Dear Sisterella –
Can I just begin by saying how ready I am for Kelly Clarkson to take a break from the YOU GO GIRL! single female empowerment ballads? We get it, we get it! You’re single and it’s AWESOME! You don’t need a MAN! That break up made you STRONGER! You’re INDEPENDENT! Cliché much, Kelly? Your voice is above this. Or is it? I don’t even remember / care anymore. A self-respecting artist creates one over-played-but-absurdly sad song after another, (like Adele), makes the world uncontrollably weep (and the world’s husband change the station in the car, because even he realizes that some songs are just “way too sad”) and moves on. I seriously can’t take one more “you don’t know a thing about me” from her. No, we do… we know at least one or two things about you now, trust me.
Oooh, remember how I hate actors and celebrities? (Except for Tom Hanks. He’s just so friggin likable!) But yes, even the ones I like, I really just hate on a lower level. (I know God wants us to love everyone – I KNOW - this one’s gonna be on the “My dear child, I need to have a talk with you” list when I get to the pearly gates.) It’s just so hard to respect, much less love, people who (mostly) without college educations, and via paths that contribute in precisely ZERO ways to the well-being of other humans, make grotesque amounts of money, then proceed to spend it all on themselves. If a cardiac surgeon made $20 million every time he operated on someone’s heart, got his picture plastered on millions of magazines and websites, and inspired kids to be just like him, I’d be totally cool with it. But don’t even get me started on the fine “art” of acting, much less reality “stars.”
Thanks to our friend Shay, I was recently watching an interview with Jon Hamm (of Mad Men fame, y’all!) and… wait, I totally lost my train of thought. It was a funny interview… he said some witty stuff. Ah, heck, it’ll come to me. Why was I even picking on him? Hm… suffice it to say, he’s on the LOWEST level of actor hate. Yes, because he’s funny... and extremely handsome. (I’m not a robot, people!) Oh!... ok, it’s actually Jessica Simpson, whose status as a “fashion mogul” sent me down this dark path. I was watching “Fashion Star” (I have zero self-control and can’t resist) and was VERY puzzled that she’s one of the mentors on the panel of experts (WOW, so many of those words deserve quotation marks, that I can only push shift+’ so many times. “Mentor”… Really?!) so I turned to the ol’ Google for some research. Apparently, her “brand” is worth… are you ready… a BILLION dollars. BILLION! This Jessica Simpson, who has no discernible talents, and who for the majority of her tenure as a celeb has been known for having TERRIBLE fashion sense (and a creepy dad – another story), has a BILLION DOLLAR fashion line. Meanwhile, physicians spend 40,000 hours (forty thousand!) training and with an average of $300,000 of debt before they start practicing. It’s not hard to see why so many kids think becoming “famous” is a viable career goal, and it makes me CRAZY! Rant over. And Jon Hamm, I’m sorry I dragged your handsome, “cartoon pilot” face (I love you Tina Fey!) into this.
OK, remember how I cry about everything? And you do too? And so do all non-psycho people who have children? It all started after Evan was born, and it got kicked up a notch with the preview I saw ONCE for that Ben Affleck movie where he loses his corporate job and struggles to find his identity. Man, I cried at the THOUGHT of that commercial, like four times. So, I saw the SADDEST commercial the other day. (BTW, why is it always commercials? I think the advent of DVR has caused advertisers to have to step up their game and get viewers to watch and not forward.) It should be noted that I saw said commercial without volume, because I had headphones on while Brett watched tv.
Anyway, so in the commercial there is a family with a sweet little girl, and there are a series of things that lead the audience to believe she MAY have a terminal illness. Ok? You following me? Like, her parents are looking at ex-rays and reports and stuff and she’s like 5 and wears adorable glasses and is laughing and playing with NO IDEA, and they keep giving her those “trying to suppress deep, deep sadness” smiles. They hold her hand and they hold each other’s hands like “we are in this together” and other incredibly sad gestures. Then they take her to the hospital, and she takes off her shoes and gives her mom her favorite stuffed animal to hold, while she slowly lays down and goes through the MRI machine. She’s being so brave, Sisee. Then it shows the doctor with her parents, serious looks on everyone’s faces, pointing to the images of her lungs, and suddenly… they all smile BIG smiles of relief. She’s ok! She’s not dying! They’re so happy! And I’m so happy! Thank you so much… SIEMENS MRI MACHINE….?! The commercial is for the MRI machine. Yes. No, I’m not lying, it is. First of all, I thought the little girl was… I can’t even write it. It’s so sad, the thought of losing a child, I feel like it’s wrong to say the words. Seriously, too heartbreaking to even imagine. You know what’s NOT sad, though? Siemens MRI machines. I want to strongly-worded-letter-punch those guys in the face for sending me into near-hysterics with their inappropriately sad commercial. Really, guys?! Why was it necessary to be THAT sad? I assume MRI machines cost hundreds of thousands of dollars – (Oh!... Google just informed me the average cost is between $1-3 MILLION DOLLARS!)… clearly, I’m not the target audience for purchasing one. Is a hospital exec gonna be watching tv one night and see the super sad commercial and suddenly decide to order one? I don’t get it. Man. Sad! OK, I have to find the commercial on Youtube, and you can tell me if it’s indeed a tear-jerker, or if I should consider a prescription for some “happy pills.” (Which a friend once called “Mommy’s little helper” – haha!)
