The Shallow End

Allow me to share with you something that annoys me

2007-06-11T15:15:00.000-05:00

I know I only write when something bugs me. I'm sorry about that. Some day I'll write about sunshine and happiness and birds chirping and flowers blooming. I promise. But today I have to get something off my chest.

It is a well-known fact among my various friends (and maybe some enemies) that I have a signifant dose of road rage. I'm not proud of that. I'm just being honest about it. Other people and their driving skills (or lack thereof) really get to me.

You'll notice that this is thematically similar to my rants on people who put shopping carts away vs. people who don't and those who slam their seatbacks out of the full upright and locked position and into my knees on a plane. It's similar in that driving well requires that one think of someone else other than oneself for a few seconds of every day. I understand that it's hard for many of us to do this, but I don't feel that we should be getting in a car and driving if we can't turn our own concerns and cell phones and various attention grabbing devices off and pay attention to not killing the people around us. Riiiiight? Why is that hard?

And part of it, the sad part, seems to be that a lot of people just don't know the rules. Who has the right of way in certain situation, what the color yellow means on a stop light, what a green arrow means and how to make sure you don't fall down on the job when you are first in the turning lane, what to do at a four way stop sign (or intersection, as this is Nebraska and often there aren't stop signs). All of these things seem just out of the grasp of most people.

I should disclaimer this by saying that I understand we can't all be perfect all of the time. I'm sure I do jerky stuff here or there while driving. But for the most part, I keep my eyes on the road, don't talk on electronic devices, pay attention to the drivers around me so no one hits me and I don't hit anyone else.

This is why I'm mad. I don't ride bumpers and hope everyone will go 20 miles an hour above the speed limit. I don't chase people down who cut me off and pull a weapon on them at a stop sign. I don't have that kind of road rage. I feel like I have road disbelief. Or road complete shock. My rage comes from being completely dumbfounded at how self-absorbed and completely unaware of everyone else most people seem to be. My rage is more in the form of amazement that there are people who seem to truly believe that the pressing business they have to attend to is more pressing than whatever the person driving near them has, so they'll do what they please---cut someone off, be the 5th person to turn left on a red light, thereby cutting into the other directional green arrow and those patient drivers' chance of getting through the intersection on that cycle of lights. Ahhhh. That's where the expletives come from.

And I apologize to those who've had to ride in my car and have been scared by my sudden outbursts. But I'm here today to suggest that I'm not just mad as a driver, but as a citizen sick of selfish people and their ignorant ways. Driving just highlights the extra selfish and extra ignorant amongst us.

I don't want to be a part of the village

2007-05-31T12:49:00.000-05:00

So, they tell me that it takes a village to raise a child. And yeah, I see their point. Kids need strong leadership from multiple adult role models to turn out well-rounded and well-behaved. But shouldn't the rest of us get to choose whether or not we want to be a part of the village that raises that kid?

The neighborhood I live in is desperate for me to be a part of the village. They seem determined to make me parent the kids that skate board on my driveway (And not just once in awhile turning around on my driveway, but actually assembling on my driveway to use my walkway and driveway as their personal, 12 year old X Games), or the kids that climb over my six foot fence into my backyard while they're playing hide and seek, or the kids that were climbing on the roof of my garage a few Saturday nights ago.

And that doesn't even cover the kids who, without a helmet or any other sort of protective gear, ride around on their bikes and scooters in the middle of our fairly narrow street, oftentimes past sunset and even past dusk, darting out behind parked cars, willfully displaying a wanton disregard for their own safety.

I do realize that as a single adult, without children of my own, to me kids are just more annoying. I don't find them charming the way their parents do. I don't think it's funny when they say the same thing over and over and over and over again. I don't like to aww shucks the kicking of my seat or the poking of my head on an air plane.

Some of that is just my lack of experience in dealing with children.

But some of it seems like a lack of respect on the part of the parents of these kids. After all, you can hardly blame a kid for rude or annoying behavior if the parents in their lives aren't monitoring them. I often wonder where the parents of the After Dusk Bike Riders are as their children are nearly run over by people trying to navigate their way down their street. Do they not see that the kid isn't inside? Do they not wonder where they are? Do they not worry that something bad might happen to them? I wonder what the parents think when they look out their windows and see their kid riding their skateboards up and down the driveways of other neighbors, or climbing on the roof of their garage. Do they not realize, "Hey, maybe I should teach Bobby that there is such a thing as personal space and property ownership and that we don't play in the yards or ride bikes on the property of others"? Aren't they embarrassed when their kids act without manners or without concern for the world around them?

When I was little, we got yelled at when we walked on someone else's lawn. We weren't allowed to ride our bikes on other people's property. We wouldn't have considered climbing into the yard of someone we didn't know to hide during a game of hide and seek. We wouldn't have played baseball toward the yard of a neighbor, tempting fate and the possibility of a baseball through a window. And there were consequences if we disobeyed those rules. We knew we would get in trouble. That we'd get a timeout. That we wouldn't play outside that day. Whatever. There were limits placed by our parents, we knew what they were and what would happen if we disregarded those limits.

Does that not happen anymore? Is that why it takes an entire village to raise kids these days? Parents hope other people will "raise" their kids? They hope one of the neighbors will teach the hard lessons about respect that they seem too scared to instill in their own children? I don't know. Maybe parents now days are overworked or underappreciated. Maybe kids really are nastier or meaner or more horrible. Maybe I'm just really intolerant and easily annoyed.

But this isn't just about my front yard or my driveway or the roof of my garage. This is about the movie theaters and restaurants and public spaces we all have to share. This is about parents actually standing up to their tantrum-having kids and telling them "no" and not shyly apologizing and asking the rest of us to indulge the whim of their four year old. This is about what the world will be like in about 12-20 years when a lot of these kids begin "real" jobs and make their way in the world, believing they are entitled to everything they want, other people be damned! This is about learning early that you aren't the center of the known universe, that other people matter and that grownups' opinions usually matter more. And they've earned that.

The older I get, the less patience I have for misbehaving kids. But the older I get, the angrier I get with those misbehaving kids' parents. This isn't about the kids. Just as I bear the responsibility for my dogs' poor manners---the jumping on people, the errant licking, the annoying barking---so do parents bear the responsibility for their kids. (And kids aren't dogs, I know.) But if I can carry a bag around and clean up my dogs' poop from a neighbor's lawn, surely they can keep their kids off my driveway. Or at least, for pity's sake, my roof.

Otherwise, I'm starting my own village.

So you think you can dance?

2006-06-09T10:47:00.000-05:00

No. I don't. And I don't want to watch other people try to do it either. I barely tolerate American Idol. I accept, albeit somewhat grudgingly, its place in the pantheon of pop culture. But I don't want to watch all of its B or C-level spin offs. I don't want to watch American Inventor. I don't want to watch Rock Star. The many varied talent show competitions onstage. It's all so filled with the networks' summer desperation. ("How can we fill time so we can still charge advertisers money? What are people just dumb enough to watch?")

I'm not a TV snob. Really. I watch about eleventy million things every week on TV. But the explosion of reality TV (especially stupid talent based reality TV) in the summer just makes me sad for all the shows we no longer see for four months. It makes me miss the sass and wit of Veronica Mars. It makes me miss the anorexic whining of Meredith on Grey's Anatomy. It makes me pine for The Office and How I Met Your Mother. It makes me dream about Lost and wonder about Gilmore Girls. I just miss good TV. And watching the crap on right now is like dating a loser after you date a really nice, respectful, handsome guy you can take home to meet you parents. You just notice the loser-y-ness all the more. You notice the flaws. They are glaring and gaping and obvious.

I don't think I can dance. I don't want to. I'm white and an Adventist and those things and break dancing and a sense of rhythm just don't go together. And it embarrasses me to watch other people think they can.

So maybe, just maybe, (and don't faint when I say this) I will turn off my TV for awhile and explore this thing people are calling "the outdoors." I hear it's especially interesting this time of year.

Two Kinds of People: the traveling cross country edition

2006-05-02T15:32:00.000-05:00

Awhile back I suggested there are two types of people in the world and that shopping carts and their proper use say a lot about people. This time I'd like to extend that to traveling on an airplane.

I just got back from a lovely weekend trip to Sacramento, California (a highly underrated city, in my opinion). The journey required two flight legs -- Omaha to Denver and Denver to Sacramento. On the way out I splurged for Economy Plus (plus what? extra leg room, that's what). Sitting in Economy Plus also allows one to be closer to the front. (A double edged sword as this also means that you can see the white linen napkin service of first class and really smell the real food being warmed up as you snack on your bag of 6 pretzels.)

On the way back, however, there were no aisle seats in EP, and so I decided I'd suffer through the two legs of my trip in seats 20D and 21D, respectively. I'm made of pretty tough stuff, so I figured I could take it.

Do you know me? I'm a tall girl. Not as tall as my 6'1" sister, but 5'10" without shoes on is apparently taller than the airlines want you to be in the "huddled masses" section of the airplane. I was sitting with my butt firmly planted in the back of the seat (no slouching) and my knees were completely pressed into the seat in front of me. And as both of those flights were full, there was someone in the middle seat, thereby forcing my legs forward instead of out to the sides.

Okay. That was all a lot of verbage to say what I want to say: it takes a special kind of asshole (just my opinion now) to recline the seat away from it's "full, upright and locked position" (to quote the friendly flight attendants) and further into my knees. By the time the guy in front of me was done, my knees were jammed so far into his seat I wasn't sure how it was possibly comfortable for him. He'd seen me walk in. He saw I was tall. He must've felt my knees. And yet he did it anyway. I'll admit that I squirmed around a little bit, making sure he felt how little room his extra 2 inches of recline gave me. And yes, some could argue that is rude as well. But seriously. (To quote Grey's Anatomy) Seriously? Seriously.

How hard is it to think about the person sitting behind you? The person who has to endure your seat becoming intimately close to their lap. The person who can smell whether or not you've washed your hair as it comes dangerously close to their nostrils. It's not hard. It's decent and respectful. And maybe he was thinking, "Well, I'm tall too. I need that extra room." In this case he wasn't tall. And I suppose I could've thought the same thing and pushed my chair back bothering the person behind me. But I just don't have it in me. We are afforded so little space to ourselves on those stupid planes, I'm not going to rob the person directly behind me of what little comfort they might have left.

So, if you're reading this and you're a seat recliner, all I ask is that you think about it before you do it next time. I ask that you take into consideration whether or not the person behind you is tall and has long legs. If you think they can spare the room, then fine. What about a nice, "Would you mind if I recline my seat a bit?" That goes a long way, I gotta say. Because you aren't the center of the known universe. You are another person in the midst of a throng of people, all of whom are barely holding onto the last shreds of both their sanity and their humanity as they are shoved into a tiny, claustrophobic space and expected to share pencil thin armrests with sweaty strangers and make small talk with people who don't bring reading material onto planes (Seriously!?!?). You are one of many. You are a citizen of the world. Stop acting like you own the damn place and return your seat to its full, upright and locked position. Oh, and enjoy your flight. Thanks for flying the friendly skies.

A Grey's Gripe

2006-03-22T10:46:00.000-06:00

Grey's Anatomy has become my favorite show on television. And that's saying something, given the sheer volume my DVR records everday. It is smart, the storylines are layered and the characters have dimension.

Almost every major character on the show has an obvious, visible flaw. And the show is written in a way that lets the viewer decide how to feel about the characters. For example, Meredith, the supposed center of the show, is deeply flawed, whiney and self-involved. And yet, she isn't pushed down the viewer's throats. She makes mistakes, she pays for them, we move on.

BUT. Lately, with the addition of Denny the heart patient, Grey's and their normally superior writing team have really dropped the ball. I haven't talked to one single Grey's viewer who likes his addition to the show. He appears obviously as a plot device to break up Izzy and Alex. That type of writing is par for the course on 85% of the shows on TV, but Grey's usually manages not to resort to that type of laziness.

Even when McDreamy's wife, Addison, showed up as a cliff hanger last season, in season two her character quickly became as layered and complex as the rest of the cast. Love or hate her, you understood all sides of the story. And the writers pretty much let the viewers decide how to feel about her. To form their own opinions.

With Denny, however, he's written in a manipulative, isn't-he-charming sort of way that only serves to prove he's not. We've never seen anything other than pity from Izzy to Denny. The writers have given no reason for her character to jump beyond basic compassion and into the murky waters of romantic love. It feels cloying and contrived to have Izzy suddenly feel like she's in a relationship with a patient she barely knows. It disrespects the viewer's investment in the character of Izzy and in the progression of her "relationship" with Alex.

For the first time in my Grey's viewership my impatient fast forward finger has been activated in Denny and Izzy scenes. I actually rooted for his death in the last episode (3/19/06). And the horrible things the writers forced Izzy to say to Alex upon their break up were terribly out of character. My friend Jacque made a good point that viewers won't soon forget the things Izzy said to Alex (just as viewers didn't forget when Alex cheated on Izzy, a much more "in character" move, by the way).

I'm not campaigning for an Izzy/Alex true love always relationship. But I am campaigning for the Grey's writers to continue their successful tendency to treat viewers with respect and give them credit for being faithful to the show.

I am rebellious by nature and don't like to be told how to feel or what to think. And right now the Grey's writers want me to love Denny and hate Alex and I resent that manipulation.

Thoughts of Paint and Ghandi

2006-03-08T17:21:00.000-06:00

I'm going to paint my upstairs guest bedroom. It's a room that currently collects silence and dust bunnies in equal measure. I can't say that I really need to paint the room. Whole weeks can go by without me going upstairs. I forget it's there sometimes. And yet, the fact that the walls are currently a 1980s shade of seafoam green stirs within me an urge to put my mark on that otherwise unused space.

I've settled on red. Or at least, red on a wall or two and the rest a pleasant beige. I've started looking through magazines and catalogues for inspiration. Complementary colors, themes, ideas. A room I never use is suddenly the most important room in my house. The focus of my thoughts.

Now that I've decided I am going to transform that space, I've starting thinking of people I can invite to come and stay with me. I've begun hoping for out of town guests. My father's annual spring 10 day visit is suddenly all the more thrilling knowing he will stay in my newly stylish room.

It got me thinking about the movie Field of Dreams and the whole "if you build it they will come" creepy, whispering admonishment Kevin Costner hears over and over. Do we react to life or does life react to us?

Do we have to change ourselves, our world, our existence before other people react positvely to us, or do we change in reaction to the positive or negative feedback given to us by others?

As the daughter of a psychologist, I know the difference between being proactive and reactive. And therapists love proactive people. And proactive people paint rooms red without worrying about whether or not anyone will ever see it. Reactive people wait to paint the room red until they know someone needs a place to stay. A proactive person is happy without the input of others, a reactive person needs a road map to find happiness.

The question, then, is an individual one. And maybe is should we react to life or should life react to us? I would propose the latter. A thinker far less cheesy than Kevin Costner said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." And I wish my world red. This weekend it will be so.

Taste accounting

2006-03-02T14:40:00.000-06:00

I think the cliche goes something like "there is no accounting for taste", which I have taken to mean that one person's junk is another person's treasure. But the more I think about that, the more I'd like a little taste accounting.

There are things in this world I just don't enjoy. The taste of meat, soy milk, grapefruit. Bill O'Reilly. But I understand that other people do. Just because I think meat tastes like sweat, soy milk tastes like the sole of a shoe and grapefruit tastes like battery acid, doesn't mean everyone does. I have tried to like green olives for the past 22 years of my life. My sister and my dad go nuts over these certain olives from Southern California (Graber Olives) that my grandma sends each year at Christmas. Watching them enjoy the olives makes me wish I liked them too. But I don't. And it's not for lack of trying.

But other things, especially music, movies, TV, certain design sesibilities, just don't make sense to me. And not only do they not make sense to me, I don't understand how they make sense to other people. Someone out there thinks Carrot Top is funny, otherwise, why is he famous? Why does he get to do commercials? Someone at some point thought Gallagher's watermelon smashing was hysterical. Someone must watch According to Jim. Somebody likes Star Jones. Somebody appreciates really strong perfume. Somebody likes that dreadful Nickelback song about the photograph. Somebody still likes flowery wallpaper.

Who are these people? Because we aren't just talking about the oddly sour taste of a green olive. We are talking about shows people choose to spend time watching. Movies people pay money to see. Comedians people laugh at. Clothes people choose to put on their bodies. Ways people choose to decorate their houses.

So I want some taste accounting! How is it that According to Jim, Still Standing, Skating with Celebrities, and dare I say, even Will and Grace are all still on the air and Arrested Development, one of the truly funny shows of our time, has been virtually cancelled? It makes me wonder if I'm the one with the problem. Am I missing something subtle and wonderful in one of the aformentioned shows? Is it because I don't eat meat?

I guess I'll try to be more open minded. But I can't say that's helped me with grapefruit and green olives.

Some random thoughts

2006-01-22T14:54:00.000-06:00

It's been awhile since I've written. I'm sure my reader (and notice I use the singular) is very disappointed. So I thought I'd compile a list of thoughts I've randomly had lately.

1. I've tried to like Lorelei Gilmore and I just can't. I started watching the Gilmore Girls somewhere mid-fourth season. Now, ABC Family plays reruns everyday and I happened to catch season one episode one during Thanksgiving Break, and have been TiVo-ing and watching ever since. I always thought maybe the reason I didn't like Lorelei was because I hadn't caught the special mom-kid bond from the beginning of the show. But now that I have, I have to say, I still don't like Lorelei. She's very self-absorbed, and I feel like we're supposed to agree with her and see the show from her perspective. But it's a perspective I don't really respect. PLUS, I've read in various places and forums that the actress who plays her is a bit of a diva and that she doesn't like Scott Patterson (Luke) and throws a tizzy everytime they have to kiss and such. Which, I must say, doesn't help me like the character any better. Just a completely useless thought, but it's one I've had recently and so there you go.

2. Veronica Mars comes back on Wednesday from its month long (it seems like it may have been longer) hiatus. I feel like a long lost friend is coming to visit. I'm excited. And that makes me sad for myself.

3. I bought a treadmill. I realize it's been awhile since I've been running, but the speed on this treadmill seems faster than the speed on treadmills of previous experiences. Is that possible? Or am I getting old and fat and now can't keep up? Probably that.

4. I really hate Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee on the Food Network. Oh, she bugs me. She's so pleased with herself. And I'm no food snob. I'm not above putting cream of mushroom soup in something. But the stuff she comes up with as time savers seem ridiculous and an insult to food and people who eat it everywhere. (For instance, using frozen chopped onions. Come on. Does it really take that long to dice an onion? Or using canned potatoes in a potato salad? Ick). Also, everything she makes is f'ntastic. That's how she says it. Between Semi-Ho Sandra and Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals, my hate of perky food people is really revving up.

5. A little praise, however, goes out to the Food Network show Iron Chef America. LOVE IT. It's hard to explain why. It's food sport. Truly. Watch and see.

6. If Angelina Jolie walked by me in real life I think I would hit her. Lest we forget, this woman carrying Brad Pitt's baby used to wear a vile of her former husband's blood around her neck and got grossly close to her brother at the Oscars a few years back. And no, Angelina, your recent campaign to become a saint will not make me forget it.

7. My soaps are all starting to bore me. This is a sad day for me. Am I growing? Becoming a better person? I doubt it. I think the plots are just all seeming stale and repetitive.

8. I love the Japenese Pan Noodles at the semi-fast food restaurant Noodles.

9. There haven't been very many good romantic comedies made recently. I love a good romantic comedy. Pretty Woman was on last night and it reminded me we don't get a lot of good "everything works out well in the end and you want it to because it warms your heart in an inexplicable way" movies anymore. Instead there are horrible things like Hostel and Saw. Or funny fart humor movies (which are also good times in their own way, but rarely romantic). I can watch Sleepless in Seattle or Notting Hill or My Best Friend's Wedding over and over again. Which, I suppose, is akin to admitting I watch soap operas. At least I'm staying true to form.

10. I have a crush on the new Bachelor. There I said it. And I swore I wouldn't get sucked in again.

11. I feel like I should say something very smart and insightful to make up for the previous 10 shallow thoughts. But, my reader knows me better than that anyway. . .

Small Christmas, big questions

2006-01-03T18:07:00.000-06:00

Christmas makes the world seem small. And not in that, "it's a small world after all" kind of fun, dancing kids in a Disneyland ride sort of way. Just small in that, "is this really all there is?" sort of way that plagues one's middle to late 20s.

I grew up feeling like I was invincible, or at least that I was lucky. It never occured to me to think the dreams I had or things I wanted would ever not happen. That sounds bratty and self-centered, and yet, I think it was, more than anything, naive. Just pure, unbridled naivete. Is it weird that I miss that feeling?

The older I get, the smaller my world seems. Big dreams seem less accessible. Practical realities are what take up space in my head (my mortgage, the rising cost of gas, what to make for supper). I used to know for sure that I would be a published author, or would become a lawyer, or would get married and have a family, or would do something else that is completely fabulous in a completely fabulous way. Now, I don't stop to think about those things very often. I'm not conquering the world anymore.

Christmas, the going home and taking on the role of "kid" again, just highlights how different my viewpoint is these days. The traditions that were once magical, now seem forced or somehow hollow. I still appreciate them, and yet, they don't seem essential like they used to. It means coming face to face with past rivals, and old loves, and an old version of myself that makes me a bit squirmy. And not because of embarrassing hairdos or crimes of fashion committed and pasted all over my father's house. But because that version is still who I am, buried deep inside. I've just covered her up with the day to day, must keep my head above water, can't stop to think about dreams while I'm trying to leave work by 7:00 p.m., persona.

Do we have to shrink our world in order to survive? I have a bunch of cheesy "hold fast to dreams for if dreams die. . ." poetry running through my head right now. So, clearly others have pondered the question before. I also realize I'm not 80. That I still have plenty of time to take big risks and throw caution to the wind again. But will I?

So many people never do. They live small lives working quiet jobs, living in small houses and have a few friends and. . . I can't even finish the rest. It just seems depressing.

So, the question is, then, How do you make life big? How do you make your world seem bigger than it is on a daily basis? How do you stay 15 and still own a home and not annoy the heck out of everyone? How do you keep living toward the culmination of dreams and still pay the bills?

Just some questions left over from Christmas, running through my head.

Two kinds of people

2005-12-06T16:03:00.000-06:00

In my opinion, there are two types of people in this world: people who put their shopping cart away in the designated corral and those who don't. Last Friday, while doing my monthly Target supply run, I witnessed a woman, finished with her cart, packages deposited in the back of her mammoth SUV, walk her cart up to the front of the parking lot and hump it up on the curb of the handicapped parking spot at the end of the row. I thought of saying something to her like, "So, killing two birds with one stone there? Taking away a handicapped spot from someone who needs it and feeling too good to take your cart back where the 'little' people return them, eh?" Instead, I shot her a dirty look which she answered with a "what are you going to do about it, huh?" look, and I moved on.

The thing is, she wasn't parked right next to that handicapped spot, which at least would make her cart disposal somewhat understandable (laziness). She was parked practically equidistance between that spot and the accepted point of return, the corral. To me she was saying, "I'm too good to put my cart away where I'm supposed to." And as she roared away in a flowery cloud of old lady expensive perfume and the exhaust fumes from her expensive, gigantic SUV, she reeked of that line of thinking about more than just her shopping cart.

I don't always like to put my shopping cart back. Those little corrals aren't usually strategically placed to make them convenient to every parking space. It's a minor hassle. But it is a decent, thoughtful thing to do. It requires a moment of stepping outside of oneself and thinking, "What if this cart dings a car as it rolls away in the strong Nebraska winds? Or what about the poor little cart collector who will have to chase that cart all over the parking lot in the subzero temperatures?" It's hard to justify the 30 seconds one saves by not taking it back, when you think, golden rule style, of other people for just a couple of moments.

I think, however, that we're dealing with a societal epidemic. Even though I seem to be suggesting it is class related in the example I give above, it isn't. That same line of thinking applies to people who drive as if they are the only person on the road. People who go through a clearly red light when turning just because they don't want to wait through another light cycle, causing the people who have patiently waited their turn going the other direction to wait a little longer as the usurper goes through. These are people who talk loudly in movies, almost as if to challenge someone to tell them to be quiet. These are people who stop in the middle of a narrow aisle in a grocery or department store, blocking people from the merchandise in that area while they gab for minutes with a friend without seeming to notice the nuisance this causes to the people around them. And on and on and on.

What worries me is that kids see their parents doing this, acting this way, running the red light, not putting the shopping cart away, showing no sign of recognition of the feelings or needs of the people around them, and they assume it's okay. They assume that it's normal to act that way, and they perpetuate the behaviors until good manners and common decency are all but bred out of our society. These days you can hardly fault a kid (even though I still find myself becoming annoyed when it happens) for rude behavior (especially when a parent is present) because it seems that they truly don't know any better.

This is a problem that unites racial and socioeconomic groups into one, inconsiderate bunch. It doesn't seem to matter what background a person comes from, rudeness permeates society.

I am not Emily Post. As we've already established, I'm not even that nice of a person. But I do try to live by the golden rule. I put my cart away. I try to drive keeping the safety of others in mind. I may not be volunteering at a soup kitchen, but I will meet the gaze of a person holding the door for me and say thank you. I will seek to find ways to be decent to my other fellow human beings. Small things do matter.

