3-21 – “Mind Your Own Business”

All writers journal, and the fact that I stopped journaling sometime in high school is probably the reason that my own writing career has stalled for the past 30 years or so. Thankfully, I’ve been getting back into it as part of my recovery from my divorce and my process or rediscovering who I am and what I want in life.

All this to say that Natalie the writer being devoted to her journal is another little character consistency that the Facts writers deserve all the credit in the world for. It’s almost enough to excuse the fact that Natalie is apparently some kind of chemistry genius in this episode – so much so that Blair, who is a year older than she is, opens the episode by begging Natalie for help with a experiment so that Blair can salvage a B+ in her chemistry class. This is a problem, because in next season’s finale, Natalie is struggling to memorize chemical symbols for an introductory chemistry class. I was going to suggest that it’s the writers that have an irrational fear of chemistry, but the writers for each episode are different.

Blair is helpfully making these entreaties of Natalie in the corner of the room next to the bunk bed that Natalie shares with Tootie, while Tootie works out nearby. Natalie is annoyed. Tootie is nosey.

Natalie explains that her diary is important for writing down her “inner adult thoughts,” and the jokes write themselves. Jo enters, returning from playing field hockey. All is normal in the girls’ bedroom.

Mrs. G enters, hoping to try out her speech for the Dietitians’ Association on the girls, who act like little shits as they express their lack of desire to listen. Jo in particular has some nerve, considering the piece of crap valedictory speech she’s gonna subject everyone to next year. Poor Mrs. G. Before she can even get through “My fellow dietitians” and “Dear women and men of the dietary industry,” the girls shut her down. They receive “Hi there, health nuts!” somewhat more graciously, but Mrs. G remains nervous about how to open her speech.

Natalie clears her throat, which everyone understands as the symbol to turn their backs so that she can hide the key to her diary in a sock in her foot locker. After she finishes, she promises a whining Blair that she’ll help her with her chemistry after Family Feud, which she describes as “some of the best kissing on TV.” The reminder that Richard Dawson used to kiss every woman who was a contestant on that show and we all thought it was cute makes me cringe, but the fact that Natalie treats it as soft-core porn right after she’s just finished talking about her inner adult thoughts is amusing enough to make me give it a pass.

After Natalie’s exit, Blair comments that she is a “true friend” and a “goddess,” and she says that she’d like to get Natalie a really special present for helping her. In a shot that will populate the opening credits for years to come, Tootie suggests Rick Springfield.

That’s silly. Natalie is obsessed with Shaun Cassidy.

Blair comments that she’d like to get inside Natalie’s innermost thoughts to figure out what she really wants, but she keeps those thoughts locked up in her diary. Except for the porn that she’s yearned for twice already in the five minutes since this episode started. Tootie admonishes Blair not to look in Natalie’s diary, and Blair gets defensive. Jo tells Blair not to “have a cow,” and the studio audience’s applause reminds us that there was a time when that expression was clever.

Jo suggests that she and Tootie go downstairs to help Natalie start dinner, and no one mentions that perhaps making dinner when covered in mud from her field hockey game is not the best idea. Their departure leaves Blair alone in the room.

Jo, having realized that her filth might not be welcome int he kitchen (why didn’t you just listen to me in the first place, sister?), catches Blair in the act. Blair tries to rationalize that it’s the only way to find out what Natalie really wants; that they all know where the key is; that with her mind preoccupied with her chemistry experiment, she can’t get creative.

Jo: “Keep going. Maybe you’ll convince yourself.”

This line stayed with me for decades as my first introduction to the concept of self-deception, and I’d forgotten it over the past several years as I lost myself in my marriage and deceived myself into believing that it was healthy for me. Even since we split last year, I kept trying to believe that things weren’t as they seemed. I’m getting a lot better at that these days. Thanks, Jo.

Blair is all in, though, deciding that since it’s already open, she might as well read it.

“My objective opinion of Miss Muldoon, alias Moosejaw. She looks like the Hunchback of Notre Dame only not as cute.”

“Why do I have to love Phillip Finkelmann from afar?”

“Blair Warner is an egotistical, selfish, air-brained witch!”

Jo tells Blair that diaries are just temporary feelings, and she shouldn’t take it personally. Blair asks her to promise to not say anything about Blair’s snooping, and Jo is happy to forget she was even there.

Jo: “After all, Nat didn’t say anything bad about me!”

Fade to the dining room, where an enthusiastic Tootie enters to tell Jo that Mr Grey, the biology teacher, had great suggestions to cure her snoring problem.

Jo: “You told that hunk I snore?”

Easy there, Jo, you’re in high school and you have no business thinking impure thoughts about your teachers. Wait until college. Jo unloads on Tootie that her snoring is private information that she doesn’t want shared with the world, and this is all just a contrivance so Natalie can declare that she’s an “open and above-board kind of gal” with nothing to hide.

Blair throws darts at Natalie about Miss Muldoon and Phillip Finkelmann, but she really should know better than to mess with Natalie, who immediately barbs back that Blair’s latest boyfriend hasn’t called in two weeks.

And so it gets ugly.

Blair: “I should have known better than to confide in someone like you! I was a fool to let you into my life in the first place!”
Natalie: “Let me in? You dragged me in! Face it Blair, you always want to share all the details of your life!”
Blair: “An egotistical, selfish, air-brained witch doesn’t share!”
Natalie: “You read my diary!”
Mrs. G: [Gasp] “She took the key out of the sock?”

Natalie: “You knew too? Is there anyone here who doesn’t know?”

Blair tries to justify that she just did it because she was trying to do Natalie a favor, and Natalie is right that getting into her diary, key or no key, open secret or no, is no favor. She’s pissed, and she stalks out, announcing that there are going to be some changes. Fade to commercial.

Indeed, just minor casual threats of violence. Natalie enters the bedroom and hands out copies of the new house rules, which include things like “No reading over other people’s shoulders” and “no asking for explanations.” The phone rings, and as Blair gets up to answer it, Natalie stops her, reminding her that another rule is “no answering other people’s phone calls.”

Blair: “Easy for you to say. You never get any.”

Tootie sensibly points out that you don’t know who the call is for until you answer it, but Natalie has already moved on to installing a padlock on her trunk. Tootie thinks it’s overkill. Blair thinks it’s a great idea.

Later, in the dining room, Natalie pulls Tootie aside to tell her that she forgot the combination to the lock on her trunk, which contains a ten-page paper, due tomorrow, that she’s been working on for weeks. She hopes that Tootie peeked so that she can bail her out, but Tootie reminds her that that sort of privacy invasion would have been against Natalie’s rules.

Mrs. Garrett enters with a box full of supplies, which she hands to a lab-coated Blair. Blair announces that she’s about to make history with her high school level chemistry experiment. Fake it ’til you make it, I guess.

Mrs. G has been too nervous about her speech to have a full handle on what’s going on with the girls, so the fact that Natalie isn’t helping Blair with the experiment is news to her. She’s worried about the girls, but more worried about her speech tonight, and she asks the girls if her new blouse looks cheap. I only include that detail so I can also include Jo’s cute remark that she looks like “a million bucks, marked down from a million-five.” The phone rings.

Mrs. G is pissed, but she tells the girls that their efforts to drive her crazy will have to wait until after her speech at the convention, which, by the way is in Poughkeepsie. I’ve been looking at jobs nationwide, and there was one I was mildly interested in at Vassar, which is in Poughkeepsie. While I was able to spell Poughkeepsie right on the first try, a feat in which I take pride, I did not know exactly where in New York it was, and the first thing I did was map how close it is to Peekskill. Because I am a dork. It’s about a 45-minutes by train; slightly longer to drive.

Mrs. Garrett leaves, and Blair stalks into the kitchen to work on her experiment. Natalie walks by Blair’s notes.

Tootie wants to know what’s so funny, and Natalie explains:

“When the thermal distillation solution chemicalizes, it’ll produce sulfur dioxide!”

I cannot confirm whether that is sound chemistry, but I do know what sulfur dioxide is, and when Tootie asks for clarification, Natalie confirms:

“She’ll stink like a skunk for a week.”

Blair is ridiculously enthusiastic, declaring herself Madame Curie and preparing for her Nobel Prize.

Natalie: “Booby prize is more like it.”

Tootie wants to warn Blair, but Natalie protests that Blair would be furious if she knew that the violated the rules and invaded her privacy.

Just then, Mrs. Garrett returns. She left her notes for her speech in the kitchen. Uh oh…

The good part is that Mrs. G now has a funny story with which to open her speech, and as she runs off to shower and change, Blair laments that she has become a disgrace to the Warner family. I would call that overly dramatic, and it is, but I was once chastised by my family that my B in eighth grade guitar class was going to ruin my future, so I have sympathy.

Natalie: “Don’t feel too bad, Blair. You almost had it right.”

As they bicker over whether it’s worse that she looked in the first place or that she didn’t tell Blair about the mistake, Tootie is the voice of reason. She suggests replacing all the rules with one simple one: dump all previous rules.

Natalie apologizes for writing bad things about Blair in her diary; she did it after Blair polished her jewelry with Natalie’s toothbrush. Yikes, that kinda does make Blair an egotistical, selfish air-brained witch. Blair apologizes for snooping in Natalie’s diary, and I conclude that it is objectively true that Blair was the biggest shit in this episode. Good. I don’t like it when I have to get mad at Natalie.

Oh yeah, Natalie still has that paper to rewrite.