Now that the small stuff is winding down, let's move on to the important issues: Gossip Girl was on last night. It was about college!

Everyone was in a snit-fit about Yale! Who would get in? Who would be forced to go to terrible commuter trade schools like Oberlin and Vassar and Grinnell and BU and UMich and Vanderbilt and Rice and all those other dreadful backwater institutions that the poor bastard non-Elis will be forced to muddle their way through for four miserable years, only to stumble across the finish line and disappear into the crushing mediocrity of the middleverse, a place where they will die lonely, obscure deaths while their equally tractionless children watch in vague, dimply sadness not knowing that they too will wither and fall off the vine without anyone noticing or caring? Blair and Dan wanted in the most. Because Blair finds New Haven delightful and Dan wants to be a writer and yes, most writers come out of Yale and not stumbling out of some weed-stenched cluster of oak trees and silly bobo idealism in Ohio. Go to Kenyon, Dan!

Because this is how college works now, I guess, Yale was sending all of the acceptance letters to everyone's cell phones. So while Blair bitched and hissed about her rivals (she said something about someone having a "2360" on their SATs and I cried tears of The Olds because I don't understand the new test math), Serena murmured blondily to herself about how she'd better not get into Yerl if Blair didn't. She's so perfect and betitted, that Serena. Then the text messages came! Dan got in! Serena got in, but then she lied and said she was waitlisted because... Blaironica was waitlisted. The wicked Jap Nellie Yuki ripped the cellphone out of Blair's hands and announced it to the world. Blair was indignant and immediately set about to burn the world down.

Serena of course felt terrible because Blair found out that one beskirted bitch at Constance was keeping her out of the Bulldoggy school of her gay father's gay boyfriend's dreams and it was her. Plus, Serena didn't really want to go to Yale. She wanted to fulfill Josh Schwartz's thwarted dreams and flop off to beautiful, scenic Providence (their water is on fire, but don't worry, they did it on purpose!) to attend Brown. So she told Dan this and he got all stupid and upset about it and then Jenny and Erik came running by and Erik snapped his wrist and shouted "operaaa!!!!!!!", blowing his load of glitter all over Rufus's ugly haircut.

Yes, this week's Event was the opera. Not exactly at the Met, or maybe it was. They were deliberately vague. Rufus and Lily went, which was awkward because her husband just fake-died in an Eraser-style car accident and she was fighting with Chuck. You see, Chuck was embroiled in a battle of the glowers with his marble-mouthed, speech-impedimented uncle Billy (my roommate on the actor's peculiar vocal tick: "he's like Harrison Bergeron.") Lily tried to come to Chuck's aid, offering her clout as a minority share-holder in the Bass Family Tube Sock & Jalopy Concern, which he initially rebuffed. But eventually they teamed up and, after an incident that involved the unfortunate almost-rape of fair-haired Lily, they became best friends and potential lovers. Because Lily adopted him! And that's a legal obligation on the part of the adoptee. To, you know, sex service the adopter. Right? Right? I mean, that's what they told me when I... Oh. Oh God.

Anyway! That's a matter for the Manitoban courts now! Back to the story. Blair was stomping all over Manhattan until she finally got her way and Yale said "ohhhhh come on in." It was mostly because Serena decided to go to Brown and be a rich hippie. So that all seemed to work out, until... Until a fourteen-year-old Teach for America flunkie named Miss Magarnical P. Flibbertigibbit showed up and gave her a B on a paper. Blair, on principle, just had to get back at her so she invited her to a fake dinner before the opera and ditched her. This was a big mistake. The conniving teacher—done up in a huge gray bodybag of a gown—called headmistress Queller and told her all the dirty details of Blair's scheming. Goodbye Yale. Maybe. Blair plans to wage war. Which is exciting but will probably be a let down because let's be honest, it's Gossip Girl.

Also happened: Nate and Vanessa continue to exist, strangely. I watch their mouth movements closely to try and discern if those are human word sounds coming out but it's mostly just garbled and squawky honks, like Charlie Brown's momz. Judging from their body language, I think their storyline was this: Vanessa caught Nate holding tickets to Erik van der Woodsen's All-Male Wild West Revue and Poetry Slam and said "I want a divorce. Also, hot air balloon Frisco freakout." (I am not that good at reading lips.) Then they fell back in love and went to see Wicked again (Nate's 28th time!) but a horrible wheezing old woman died while sitting next to them, so they decided to make out in front of everyone. Meanwhile, on stage, Erik performed a mostly-nude dream waltz to Nessun dorma. What a great story!

Toward the very end, Miss Corneliaque M. Twinklydinkins showed up at the river-tossed Brooklyn outpost that is Uncle Rufus' House of Art and Elderemo. She made coy eyes at still-mad-at-Serena Dan, and the two will most likely have weird, tumbling sex in a pile of greasepaint or something, while a Bon Iver song plays. This is kind of a fun plotline! And very timely! Hopefully the relationship will actually be consummated rather than just add up to a boring little pile of furtive glances and mistaken hugs or something.

I don't really know how to end this because I'm mostly running on fumes and still-surging Hope so I'll just trail off into the wonderful, if uncertain, new future...

Oh, and Billy Bass is gone! Forever? Who knows. Change!