Let's make our bible school teachers happy and start living by the golden rule. We'll all be happier, the bird will be flipped less often, and cart collectors everywhere will thank you.

What does this say about me?

2005-11-29T09:58:00.000-06:00

I'm a fidelity-loving kind of girl. Not a serial dater, or a serial cheater. I'm a person who values trust, honesty, virtue. I don't have a lot of sympathy for the "player" type of guy or girl. In real life, that is.

On soaps, on the other hand, the long-standing, perfect, twu wuv couples drive me nuts. I find myself rooting for the plot-device temptress to steal the hero away from his just-married bliss. It's boring to watch two people be perfect for each other day after day. It's far more entertaining when they mix it up, throw obstacles in the way of happiness, hold a little information back so that it can be used to separate an otherwise "unseparateable" couple.

In the interest of full disclosure, and because I've basically admitted to an extreme case of "shallow-itis" already, I record three soaps everyday on my DVR. I've watched As the Word Turns and Guiding Light for years. I recently added General Hospital to the mix. (And that doesn't even cover the soaps I have a pretty good working knowledge of, the ones I catch from time to time).

I love a good drama. And I can appreciate soaps for what they are: mindless, fun and diversionary. I don' t like it when they tackle "issues." (They aren't meant to be deep, and I don't like it when they feign to be). I like them best when they are high on melodrama, teeming with scandal and letting the love of a good woman redeem the otherwise unredeemable. Unlike some soap watchers, I realize it isn't real, there really isn't a Port Charles or an Oakdale and that the choices these people make don't hurt or help people in the real world.

On General Hospital right now we have a couple, Jax and Courtney, who just got married this summer (which in soap time could possibly have been 1994, as things seem to fly by or go slow at the will of the writers), and are already separating due to their inability to get pregnant and then their inability to withstand the pressures of hiring and supporting a surrogate to carry their baby (a surrogate, by the way, who used her own egg in this process, which just seems implausible and wrong on so many levels. . . but it is, after all, a soap and not real. . . so I'll follow my own advice and suspend disbelief). Suddenly, Courtney was thrown into the path of a male character (Nikolas Cassadine, a Russian prince who lives in Port Charles, New York. Yeah. And whose wife was raped by his doppelganger [and she can't get over it. How dare she.] while Nik was in prison for allegedly killing his evil grandmother who tried to kill his young bride earlier. I know!) constantly and they shared "woe is me" stories and laughed and understood each other and convinced each other that their spouses were wrong for them and they were right for each other and BOOM, two marriages, not even a year old in one case and barely two months old in the other, were over.

And I loved it. Isn't that horrible? I loved the furtive glances and the crying and scandal and hurt feelings. I didn't even think twice about it. I loved that they were mixing it up. It didn't have to make sense. It was just good drama.

In so many ways it feels like this is what my father warned me about when he said that TV and movies would "numb" me to the sins of the world. That things like cheating on a spouse or lying or any of the other preached against sins would start to seem "okay" if I watched them enough and accepted them as the actions of someone I was rooting for.

I understand this logic, and I see where those who use it are coming from. But at the same time, as I take stock of my current beliefs and core values, I find that I still think cheating is wrong, I still don't think lying and stealing are okay past times. I won't be any more likely to marry someone and two months later run off with a Russian prince when my husband and I can't conceive. If anything, it reinforces the idiocy of poor choices and the negative consequences associated with them. It's just fun to watch it all happen. What do you think?

TV show obsessions are meant to be shared

2005-11-23T16:12:00.000-06:00

It's frustrating to like a TV show when no one else watches it. There's no one to call up the next day and say "Can you believe they did that?" or to invite over for the season premiere or finale. Watching TV shows with like-minded friends is one of life's greatest pleasures. So to love one that no one else seems to be able to jump on the bandwagon about (or has gotten around to jumping on the band wagon about) is difficult.

Take Veronica Mars. Why more people aren't watching Veronica Mars is a great mystery to me. It has everything a good TV show should---intrigue, humor, tragedy, cultural relevance, pretty people, good music---and yet no one I know is into it. It is on UPN. And until recently, unavailable (at least as far as I'm aware) in Lincoln, Nebraska. (And even now that it is available it's on channel 110.) It's also on at the same time as Lost, another show with a cult following that grabs huge ratings.

