Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Fact: Your Brain is the Consistency of Warm Butter

So the other day I was seriously contemplating if I would rather have Ramona's crazy eyes or look like Aviva but be missing a leg. I mean, that's like the Sophie's Choice of superficial reality tv questions, is it not? With one you are a statuesque blonde who can hide her amputated leg beneath flattering fall boots, and the other you have all your limbs but must face the world with the eyes of pinot grigio'ed hyperthyroidism.
This is for the children with hemorrhoids. Do yourself a favor and watch this.
So yes, there I was, mentally flapping my hands trying to decide when I remembered that a.) I did not really have to choose, and 2.) if the brain is indeed a muscle then I have really let myself go.

The thing is I love bad tv and junk food, celebrity gossip, the spectacle of strangers living larger, stupider, drunker and sluttier than I ever would. If I were to meet any one of them I would punch them in the tits, yet most nights I turn on my tv to watch, and it's a super fantastic happy Susannah night when one of them graces the cover of Us Weekly. Add to that a steady stream of People magazine and Perez Hilton, and my brain is borderline obese.

What's a girl to do? I shut down at the ick of politics, economics, and historical entertainment, and everyone knows that crash diets never work anyway. So I'm taking baby steps. I opted not to renew my magazine subscriptions, and a season's worth of Honey Boo Boo Child sits unwatched on my Tivo along with The Real Housewives of Miami, Keeping Up With the Kardashians and The Real World (apparently I was the only one still watching that in the name of cultural respect anyway). Instead I finally tried Downton Abbey which--honestly--is the same level of oh no she di'int as any reality show out there, but the English accents and Masterpiece Theater emblem somehow elevate it to the equivalent of peanut butter: a fat, but the good kind of fat. In the past month I have also read some excellent books: Wild, Half Broke Horses, The Age of Miracles, and tonight I am trying to decide if I should start Tiny Beautiful Things or The Yellow Birds. Both are supposed to be amazing.

Which is not to say I won't still watch The Real Housewives of New York and New Jersey, the O.C. and ohmygodIcannotwait! for the new season of Beverly Hills, but when I do I plan on watching while eating a spinach salad sprinkled with ground Doritos. You know, because spinach is good for you.

My kind of cuisine.
xo,
S

p.s. Seriously though...one leg or crazy eyes? Why is the choice so hard?

8 comments:

ering said...

omg. i couldn't have said it better myself. thank you for putting this modern day conflict of interest into the perfect words! i am so pathetically addicted to the RHW chain that last year when my daughter made a presentation on me to her class, one of her description points was "my mom, she loves cooking, the mountains and the real housewives" i kid you not. ugh.

A Perfect Gray said...

i adore you.

Toi said...

Well, it's official. I am the very last person on earth watching The Real World. Now that I'm pushing 36 I guess I should give up.

Patti-atti said...

So, I totally, completely getcha. I feel bad sometimes, but I believe ignorance is bliss - with all the encounters and experience I have/experience in my daily life, I just simply don't have the energy to get into politics and that sort of thing - it would make me so upset and I'd feel so helpless.

So, instead of reading the news, I veg out to my favourite shows - the Real World, Teen Mom, America's Next Top Model. And have you started watching the Real World Challenges? SO GOOD.

And Half Broke Horses - just finished it! The Glass Castle is my favourite book, so I just had to get to it.

Maybe all of this means my brain is obese, but I think that I'm a nice person, I try to make others feel good, and I contribute to society, so I guess I figure, I'm allowed!

I think you are, too!

MUG said...

Tiny, Beautiful Things is a must must must must must. You will love it! And I totally respect your well balanced media intake!

SGM said...

Cultural respect! I am going to use that. I have used a variation of that to justify my reading of 50 Shades of Gray (which is just a sexy soap opera in written form, btw). I hate it so much, yet I have read both books one and two.

I can't get enough of Aviva's imperious lecturing. If I could grind that up with a mortal and pestle and eat it on a marshmallow, I would.

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Sarahviz said...

We are kinda the same. (I'd def choose the missing leg that can be hidden under stylish waiflike pants. Crazy eyes can only be hidden under sunglasses.)