Real Stupid

That's it. I'm officially done with "reality" television. Just finished watching the season finale of Top Chef. And yes, I have a crush on the "cheftestant" Stefan that borders on unseemly. But really, he was far and away the best chef in what certainly was a lackluster season.

And yet he didn't win. With his gloriously kissable smooth pate and delicious continental cuisine.

Ridiculous.

It strikes me as even more ridiculous that we as a viewing public allow reality programming as a genre to continue. It's not only dreck. It's dreck that's been manipulated for maximum crapitude.

Yes, I wrote crapitude and I'm sticking with it.

Even my dog is disgusted. And the cat hasn't come down to watch since week five.

The funniest thing about the whole situation, to me, is that I've made it my life's work to avoid reality. That's my raison d'etre. It's what makes a Spinstermiss a true Spinstermiss. Reality has nothing to do with my world, happily free from the carpool, the hubby's business dinner, and all of the other things that people drone on about while pouring coffee at work. (Marrieds: what you say sounds like this to us: Blah, blah, blah. whah wha whingie blah blah. We're really just looking at your jewelry. Good job with that!)

KMA reality.

Marrying for Money

So I'm all in favor of Obama's efforts to improve our economy. As someone who has enjoyed two economic collapses in the publishing industry in the past 2 decades, the president can count me in for an effort to reinvigorate the nation. With this kind of positivity projecting from my every pore, I can't help but wonder why the president has to go on ahead and give married people a significantly higher tax break just because they're married.

Harumph.

Don't married people already get enough breaks? They get cheaper car insurance. The get death benefits. And they almost always have people to go with to weddings, christenings, and birthday parties. In theory, they also deeply benefit from the division of labor inherent in living communally. 

A single person has to bring home the bacon, fry it up and in the pan, and never ever let themselves regret that they didn't get themselves a man.

Oooh, that was chee-zee! I used to love that commercial when I was a kid. Think it was for a hair product. But I still get a total urge to put on a cocktail dress every time I make a BLT.

Darn cute babies

So a friend just found out she has fertility issues and it's not looking good that she'll be reproducing any time soon. Or ever, really. And since I'm the most self-centered person on Earth, this immediately ties back to me and my own lack of fecundity. It's really time to start making peace with the idea that I'm getting older and I've made no effort whatsoever to find a mate and have a family. As a result, there is a very strong likelihood that I won't be getting married or having any babies. Which I pretty much thought everyone did and it was just a matter of time until Mr. Babymaking Right managed to track me down at my house, breakdown the door, fix the door, court me, marry me, and impregnate me before disappearing in a mysterious accident that left me lonely, but with a lovely set of twins and an enormous insurance settlement to comfort me. Could it be that I've somehow gone wrong in my assumptions?

Why Ben & Jerry why?

I guess I really can't blame Ben & Jerry for making such a delicious ice cream that is way beyond my resistance. But I do. They have to know that minty, full-fat ice cream is potent. Then, if you blend it with chunks of chocolate cream cookies it's just beyond my level of resistance. But how was I to resist. I mean, it's not my fault that I couldn't find the naan bread in my grocer's freezer and there were compelling yellow discount signs that drew my eye to the frozen desserts section.

So, it was a bargain step closer to type 2 diabetes, which is nice. And now I have to get on a plane on Friday. A Delta plane, which has some of the smallest seats in the sky. Which may or may not be able to contain my fat ass. When I land in Utah, I will spend two days surrounded by movie types and wanna be's--particularly those West Coast matrons who have bizarre facial work. The result is that from the back they look like hot 20-year-old chippies. But then they turn around and their face has been botoxed and augmented to the point that they look like they've recently taken up beekeeping face first. Yikes.

Coffee: A good idea gone awry

So I was listening to this report on NPR about how coffee help spurred the age of reason or the age of enlightenment. I wasn't listening super carefully. But either one would be a good improvement from the haze I'm currently in. So I've coffeed it up for the past two days...one cup each day with a pack of swiss miss hot chocolate in it to make it a little special. And it's been great during the day. But now, at 2:14 a.m., I really miss the whole sleeping thing. It's always been one of my great pleasures. And particularly now, when I'm not smoking, barely drinking, and a good seeing to is a vague memory, sleeping has been a reliable pleasure in life. Which I'm denied. 

I'll tell you this much. Being up after 2 isn't fun if you don't have one of the following things:

1. A good book

2. A good man

3. A variety of drinks

4. Your smoke brand or variety of choice

5. A dramatic deadline

6. An inspirational cause

7. A long distance to cover across an unfamiliar territory

8. A minimum of a trilogy's worth of movies that you are watching from beginning to end as God intended.

9. One or more hysterical friends to be bailed out of a situation that will provide a good, entertaining story at future late nights.

10. One or more hysterical friends who are bailing you out of a situation that will provide a good, entertaining story at future late nights.

So maybe not drinking a mochalicious coffee each day means that I won't be the next great philosopher. But who knows, perhaps people were happier drinking their small beers and wine throughout the day, living life at a slower, less enlightened or less reasonable pace. 

Ok, they were unbathed, untoothed, and frequently dead by 35. And don't get me started on the stink factor. But a society with a widespread, large scale buzz is still pretty interesting.

Who'm I kidding?

Ok, I'm never going to be a home repair diva. Just ain't going to happen. Frankly, as long as there's a BBC America, I might not ever develop any new hobbies.

So there.

Another Friday house party

So, I'm getting ready for Friday night and trying to figure out which project to contemplate first: re-grouting the bathroom tile OR exploring what's under the drop ceiling in the kitchen OR finally finishing the master summer re-organization of my closet.

Utilizing a process of elimination, I'm thinking that the re-grouting needs to wait until it's a bit cooler and the windows can be open. Plus the laundry machine is in the bathroom and about 15 loads must be run through tonight. So that's out.

The dropped ceiling. Oy. Someone dropped that ceiling a long time ago. Probably for a very good reason. That I might not want to know tonight and then have nightmares about on the only day of the week I'm guaranteed to get 8 hours of sleep. So that's out, too.

Which that leaves me with the massive closet project. Which really needs to get finished but it's time to get the fall clothes out. Not store them. Which means a total rehash of everything. So that's out too.

Actually, a trip to Ye Olde Big Box store to get the adhesive to finally stick the peeling linoleum back down sounds like an ideal project for the night for two reasons:
1. I won't feel like a hobo anymore whenever I walk through the kitchen.
2. It's Friday night and a cheap adhesive buzz may not be the worst thing that's ever happened to me.