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16

SEASON TWO

This year the WB moved us to Tuesday nights at eight (so long, Friends!), and the ratings began ticking up. I was nominated for a Golden Globe and a SAG Award, and I also got to present at the Emmys. My dates to these events were, in order, my manager, my dad, and my cousin Tim. I was very popular! (With people I worked with and/or was related to.)

Times were different: Christopher gives Lorelai a DVD of The Graduate (no Netflix then) and a disposable camera (these were a HUGE innovation at the time) to take pictures at Rory’s graduation. A classmate of Lorelai’s complains about her job at Kinko’s (ubiquitous copy places before FedEx took over the world). And Lorelai and Rory invite Dean over to watch the TV movie Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story, starring Joan and Melissa Rivers as themselves. (Which reminds me: Joan Rivers was a fellow Barnard alum, and was always so nice and supportive when I saw her on the red carpet. To my knowledge, she always went easy on me, fashion-wise. When I co-wrote a pilot about an aspiring late night talk show host, played by me, I had my character (me) speak to a photo of Joan she keeps on her dressing room mirror. As both a comedian and an inspiration, she is missed.)

Fashion and hair: I mean, I open the season wearing a sleeveless T-shirt with the face of a pug on it. In the second episode, just for variety, I sport a sleeveless T-shirt that gives the illusion that I was also wearing a bunch of pearl necklaces—my fashion evolution this year couldn’t be more evident.

Slip dresses were also very big in 2001, and I wear a lot of them this season. Although am I the only one who’s noticed that slip dresses are basically indistinguishable from plain old slips because they are, in fact, not dresses but just slips? We were all running around in our undergarments feeling fancy-free. They’re back in fashion now, and still no one has blown the lid off this conspiracy to get us to pay more just to wear our underwear in public.

Over the summer I dyed my hair red because it seemed like a fun idea, and then had to dye it back for the show. So this season my hair is black with red undertones, and super-damaged. At some point I did this Japanese straightening treatment that was all the rage then, and my hair turned stick straight and shiny, yet rigid and broom-like.

What I love: Episode 4, “Road Trip to Harvard,” where, in the face of Max and Lorelai’s breakup, Rory and Lorelai bond on the road, and Episode 7, “Like Mother Like Daughter,” where Kelly and I model the same fashions. Also, that diet Michel talks about, where he’s reducing his calories by 30 percent because a study showed it helped rats live longer? It was based on the real-life diet of our producer and health buff Gavin Polone. He is to this day extremely thin, although probably also 30 percent hungrier than the rest of us are.

Season finale: Where “Oy with the poodles already” was born! I’ve said it on command for you in airports across the land, but honestly I forgot where exactly in the show it appeared. Now I remember!

For you speed nerds, note how over the course of this year, the pace of the show increased exponentially, and everyone began talking a whole lot faster. This was around the time when we started to be known for that. Watch the first and last episodes back-to-back, and it’s super-evident. I was sort of talking that way already, but it starts to become Stars Hollow–wide. This resulted in our already lengthy scripts getting even longer. Also, I remember having an audition this year and being asked before I went in if I could “talk normally.” Ha!

Also, in general, how great is Liza Weil as Paris? Discuss.