As a sidenote, the whole time I was writing that paragraph, Brett had been alternately flipping channels between It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, making it more or less like trying to read Jane Austen while a crazy clown dances around you. Not an easy feat.
Sad story part 2: 50/50. The movie called 50/50, that is. My beloved husband brought it home to “cheer” me up last week, on a day when I’d had a looooong day with the boys. A very sweet gesture.
I was like: “Um… isn’t this the movie about a guy who finds out he has a FIFTY FIFTY chance of surviving cancer?”
Brett: “Oh, is it?”
Me: “I think so, yeah.”
Brett: “Yeaaaaaah… I realized that on the way home, but it’s supposed to be a comedy, so he probably won’t die.”
Me: “No, it’s supposed to be one of those poignant sad comedies, where you laugh at a bunch of funny stuff, then get SUPER sad, cuz… you know… he dies of cancer.”
Brett: “How do you know?”
Me: “I just heard, thas’all.”
Me: “I think so, yeah.”
Brett: “Yeaaaaaah… I realized that on the way home, but it’s supposed to be a comedy, so he probably won’t die.”
Me: “No, it’s supposed to be one of those poignant sad comedies, where you laugh at a bunch of funny stuff, then get SUPER sad, cuz… you know… he dies of cancer.”
Brett: “How do you know?”
Me: “I just heard, thas’all.”
So we started watching it, and the whole time I was just fighting back tears at the thought of adorable what’s his name dying. So I stopped watching half-way through. I can’t. I won’t. Moral of the story: you get sad a lot more about stuff after you have kids. So annoying.
Sisee, today the boys were wrestling on the couch, and when I paid closer attention to make sure they weren’t getting hurt, I noticed they were really just aggressive cuddling! It was brotherly love, in the form of tumble-hugs and occasional kisses. So sweet! Boys can be so loving and cuddly. Alec especially, makes kitty cat noises and plops himself sideways into my lap, all the time. Poor Evan, who is more “independent” shall we say, was watching tv one afternoon, and I saw Alec shimmy up to him trying to get his attention with some cutesy meow-like noises. Realizing that Evan wasn’t interested, he finally settled for just sitting quietly as close to Evan as possible without sitting on him, facing backwards, then gently leaning on him cheek-to-cheek. And seeing as how it wasn’t really obstructing his view of the tv, Evan just let him sit like that for like 2-3 minutes, left-cheeks pressed together. Cutest thing ever. I love those boys so much. I tried to reenact it for Brett, and I couldn’t stop giggling!
Sisee, today the boys were wrestling on the couch, and when I paid closer attention to make sure they weren’t getting hurt, I noticed they were really just aggressive cuddling! It was brotherly love, in the form of tumble-hugs and occasional kisses. So sweet! Boys can be so loving and cuddly. Alec especially, makes kitty cat noises and plops himself sideways into my lap, all the time. Poor Evan, who is more “independent” shall we say, was watching tv one afternoon, and I saw Alec shimmy up to him trying to get his attention with some cutesy meow-like noises. Realizing that Evan wasn’t interested, he finally settled for just sitting quietly as close to Evan as possible without sitting on him, facing backwards, then gently leaning on him cheek-to-cheek. And seeing as how it wasn’t really obstructing his view of the tv, Evan just let him sit like that for like 2-3 minutes, left-cheeks pressed together. Cutest thing ever. I love those boys so much. I tried to reenact it for Brett, and I couldn’t stop giggling!
Alright sis, gotta go. Um… you ever gonna write back, or no more Sisees?? Love ya anyway. Give my niece and her bouncy curls a big smooch!
Xoxo
Ava
