an expensive but awesome city, sometimes Cary is probably the character I have the most in common with?

And then the pattern continued! Because he would do [annoying thing] but then he’d do [great thing] or he wouldn’t [do great thing] but you grasped why he felt he had to do [the douchey thing] and it’s so hard not to be on his side except when it really freaking isn’t.

(I feel very similar about the show’s main love triangle too; despite that people have made very obvious good and bad moves in it.)

What I’m saying, GOOD GOD FINALLY, is that it’s very easy to make me hate someone who acts terribly, and it’s very easy to make me love someone who does terrific and awesome things. Position someone as the competition and let them act like a not-that-grown-up frat boy and, sure, most of us will hate them. But it’s more interesting when they’re also a very fair person who legitimately works hard at their job. Maybe they have wrongheaded notions, but suddenly you realize from their POV you would feel exactly the same way.

It gets tougher rooting against them. It’s also very difficult rooting for them. It gets messy and complicated, and the story’s ending isn’t broadcast from the word go.

I love being told stories like that, and I try really hard to do it myself.

Anyway, I know there is no world in which it is cool to worship The Good Wife.********* But luckily I am already very much aware of how cool I am not. I could go on and on about everything else I love about this (and perhaps one day I will, because I can think of so many other good writing lessons that tie into the show and, also, I love any excuse to post pictures of Josh Charles********** LET’S JUST BE HONEST HERE).

So embrace what you love. And take your writing lessons from what moves and inspires and entertains you. A lot of times, that isn’t just in a book.

*Of course, many of those are titles such as Sydney White and High School Musical 2, in case you’re imagining my devotion to only award-winners or something.
**Yeah, by “rabid” I mean “foaming at the mouth”, so what?
***Shocking, right?
****Popularity is relative, right? RIGHT, YOU GUYS?
*****Well, I do, but I’m making a point.
******AHEM.
*******I myself am 3 parts awesome to 2 parts assy.
********By “we” I do mean “I”.
*********Except for the world that I dwell in with only Sarah Skilton, which exists only when we’re rapid-fire exchanging v. v. important emails about Alicia and Peter and Cary and Will and Diane and Kalinda. I AM JUST SAYING OK.
**********

Hey, actually, guys, can we talk for a minute about how the new Google image search sucks? I had to find this image myself. It never would actually display an image of the poster of a movie that’s about to come out. WHAT THE HELL.

Anyway, I have lived in L.A. for awhile so I have worked a couple premieres before and even attended one (randomly, Juno, and all I really remember is my friend talked about wanting to kiss Ellen Page while we were standing very closely to her, oops, and that I was really sad Allison Janney wasn’t at the party), but I must say this was the most insane thing I’ve ever been to.

Why?

Uhhh. This is why:

APPARENTLY SOME PEOPLE REALLY LIKE ZAC EFRON.

I mean. I think he’s dreamy and all. I think his hair is epic. (HIS HAIR IS EPIC.) But, dude. We were still driving to the valet, and with our windows up we could hear the screaming.

Holy crap. The screaming! It was like Beatlemania. Or some kind of deadly outbreak. Just. Decibel-splitting levels of lust and crazy.

I had to cross the red carpet to get inside the theatre, and I mentally thanked the blockades for existing and took out my camera to document the hoards of fans held back by said oh-yes-I-love-that-you’re-here blockades.

An unidentifiable girl yelled out: “How did YOU get a ticket???”

The question could be interpreted in a number of ways. Perhaps she asked everyone how they got a ticket to the premiere! Perhaps she thought I looked super unimportant! Perhaps she thought, how did that purple-striped-hair freak lady get in when I am but trapped beyond these horrible gates?

The crowd looked kind of threatening:

So instead of pondering the question or coming up with an answer, I retreated inside very, very quickly, and drank a free Diet Coke.

My favorite moment of the night was, obviously, being yelled at on the red carpet. This was my second-favorite moment:

We were waiting in line for the bathroom once we got to the afterparty. There is a tiny commotion of sound, and then I hear the voice of a dude I think I know. But it is not a dude I know! It is Zac Efron, who has just exited the men’s room. (Stars! They’re just like us!) All the girls behind us in line are little (hey, what did you do when you were twelve, guys? for me it was NOT “attend premiere afterparties”) and they are FREAKING OUT. FREAKING OUT!

Two speak to him. He is so nice to them! What a class act. They get back into line. They are so weak after this encounter they must face the wall and lean on it for support. The first exclaims, “OH MY GOD I SPOKE TO HIM HE SPOKE TO ME OHHHHH MY GOD” and I’m not gonna lie, if He Of Epic Hair ever spoke to me I might have this reaction too, at least internally.

Her friend shrieks in horror! “HE’S STILL STANDING RIGHT THERE! HE CAN HEAR YOU RIGHT NOW!!!!!!”

I have never heard such an amazing unique mix of love, lust, and fear distilled into two short statements in my life.

Also I might start a brawl with Cecil Castellucci over superfluous letters.

My next fictional boyfriend is my newest of the bunch. Unlike the first two, he’s currently age-appropriate, but that does not detract from his dreaminess. Ladies and gents, I present to you the case of Will Gardner.

