Cruel Sun

You know, and I hate to say this, I give Ryan Seacrest a lot of credit. The dude works his ass off at … whatever it is he’s doing. How does one go about deciding that as a career, they’d like to be Dick Clark …ish? That reminds me of some Southern cousins of mine who live in a tiny town in rural South Carolina — the youngest one, Jessie, asked me about public relations and journalism at the behest of her father, and told me quite sincerely that while PR vaguely interested her, her calling was to be an MTV veejay. And she was so … HOPEFUL about it, like she really believed her champagne wishes and caviar dreams could come true. And worse, I think she’s a waitress now.

We swore off American Idol this year, and for a little while, were so smug about our lack of Idolness. Friends and family would discuss and have the SAME CONVERSATIONS we had year after year — honestly, you could swap out “Mandisa” for any one of this year’s underrated talents, and you might as well be in 2006 — and we would sit quietly, content in our obnoxious smugness because we didn’t get sucked in this year, no sirree.

Er, I watched the full two hours tonight. And it’s on, bitches. And I feel like I failed some kind of social experiment, and Chris Hansen is going to come out with his hidden cameras at any time, asking condescendingly, “Could you not HELP yourself?”

No. I couldn’t.

Anyway, of all the things that have spooked me since moving to Vermont from Florida, I have to tell you, I remain shocked that the weather isn’t one of them. Granted, I haven’t endured MONTHS AND MONTHS of eye-poking winter and endless hours of scraping the car windshield until your doohickey breaks (ours did yesterday), and those days where you just want to go SOMEWHERE, but Jesus, it’s a mess out there, so why bother? But I would venture to say it has more to do with what I left than what I came into.

Sunshine isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I know! That sounds absurd! But as a friend of mine from my last job so eloquently put it, say you had your favorite food for dinner whenever you wanted it — nay, you HAD to have it for dinner as long as someone told you to — for me, that’s creme brulee. Creme brulee for dinner would be AWESOME the first night. And probably the second. And the third. Oh hell, the first two weeks. But by the third week, you’re a little bored, but feeling guilty, because dude, it’s CREME BRULEE, am I some kind of ASSHOLE? And then by the fourth week, OH MY GOD I HATE CREME BRULEE. Can’t I have some brussels sprouts, for God’s sake? I need FIBER up in this piece to survive!

That’s what an endless string of 80 degree days does to you. You don’t CARE anymore. Yay, it’s sunny! WHO CARES. IT’S SUNNY ALL THE TIME. Honestly, I didn’t notice the weather. Ever. People would be all, it’s a beautiful day! And I’d be all, NO ONE CARES. YOU JUST DESCRIBED EVERY DAY. (At least until the rainy hurricane season)

It was sunny and warmish today. And for the first time in a really long time, I appreciated it. Really!

Have a great Wednesday!

*Rusted Root

19 comments March 11th, 2008