I'm 31, I manage the front office for a dental practice (which means I know everybody's business and everybody's insurance), and I am the person at work who gets asked every Friday morning, "so what happened on ER?" I have accepted this role. I have, in fact, been training for it since I was about nine.

Every Sunday I sit down with the new TV Guide and a highlighter and I plan my week. My roommate in college started calling me the Grid Girl and it stuck, and then when I got a computer last Christmas and figured out how to make a page, well, what else was I going to call it? This page is where I put the stuff I'd otherwise be telling people at the water cooler, who, let's be honest, did not always ask.

I am not a TV critic. I don't get screeners or press releases; I get the same TV Guide you do, and the previews in the Sunday paper, and I watch a lot of promos. What I've got here is what's been publicly announced, plus my opinions, which are free and worth every penny.

Premiere week is here and I have been waiting all summer. Here's what I'm most excited about, with the dates I've got from TV Guide and the network promos. (Networks move things around, so double-check your own listings before you set the VCR. I say this from painful experience.)

This is the fall schedule as it stands right now, with what I watch live and what gets taped. Bold = do not call me.

Okay. So. I have two VCRs. This sounds like a solution and it is actually a problem, and if you have two VCRs you already know what I'm going to say.

VCR #1 is the good one, in the living room, hooked to the cable box. It has a real timer that lets me program eight events, and it has never eaten a tape. It is my favorite appliance, and I include the coffee maker in that.

VCR #2 is the one from college, in the bedroom, hooked to the little TV with the rabbit ears. Its clock blinks 12:00 no matter how many times I set it. It gets channels 2 through 13 if the weather's nice. It has eaten, by my count, three tapes, one of them the ER season finale from 1997, which I am still not over.

The problem is that everything I want is on at the same time on different channels, and VCR #1 can only tape one channel at a time, and if I'm taping on VCR #1 I can't change the channel on the cable box to WATCH something else, because the cable box is what it's taping from. So Tuesday night, when Buffy is on and I also want to tape something on the other network for my coworker, I have to (a) tape Buffy on VCR #1, (b) watch it live on that same TV, and (c) go set VCR #2 in the bedroom for the other thing, by hand, standing there at 7:59 with the remote, because the timer is a fantasy. And then hope the antenna holds. It's like a little job. I have a chart on the fridge.

What I need is a second cable box. What the cable company wants for a second cable box is more than I'm willing to admit on the internet. What I'm actually going to do is keep the chart on the fridge and use six-hour tapes on the slow speed and accept that the picture looks like it was filmed underwater. Rerun season is for upgrading.

If anybody has figured out a better system, please, please e-mail me. I'm serious.

Premiere week! I'm exhausted, in a good way. Some notes from the couch:

• I've now watched The West Wing twice (see: taping it) and I caught about 95% the second time. The walking-and-talking is going to be the thing everybody makes fun of and also the thing I love. Wednesday night just got a lot more important.
• Freaks and Geeks: I laughed, I cringed, I recognized every single kid from my own high school including, unfortunately, me. Please watch it. NBC, move it off Saturday.
• Thursday was Thursday. Friends is still Friends. ER is starting its sixth season and I have opinions about the cast changes that I'll keep to myself for one more week.
• Nine more days until Angel. I have a countdown on the fridge next to the VCR chart. My roommate from college came over, looked at the fridge, and said "you haven't changed at all." Thank you.
• Y2K note: my good VCR's clock goes up to 2099, I checked the manual. My bad VCR's clock doesn't go past 12:00 blinking, so I think it's safe.

Last week: Not much on yet, so I cleaned out the tape closet and labeled everything. Found the 1997 ER finale. Still chewed. Still not over it.

I'm going to try to do a "thoughts" entry every Sunday. I have been told by people who know me that I will do this for three weeks. We'll see.