Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Paris has permission to relax. Not just in the literal sense, by going to Bangles concerts and eating mac and cheese, but by having a place where she can be herself. Rory understands Paris in a way that Madeline and Louise never did or could. She understands that rereading The Iliad isn’t doing nothing, and that watching The Power of Myth can be just as much fun as a spring break party.
     
    Rory has a few things to learn from Paris, too. Rory’s life in Stars Hollow was idyllic, probably too much so. In order to make it in the real world, and especially the world of journalism, she’s going to have to develop a much thicker skin. Competing with Paris has prepared her to handle herself in a world where just being nice and smart isn’t enough to succeed.
     
    Paris and Rory challenge each other, something that is missing from the other relationships they have. Dean was awed by Rory’s intelligence, and he supported her but he couldn’t push her. Jess was much more Rory’s intellectual equal, but he was too unpredictable and emotionally distant. Logan has arguably been the most compatible of Rory’s boyfriends, but if anyone has been challenged in that relationship, it’s him. Paris dates even less than Rory, going out with Asher Flemming, who she worshipped without question, and Doyle, who simply bends to her will.
     
    Imagine what could happen if Paris and Rory put their differences aside, agreed to stop competing, and managed to be supportive of each other at the same time. They’ve come close with the Yale Daily News and the Chilton student government, where they made a great team—Paris provided the pressure to perform, and Rory brought people skills and the ability to see the big picture.
     
    Together, Paris and Rory would be an unstoppable couple. All they’d have to do is realize it.
     
    And maybe reconsider the whole no-sex thing.
     
    Stephanie Whiteside recently graduated from The George Washington University with a BA in political communication, where she learned the fine art of procrastination by watching Gilmore Girls and knitting when she should have been writing papers. Stephanie currently lives in Northern Virginia with her cats Fred and Padma, and spends her time watching more TV than is probably healthy, writing, and attempting to convince the government to give her a job. In the meantime, she teaches knitting and is cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
     
     

The Other Relationship: Parenting
     

Janine Hiddlestone
    Mothers, Daughters, and Gilmore Girls
     
    LORELAI: It’s from my mother.
     
    RORY: What is it?
     
    LORELAI: It’s heavy. Must be her hopes and dreams for me.
     
    RORY: I thought she discarded those years ago. (“Dear Emily and Richard,” 3-13)
     
     
     
    The bond between mother and daughter is a strong one, and no show has ever explored it in so many ways through so many generations and so many traditions as Gilmore Girls . Janine Hiddlestone looks at them all as she analyzes the fears, disappointments, and triumphs of mothering in Stars Hollow.
     
    “Y OUR FIRST COP-RAIDED PARTY. I am just so proud!” gushes Lorelai Gilmore to her daughter, Rory. Upon discovering just moments later that a fight between two boys over Rory is what resulted in the arrival of the police, Lorelai breaks into the chorus of The Wind Beneath My Wings (“Did you ever know that you’re my hero, everything I longed to be . . .”). Rory stalks off in embarrassment and annoyance (“Say Goodnight, Gracie,” 3-20).
     
    It was an amusing scene, particularly since Lorelai continued to sing as she followed her daughter down the street—the fun sort of scene viewers of Gilmore Girls have come to expect. However, for the uninitiated, the scene had a few peculiarities. In most family/ teen dramas or sitcoms (and in real life), the parent or parents would have been furious at their teenage daughter for attending a “parents out of town” keg party that ended when the police broke up a