OK, to be fair, I have a weakness for Josh Charles characters apparently (watch out for a future round, plus there’s Bryan in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, who is a catch despite his paper hat). But, oh! Will Gardner, Will Gardner. (I can’t stop making this joke, sorry.) Why do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. You look pretty dashing in a suit, but you in casual clothes is so amazing that Entertainment Weekly has devoted blog coverage to the phenomenon.
2. You have, on occasion, expressed attraction to inked ladies.
3. You are unapologetically ambitious and accomplished, but you’re not afraid of ladies who are too. SWOON. OUR POWERS COMBINED COULD RULE ALL, WILL, DON’T YOU SEE? YOU ARE A TOP LAWYER AND I, ummm, well, I’m unapologetically a lot of things. Just saying. I have tattoos!
4. Oh man, when right off the bat Cary got all uppity about all his frigging billable hours, Will laid in a super amazing passive aggressive insult to put him in his place, and while I don’t approve of, well, passive-aggression OR putting people in their places IN GENERAL, at this point in the series Cary was a snot who deserved it for his smugness. (Of course I came around to (mostly) love Cary too; he would be my office flirtation while I was waiting for Will to get over a certain someone or to notice my ambition BECAUSE I’M REALLY GOOD AT BEING SUBTLE.)

Oh god I am so off-topic I am not even sure what the eff I was talking about.

Ohhh right. Back to business. I think this material is sufficient evidence. In closing… I am too legally-unaware to push this lawyer metaphor any further than its current half-assed state. So here’s a picture of Will Gardner in casual clothes:

You’re welcome.

Now, look, you guys. I (sometimes) think Robert Pattinson is pretty hot:

…but Edward would be a terrible boyfriend! He can’t even enjoy a good meal with you (unless you’re into biting fresh bunnies or something)! I’m a foodie, so what the eff would we do on dates if we can’t enjoy food together and we can’t get it on? Also he tells you what you can and can’t do! He watches you sleep, which would be a total dealbreaker for me:

…and not just because I’m a snorer and I prefer the boys not to get a whiff of that right out of the gate.

The same ladies mocked me for my High School Musical calendar, but lemme tell you something: Troy Bolton is a way better fictional boyfriend.

Firstly, let’s just get this out of the way: not only is his hair just as dreamy, IT’S ACTUALLY FRESHLY-WASHED. You just know it smells like conditioner and freshly-applied product, not freshly-eaten animals and forest twigs and cold marble. Because, you know, speaking of that, also HIS SKIN WOULDN’T FEEL LIKE COLD MARBLE.

Also: he is a good dancer, he respects musical theatre, and he’ll prioritize your college/career plans ahead of his own when necessary. OK, he’s not perfect. Sometimes he gets a little caught up in his fancy-pants friends and Italian shoes, and he eschews washing certain garments to bring luck to his basketball team, but he’ll dance it out and make amends. This is not a boy tethered too tightly to gender norms.

Next up, because I suppose I should try to balance out my TV and movie refs with LITERATURE, is If I Stay’s (and Where She Went’s!!) Adam. Ag, Adam. You’re dreamy too, and even though I assume you have spectacular emo hair and a punk rock DIY touring sched, I bet it’s relatively clean and fantastic-smelling.

But, YES, he’s a musician! But even though he’s rock ‘n roll, he’s gonna respect my dorky tastes too, as evidenced by just how much (HOW MUCH!) he got out of that Yo Yo Ma concert. Right? Oh, yes. Boys who are passionate about things – and by “things” I don’t mean “how your blood smells” – are boys I can get behind. And, um, other prepositional phrases.

Which leads me to my last point about Adam, which is that he doesn’t care about not besmirching your precious virtue or whatever. BESMIRCHING BE DAMNED. VIRTUE BE DAMNED. PRECIOUSNESS BE DAMNED. Swooooooon.

This concludes Round One of My Fictional Boyfriends. Stay tuned; there are more in store.

Of course, now that I can, I have nothing to say.

Oh, I did hang out at the Playboy Mansion last night. I wore a fancy dress and looked at spider monkeys. And, no, that’s not a euphemism.

For comparing/contrasting purposes, I’d like you to know that tonight I’m hanging out with my cat on the couch, writing, reading a trashy novel, drinking beer, talking to web site hosting support, watching Doctor Who, and baking cookies from pre-made dough.

The Doctor!!

Scoutie!!

Anyways, the awesome rescue organization I adopted my kitties through, Cats, Inc., now has a Facebook page, so if you’re in the Los Angeles area and looking for your own kitty — or from anywhere with too much money in your wallet and want to donate some — I urge you to check them out. I don’t know if you’ve ever dealt with any rescue organizations – but some of them are a little… overzealous. My brother was adopted, and I swear there was less drama in that than some of these places require. But there’s none of that with Cats, Inc. The rescuers are all kind, non-drama people, and kitties who’ve been abandoned get plenty of love and attention, so despite rough starts in life, my kitties were totally affectionate and trusting. I mean, as much as cats ever trust people.

(Oh, and these photos were taken by the divine Brandi Ediss. Brandi’s a Chicago-based photographer who mostly photographs adorable kids, but does great pet shots as well.)