Monday, March 17, 2003

Oh, it's pretty bad over here

(. . . in which she talks about how she is gross and mostly about television. Do you see what time it is? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Yeah, that’s me sucking the third Vanilla Diet Coke of the day through a Red Vine pretending there aren’t at least 745 tissues wadded up on the floor anyplace I’ve lain my snot-filled body this past week. Also I might be eating a Little Debbie Easter Basket (or is it Bonnet?) Cake and using the wrapper as a coaster, looking at the empty package of Easy Mac I ate for dinner. I haven’t brushed my hair in a week (which doesn’t mean I haven’t WASHED it, for the love), and nearly every wearable item of clothing I own is currently on the floor of my bedroom, the pile of which I dig through each morning, shake something out, and put it on. Ugh. I am disgusting.

But that doesn’t even come close to the confession I am about to make. Mmmkay, so maybe I accidentally got addicted to The Bachelorette when it appeared, all sinister, as a marathon this weekend, and I might have clogged up good recording time on the TiVo with, like, I don’t know, 11 hours of said terrible TV show. I'm so ashamed. ABC Family was previously on my hit list for not showing reruns of Alias on Friday nights at 10 like they did last year (yeah, just add that I know Friday night programming to the increasingly long list of why I might forever be the bachelorette myself, only without the fake eyelashes and good skin). That means I never watch the dumb channel, since current programming choices include anything starring or written, produced, and shamelessly hawked by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who were richer than I’ll ever be when they were, like, 3 years old, and The 700 Club. (And this is an entirely appropriate venue for the reruns, since I heard that when this stupid show was on before, loving families gathered around the television en masse to appreciate true love as it happened. Riiiight.)

This time around, we had running commentary hosted by Greenlee, soap star turned B-list talk show host, and some random people who shared, um, insight as we watched the reruns of a show that shouldn’t even exist. And yet, here I was, and though I knew who "won" I even CRIED at the end (even though they both said the word "dream" as metaphor for crazy plans in your head at LEAST 7 times in 2 minutes, which is beyond annoying). It’s all too horrible.

I’m pretty sure even talking about how dumb it is pads the leather swivel chairs of the greedy network suits smiling and counting their fives in a mahogany-lined office and thinking about how I am HAHAHA precisely in the 18-49 demo who feeds their advertisers bling and who watches horrible pointless drivel as a MARATHON ALL DAY when she told at least 5 people that she hates reality television and prefers hers with a whole lotta soapy non-reality, thank you very much. Gah.

Like what kind of a universe do I live in where I watch this woman pretend to be confident and full of substance only to cackle and talk like a 3-year old any time there’s “romance,” and how preposterous is a show in which middle-class people travel exclusively in limousines and have their makeup done by LA’s worst Kevyn Aucoin wannabe, and go on dates in which one must either drink champagne by carefully placed candlelight and say inane things to each other whilst pretending there aren’t thirteen cameras and sparkly-eye lighting all around OR put on a bikini and lounge carefully by a hot tub? There's poetry, if by poetry you mean terrible rhyming verse, inexplicably including the word "plethora." And did I mention the white tiger? Siegfried circa Kindergarten called and wants his drawing back, darling artiste fireman Ryan.

It was all so forced and hokey and falsely romantic and preposterously ceremonial, and I certainly didn’t expect it to be better than my unbrushed hair, but this? I’m pretty sure I don’t know nuthin' about love, but if this is it, burn my copy of Women Who Love Too Much and leave me cynical.

There are two possible explanations to my lunacy. The first is that the mean lady in the teal leather did, in fact, cough her stinky cold germs in my space and I have since been pretty sick. I sound like a sea lion, I daresay I LOOK like a sea lion, and pretty much drink orange juice (okay, or Diet Coke – shhh) and lie on my couch whenever possible. This is called resting.

The other is that I am paralyzed with worry over what other horrible world news tomorrow will bring, and put myself into a non-reality-crazed stupor in lieu of channeling Scully and screaming over and over “This is not happening.”

There are, mentally and physically healthy AND smart and well-adjusted people would say, a number of salves for the craziness that is my psyche, not the least of which is Paxil and/or a little pondering. And, yeah, I know. I’m going to try those next.

But first, ABC, I want my soul back, please.

No comments: