I don't know why I'm admitting this, just one short day after confessing that I've read "A Child Called It." But I spent last night entrenched in foreign teeny-bopper soap operas, namely the Canadian angst-fest "Degrassi: The Next Generation" (I hope that name was chosen at least somewhat ironically) and English boarding-school saga "24Seven." I grew up on Degrassi Junior High (can you no longer say "junior high" in Canada? The kids go to a "community school" these days) so I found all this wildly entertaining, especially since the new crop of Degrassi kids now buy condoms on the Internet. I am trying to resist borrowing DJH episodes from the Boston Public Library, which, disturbingly, seems to have quite an extensive collection. At least it's a few reading levels above Spongebob Squarepants.

I turned the TV off before "Daria." I am amused yet troubled by that show, mainly because when it first went on the air, people I went to high school with smirked widely and asked me if I was a fan. And people I didn't go to high school with asked if I was like that as a teenager. Crikey. No comment.