I'd just keep moving, if I were you. this is an unapologetically fangirly post about Gray's Anatomy.

I kind of love this show, guys.

I started watching it about halfway through my senior year of college (wow...I can say that....in the past tense. WOW), when I realized that the oddly homesick-like feeling I was having had much more to do with my withdrawal from medical dramas (mostly House and ER, plus the occasional Nip/Tuck or Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman rerun) than with wanting to go home and sleep in my own bed, or any silly sentimental thing like that.

I still remember being about eight (or maybe as young as five or six) and watching ER at my grandparents' house, mouth hanging open, fingers splayed across my smeary glasses because I was so conflicted about whether to gawk at or hide from the images of horribly injured people lying on tables with all their insides showing.
Now, despite their tendencies to spoil and bewilder me, I have terribly responsible grandparents, and I still don't understand why they let me watch this very adult stuff. Maybe they didn't notice? Or thought I was too young to understand? Not that it matters now. I was, and am, most definitely hooked.

[This is somewhat ironic, given my (so low as to be nearly nonexistent) gore tolerance in various other contexts. Last week I saw Cabin in the Woods with some friends, and while I will grant you that it was a very smart, very meta, very Chris-Hemsworth-aka-Thor-is-in-it movie (all bona fide ingredients for success, in my opinion), I definitely missed large parts of the second half due to having my face buried in my boyfriend's collarbone. Rotting zombies? Sharp pointy things getting stabbed through people? Scary pain-saws? Flesh-eating of any kind? Not gonna happen. I get upset when I'm playing Portal 2 and my animated character gets shot and leaves bloodstains on the wall. This should tell you all you need to know.]

Anyway, I digress. What I really wanted to tell you is that my leading motivation for becoming a better person is now so that I can be more like my favorite characters from Grey's Anatomy.


[Please note: I came late to the GA party and am currently only on Season 3. Do not leave me spoilers. I will not be your friend.]

 Miranda Bailey has been my girl from the very beginning, possibly because I too sometimes feel like a short wide broad in a world full of willowy pale folks, and because any woman who gets enough respect at work to rejoice in the nickname of 'The Nazi' automatically gets my attention, admiring or not. She's fierce. She's dedicated. She's mentor, drill sergeant and professional mom to a gaggle of clueless overgrown children, and she doesn't back down from anything. This woman is basically my mother. I desperately want to be her when I grow up. Through all the crazy that happens (and it's a medical drama, which is sometimes just a soap opera with scrubs and sick people, so you know there's a lot of crazy), she's the solid, the constant. Even when people are blowing up, colleagues betray her, or she's stuck having a baby while her husband's undergoing brain surgery in the next room, she never stops being Bailey. Short. Cranky. A bamf. All the time.

As the show went on, though, and we got past the first interactions and into more serious character development, I realized that my brain has a crush on Preston Burke (yes, you read that right). He's the tall, dark and amazingly cultured heart surgeon, who for some reason is dating the mean Asian intern who I totally thought was going to be a lesbian when the series started (and who still might be, for all I know - stranger things have happened on this show). He takes his job really seriously (I mean, wouldn't you?), but he's also surprisingly warm and turns out to be a deeply spiritual guy when we get to know him. He goes out of his way to make friends with interns, because they're his girlfriend's friends, and he's one of the few characters who seems to really understand how important it is that they, as doctors who rarely get to leave the hospital for very long, live lives that are balanced between work, play and rest. He's pretty great. So, yeah, I may have a very little bit of a crush. In a Denzel kind of way.

Lastly, Addison Montgomery Shepherd - or rather, at this point, just Addison Montgomery.
Oh, Addison. She had an affair, her husband left her, and she flew across the country to do everything in her power to get him back, only to finally lose him to an intern with daddy issues. This woman is a mess. Only, she's also not. In every aspect of her life except the men she gets romantically involved with (and, occasionally, even with them), she is incredibly sharp. She's one of the best in her field, but also compassionate, conscientious in her way, and an excellent teacher.  And she manages to be pulled together and classy all the time. (Except for that one episode after Derek left her - she was pretty much a train wreck. But, still.) I love how, even when she came into the show as Oh No It's The Evil Wife, her character has never been just straight bad or good. She's got her great points and her kind of awful ones, and frankly, I like her a lot better than the show's protagonist. Meredith Gray is more than a bit of a child at times. Addison Montgomery, despite having at least as many problems, approaches every challenge like a woman...and sometimes, when she's in the mood, even like a lady.

So, there you have it. I want to be fierce, classy, professional and compassionate, not because they are good things to be. Nope. Pretty much just so that I can be more like these guys.

(Phase two, of course, will be moving to Seattle. I don't know if I'm quite dedicated enough to go get a medical degree.)

Now that you know all about mine, what TV shows do you get obsessive about? Are your favorite characters as cool as mine? I bet they aren't. Prove me wrong.

Thanks for reading, and happy Friday!