My relationship with the cable crackpipe, better known as Bravo, has turned me into an actual, real live pathetic unemployed 30-year old loser. Since I hated my old job and was in desperate need of a fresh start, being 30 and unemployed isn't what I'm really worried about - it's the fact that I'm on my way to becoming a sad Bravo special myself. A Real Unemployed Loser of Long Island.
Seriously guys, it's so sad. Before, when I had a hellish job to escape, I had an active social life filled with productive wonderfulness -- comedy writing, performing, hanging out with friends after work, even going a full week without even turning on the TV. And if I did happen to turn on Bravo on the weekend, I prided myself on not watching any of the Real Housewives series. "Top Chef"? Totally. "Project Runway" (before it went to Lifetime)? Definitely. Even "Shear Genius." Shows that actually required talent to compete and win. Though I'm still not feeling "Work of Art." Sorry. My shallow, feeble mind can't wrap its head around a competition based on something that is 100% subjective. I like art and artists, but I can't handle pretentious assholes. And also, I feel way too bad for Miles, the guy with OCD who is shown yawning through entire episodes. Ugh, you make a guy with OCD do a challenge with a pile of garbage??? Mean. Just mean.
But these freaking Housewives. I swore I'd never watch them. I don't think I watched a single episode until I lost my job and had all this time on my hands. Why would I watch a bunch of women to whom I can't relate and who are on TV for no apparent reason? I don't care about their lives, and I'm sitting on my lazy, out-of-work ass while these wealthy women are just on TV, being. They're just existing, and I'm watching them. Constantly. I'm also just existing these days, just for a lot less money. For no money, actually. And here I am, the biggest sucker of them all, actually becoming invested in this manufactured human "drama" that will in no way ever affect the course of my life. (Though Bethenny Frankel has some nice recipes on her site. And Dina Manzo does actual, real life good. Can we be friends? Of course not. I don't know them.)
How did I get to this point? This point at which I would kill to have dinner with the Manzos (but not play the Ham Game), get drunk with Ramona Singer and Sonja Morgan (but take a cab), and ask Luann de Lesseps if her nose is real because if it's fake, it's the best nose job ever, and I'm not being sarcastic? These women couldn't give a rat's ass about me, and I shouldn't give one about them. Maybe I just need an excuse to get out of the house. But I've been smoking this insane reality ganj for weeks now and it's gonna take the jaws of life to pry me away, even as Danielle Staub and Kelly Killoren Bensimon become more and more uncomfortable to watch.
I have to digress on that, because I can't believe I'm watching these two women act like this on television. It could all be editing, it could be partially real, but it is bloody badterribleawful to watch these anthropological studies in psychotic behavior on what's supposed to be a harmless TV show. Seriously, someone get Kelly on the meds she needs and someone put Danielle in an institution. SHIT -- now she's gonna get her scrappy little mob after me because she's either going to read into this and say I threatened to kill her or find a hidden message like "Danielle is the walrus and she clouded up the sky with diamonds." Then she'll say, "Oh, diamonds!...Wait a minute -- Jamie Frevele wants to kill me!" And Kelly will show up and convince everyone that Johnnie Cochran rose from the grave to prosecute Systematic Bullies after she calls said bullies "ho-bags." Whatever, Kelly. Satchels of gold.
Oh my god, I realized that this is exactly what happens when I smoke weed -- I don't really get high in the fun way that others do, I just kind of float along a downward spiral inside my head and realize there's nothing interesting to be found. And then I get thirsty. I'm a much more fun drunk anyway.
I'd like to blame Andy Cohen for all of this, but I don't have to watch TV if I don't want to. Andy Cohen isn't even the one who made me care. This is all my doing. But I swear, once the Jersey season is over, we are done. Meh, probably not. Where's the pinot grigio?