Dear Felicity,

"If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me." -- Sally Reardon quoting W.H. Auden

I'm not live-blogging my trip through Felicity's college career, but I am going to give regular updates. Why? Because I can.

I watched the first 12 episodes of the show yesterday. That's roughly 9 hours worth of freshman angst. Here are some of the highlights:

• Felicity came to some kind of understanding with her awful parents where they "let" her stay in New York and she continues to love them no matter how much they suck.
• Felicity confesses to Sally (via tape of course) that she fantasizes about losing her virginity to Ben and that tape winds up being played at a party, much to the HORROR of our poor girl. Then Ben comes to see her when she's in a sugar coma post Ben & Jerry's pity binge. She asks if he heard the tape and he says no, but she knows he did. He is an unbelievable gentleman about it and my crush on Ben triples in size.
• Noel and Felicity kissed and Felicity was just about to tell him it was a mistake because she only thinks of him as a friend but instead he told her that he has a girlfriend named Hannah who lives in Chicago and she is incensed.
• Ben and Felicity get robbed at gun point in the loft. Ben confides in her and then acts like a dick. Felicity thinks they're getting closer and then acts overbearing. Ben realizes he's been a dick and buys her a necklace to replace the family heirloom that was stolen during the attack and to apologize. My crush holds strong.
• Felicity rewrites an essay for Ben without telling him she's doing it, the professor can tell that something is rotten in the state of Denmark and brings charges against Ben for cheating. Felicity tells Ben what she did and he hates her. He tries to keep her name out of it but she fesses up to the whole thing and, when the teach asks why she did it, Ben breaks my heart when he tells everyone that she obviously "thinks I'm stupid!" They are both let up off the mat with failing grades on their papers and the admonishment to never cheat again. Ben finds out his original paper would have gotten him a B. Felicity kind of sucks.
• Elena's scholarship falls through and for some reason she is too embarrassed to tell anyone. So she starts to pack up and leave school but Blair asks Felicity to snoop through her application file - which she does because Felicity never learns her lesson and also, she's a huge buttinsky - and they find her a scholarship specifically for an African American girl from New York or New Jersey who's majoring in Pre-Med. She doesn't want to take it because somehow this is an insult to her and there's a whole thing about white people being rich and black people being poor that I thought was really stupid. But then Noel tells her that he's on about a million and three grants, scholarships and student loans to pay for school and she needs to stop thinking anyone cares how she pays for school. He also says that if there were a scholarship for preppy white guys with web pages, he'd take it in a second. I kind of loved that.
• Felicity's part in helping Elena made Ben forgive her because he realized that most of the time when she's being overbearing and sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, she's just trying to be a good friend. Crush status: still growing.
• We meet several other RAs played by a variety of awesome people including Jarrod Crawford, Marissa Ribisi, Taraji P. Henson, and Evan Jones.
• Julie dates and is subsequently raped by Devon Gummersall who played Brian Krakow on My So-Called Life. This is upsetting on several levels not the least of which is that I hate it when actors I love play rapists. Julie eventually reports the rape. Felicity meddles and is a good friend. Ditto Noel. Ben's rage issues make their inaugural appearance when he pummels Krakow's face in the "cafeteria" (I can't wait until they find Epstein Bar - it's so sad to watch these kids eat in the cafeteria) until Krakow squeals "STOP!" at which point Ben rolls off of him and says "see, the difference is, when you said 'stop', I did!" It was awesome. Krakow ends up admitting what he did and leaving school.
• Felicity starts working at Dean & DeLuca. The world is introduced to Javier and we are all a million times better for it.
• Meghan always, always knows the gossip about the "gang" while it's happening even though none of them talk to her themselves. Plus her Box makes it's first appearance. I love her.
• Hannah came to town to visit in the form of Scott Foley's future ex-wife Jennifer Garner. Hannah was sweet and lovely (though, I remember at the time thinking she was way too Plain Jane to be competition for Felicity - I was wrong, JenGar is gorgeous) but she was a little too stiff and serious and not Felicity so Noel acted like a jackass and then made out with Felicity in the men's room. Ben saw. Noel and Hannah broke up.
• Everyone took finals amidst some chaos created by a non-dead and then very dead uncle, smart powder, people owing other people things, bags full of fetishist paraphernalia, bald men with hiccups, anti-depressants, crazy grad students, M&Ms, and one of the most hilariously subtitled sequences in the history of the moving image.
• Ben and Noel became friends over a sandwich and a glass of warm milk. Sort of.
• We meet Guy (Brian Klugman) and Richard (Rob Benedict). I love them both but Richard is definately my favorite. JJ's too I guess since he's the one that sticks around until the bitter end.
• Felicity and Noel decided to have sex and then didn't.
• Ben and Julie decided to sleep together every night for a month but not have sex and then become secret boyfriend/girlfriend and then Julie told Noel who told Felicity and to every one's shock and awe, Felicity didn't care what was going on in Ben's trousers but she was a little hurt that her friends were lying to her face because they thought she'd freak. In fairness to them, history was on their side.
• Over the course of 12 episodes Sean has the following business schemes: disposable camera vending machines, a seriously boring board game, marzipan boxers and selling over-priced fruit to stressed college students. Sean had a slow first half of season one but stay tuned because that's not even the tip of the Crazy Sean Blumberg. (See what I did there?) I love him.
• Julie found her birth mother and did some ill-advised shit. Ben thought it was dumb, tried to talk her out of it, and then stood by her when she wouldn't listen. Ben told her to put several tiny, colorful clips back in her hair. One step forward, two steps back on the "Good-Boyfriend-O-Meter" there Benjamin.
• Felicity saw Blair cheating on Elena with Elena's "girl from way back." Felicity said nothing. Somehow Blair found out that Felicity saw so he confronts her. She doesn't back down. He figures the best defense is a lame offense so he tells Elena that Felicity saw an accidental kiss that just took them a minute to pull out of. She believes them but is still mad because it "took them a minute." Then Blair invites Elena to a concert but Felicity tells her that she is sure it was more than accident that she saw and Elena tries to say that there is no way her friend would do that to her but doubt slowly creeps in. So she bails on the concert and then asks Felicity to go spy on him to see if he went alone. The two girls go and wait in the cold only to see the two rats emerge from the concert and mack right in front of her face. Felicity and Elena share a tender moment cementing their friendship forever and rocking it Season-Two-opening-credits-style.
• Sally made me cry about a dozen times because that's how Sally rolls. I miss Sally. JJ - what's up there? Did Janeane Garofalo just get too expensive or something?

Episode 1.13 is one of my very favorite episodes of television ever - "Todd Mulcahy, Part 1." One Tree Hill owes JJ Abrams some residuals for stealing from this episode wholesale for their most recent season finale. Actually, they kind of owe double for stealing from it and then making it 200% less awesome. I will definitely be making time to watch that tonight as well as the vastly inferior "Part 2" and possibly "Love and Marriage" after that. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. I know you can't wait.