With 'Downton Abbey,' you're always stuck in one stately home.

Coming eyeball to eyeball with a hummingbird on my terrace is as exciting to me as any celebrity I've met as a result of 'Downton Abbey.'

My dad keeps joking about sneaking into my grandparents' house and switching out their HBO for PBS so they think I'm on 'Downton Abbey.'

My wife tells me I should check out 'Downton Abbey', but I gather that series might be almost too intense for my temperate nature.

In truth, it is the act of amassing such details — and discussing them — that breeds the intimacy, but not between the fan and the fangirl: rather, between the fangirls themselves, who are bound together by their curiosity for this otherwise meaningless knowledge.

"One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am-a reluctant enthusiast... a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards."