I know I'm not a special snowflake. (Though some would disagree and say I have yet to learn this.) I'm not the only twenty-something year old girl that spent her formative years studying Rory and Lorelai Gilmore, willing herself to be them. But when has being exactly like thousands of other people ever stopped me from talking about myself.

It was on ABC Family when I got home from school. I got the first and second seasons on boxset for Christmas. I would watch them when school had let out for summer until the discs wore out and I could hear birds announcing I had made it to 6am. I started a notebook detailing the plot of season one and where songs appeared in certain episodes (there's websites for this now that I would have killed for then). I was firmly in favour of the cookies and love and the Dean and the Rory and the cookies and the love

I wanted to work hard and set my eye on applying to Ivy League schools like Rory. I applied to one in the end. Got as far as a phone interview and blew it by talking nervously to the recruiter about Twilight. Oh, to be eighteen.

I idolised stubborn, sharp-tongued and reference-wielding Lorelai. I hated the way she sucked in her cheeks when she was looking at something or upset. And I pined for my mother to be more like her than an Emily. Which was not fair on my mom, as she was a far cry from either.