You know, that America’s Next Top Model show sucked me right in. It was not as sexy as The Mole last year, with silver fox Anderson Cooper (who might make me start watching CNN again, just so I can drool over his little sardonic smirks and cerulean blue eyes), but even so, I was completely fascinated. Perhaps because I still harbor the assumption that the beautiful people have it much easier. And according to this show, they don’t. They have to have the hair pulled out of their crotches. They have to walk around. They have to go to Paris. PARIS! And they cry. They cry and it is dramatic and their mascara runs. Poor wittle models. Or modems, as Robyn mysteriously called herself at one point. Ok, so it wasn’t entirely easy. They did have to endure the spector that is Janice Dickensen, who answers the question ‘What if the Joker and Phyllis Diller had a child?’ They had to listen to Tyra Banks, with her two thousand inch forehead, say ‘Congratulations, you are still in the running to become America’s Next Top Model’ every time Kimora Simmons (she of the bullfrog neck) pulled the string in Tyra’s back, to which Janice would respond that she was the FIRST EVER Supermodel. The First. Janice. Whose eyebrows meet in the back of her head.
Esteban, who had purposely stayed at work until 9 so that he’d not have to sit through the show and then I unveiled the fact that I specifically waited until after 9 so that I could watch the episode on the Tivo sans commercials ( Aha! Foiled by Ricky Fitts!), immediately got sucked in as well when he learned that we’d find out the winner at the end of the show. He had the audacity to compliment Shannon, the uber-blonde big-teethed spawn of Christy Brinkley.
‘She has a nice voice. Sort of like Demi Moore.’
‘Aah’ how could you? She’s got big teeth.
‘So?’
‘And a rictus grin. Like a ventriloquist dummy. And no figure. At all. She’s not very good. In fact&AO8AvwC9AO8AvwC9-
‘What does that have to do with liking her voice?’
I was a bit embarrassed at my own self. Once girls have decided that we’re supporting one girl (or two, in this case), it would show disloyalty to make all but the most grudging concessions toward their competitors in private. Oh, in public, we’ll tell the interloper that she’s pretty, that she looks really good in that dress, that we love her shoes and where did she get them, but in private? Out comes the machete, baby, there will be no mercy. Women are wolverines and I doubt that we even realize it sometimes. We will defend our tribe to the death but anyone else? We’ll set our sites on their fatal flaw and then lock and load, baby, because things are going to get ugly.
And maybe that’s the big gender difference right there. Men will get into a fist fight but be laughing through their bloody noses and buy each other a beer. Men can stay friends even after their best friend sleeps with their wife. Women? Hell hath no fury like a woman who has been called a heifer behind her back.
Gender roles are interesting. Little girls and little boys play differently in same sex groups. Little boys have games which are all about establishing a pecking order. There’s a reason that dodge ball is not a favorite at Girl Scout Camp. Girls are uncomfortable with anything that puts one girl above another. In fact, adult women don’t even want to take credit for successfully raising children, modestly claiming that their tribe deserves all of the glory.
So yeah, I was sitting there sniffling like some pansy when lock-jawed rocker grrl Adrienne won over the Skipper Grows Up doll. I think Esteban got a little teary as well, but he started fumbling with his back scratcher as a distraction.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked, as he twirled it around like a baton.
‘Playing with the back scratcher.’
‘Are you pretending that it’s a sword?’
‘No’ I’m just spinning it.’
‘Like’ a baton!?!?’ I snarked, preparing the stage to make a majorette slam.
‘No’. Ok, ok, it’s a PENIS. Ok? Are you satisfied, Dr. Freud? Huh?’
I probably think about things too much. No wonder men think girls are insane.
I’m a bit distraught however with how to spend my few hours of television watching time. There’s no Buffy, no ANTM. I can almost recite every episode of Friends and I just can’t bear another season of Big Brother. I might actually have to read or something.
For those of you who are playing the Dumber Than A Box Of Rocks home version, my No Sugar/No Flour thing isn’t going so well. I’m working uber long hours this week and I totally overslept yesterday, waking up less than an hour before I needed to be sitting at my desk. Thus, I got a full-blown Mocha for breakfast. I know. Sugar. Chocolate. Bad. The whole thing threw me into a carb spiral for the rest of the day and all I could think about were Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cups. This morning, I swore that I was going to get up with my alarm, which I did, but then I relocated to the living room sofa where I rested my eyes for an hour and a half. And had a Diet Coke on the way to work. And it was like sinking into the arms of a former lover. A lover who gave you the best wake-up kisses in the world that made you curl your toes. A lover who knows just the right… ah… yes… ohh… oh yeah…. mmmmmm.
Diets are so damned hard. But tomorrow? I think I’m going to envision Janice Dickensen screaming at me ‘You have a bulbous ass! You’re not going to make it in this business. You might as well get a job in a factory!’ and thus I shall refrain from the heady siren that is caffeine.
Maybe.
Unless I oversleep again.
Or am groggy. Or thirsty. Or’ something.
I’m such a fucking pansy.