However, last night my friend (and maybe yours) Scott agreed to begin the indoctrinization process for Veronica Mars viewership. He seemed to like it, laughed in the places I think are funny and seemed to appreciate the various "reveals" the show throws at the viewer. It wasn't until he was sitting on my couch watching the show with me that I realized how validating it can be to share that type of experience with someone.

While it's no Veronica Mars, I got very into TBS reruns of Dawson's Creek about a year ago. I hadn't really kept up with the show while it was on TV the first time around, so the reruns were basically all new to me. I half-forced another friend to sit and watch an episode with me just to have someone to share in the Dawson Leery hate and the Joey Potter/Pacey Witter love. This friend (and maybe yours) Jacque took up the DC obsession and also set her DVR to record it during the day. She came over one Sunday and we watched an entire season of DC to catch her up on some of what she'd missed. (Yes, grown ups with decent jobs and relatively normal social lives, spent an entire day watching a somewhat cheesy and deeply flawed WB drama and loved it!) We would sometimes call each other after a particularly disturbing Dawson Leery scene and talk for extended periods of time about how much we loathed the idea of Dawson as hero of the show. While I probably would have enjoyed the occasional DC episode without Jacque's dedicated involvement, it was far more fun to have a partner in embarrassment and obsession.

So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Scott takes up the Veronica Mars cross and is willing to share enjoyment of it. (I don't want to scare him away from it, however. So Scott, if you are reading this, I promise you don't have to spend an entire Sunday watching it with me, and we don't have to talk about it on the phone. Pinky swear). It's just more fun that way.

Oh, and by the way, if you've not gone to www.televisionwithoutpity.com, you should. Until someone does take up my Veronica Mars obsession I enjoy reading the witty commentary by the TWoP writers. I discovered that Web site during the DC phase, and thoroughly enjoyed their archived recaps of the Dawson's Creek episodes. (I highly recommend them to anyone with Dawson Leery issues.)

In Defense of Being Shallow (the television edition)

2005-11-21T17:47:00.000-06:00

A quick way to get me to walk away from a new conversation (or at least to mentally check out of it) is to hear the words "I don't really watch a lot of TV." That statement is usually accompanied by a look of slight disdain and a turning up of the nose and an air of moral superiority. It rarely means the person doesn't have time to watch TV, because I've found that if you want to watch TV, you always have the time. And I've also found that people who don't have a lot of free time for TV watching, but would if they did, rarely go on and on about it at parties or on first dates or other occasions of awkward and weird getting-to-know-you conversation.

The people who "don't really watch a lot of TV" usually have a pretty significant judgment about the people who do. TV watching to them is usually equated with the death of civilization, or at the very least, a significant reduction in brain cells. They think we all have better things we could be doing or should be doing with our time than watching TV.

It's hard to argue with them, because in theory they are right. (In theory communism is also a great idea, too . . . but that doesn't make it practical.) I'm sure there is a young girl I could be a "big sister" to, or an organization that could use my volunteer hours in some way. And I'm certainly not knocking people who selflessly give their free time to "causes". (Clearly I carry some guilt about not being one of those people, or I wouldn't even bother writing this, would I?)

But this is what I know. At the end of a long day I know how I need to spend my time in order to get through another long day tomorrow. And I don't think there's any shame in going home to retrieve the soap operas off my DVR and curling up with a good melodrama to wash away the stress of the day. I don't think there's anything wrong with looking forward to Lost or getting giddy thinking about the newest episode of Veronica Mars. Call me shallow, and many do, but the escape of watching other people's problems (even if they're fake and made up for my enjoyment) crafted into engaging television is my favorite part of the day.

And just like I don't turn my nose up when someone mentions that they volunteer at the library or go to a Bible study or attend poetry readings with their free time, I'd appreciate a little reciprocal kindness in regard to my "hobby." I don't want to have to whisper about it anymore like it's a cocaine habit. I don't want to have to ferret out fellow TV addicts with secret knocks and code words anymore. In the past few years I've "outed" a number of closeted TV lovers, grateful to finally have someone else to talk about their favorite soap or comedy or reality TV show with.

Shallow may not save the world, but it just may save my job and my sanity. I doubt I will be receiving any lifetime achievement awards for my dedication to Arrested Development, but that's okay. So stop treating me like I have some sort of disease. You have your time wasters, and I have mine. Just because you don't do it doesn't make it wrong. And just because so called "intellectuals" don't encourage it, doesn't make it stupid.