oprah

and, today, some i-have-too-much-time-on-my-hands thoughts on oprah.

i watched the season premiere of oprah. you know, where everyone gets to go australia. whee! what lucky, lucky folks.

and, then, the next day on oprah, wynonna judd! wheee...? she's a great singer, with a hot sister and mom issues and a skeevy ex-husband. which makes for plenty to talk about, but wynonna judd is no trip to australia, my friends.

which got me thinking about oprah's audience. one day, everyone gets a car and a recording contract. the next day, the world's most inspirational dog. really. once there was this dog that only had two legs, and the pound wanted to put the dog down, and a family stepped up and took the dog in and NO ONE IS GOING ON VACATION.

i ask you: does this seem fair?

top chef

i'm currently unemployed (or, "retired," if you will), and instead of socializing with, dating, or in any way relating to my peers, i've been watching a lot of television. in my defense, people on television are generally better looking and better scripted than actual mississippians.

last week was the top chef finale. i love top chef. i especially love when william and i watch entire seasons of top chef while having a mcdonalds picnic, but we are sadly separated by an ocean at present. but i digress.

in my many, many free hours that i spend watching television, i come up with ideas to make it better. so, here's my advice for top chef. the first season was hosted by katie lee joel, then trophy wife of billy joel, who may or may not be a robot. in the second season, she was replaced by padma lakmishi, who was married to salman rushdie.

padma's been the host ever since, but i think the bravo network missed out on a great hook: each season is hosted by some old dude's trophy wife. you could even host for mulitple seasons, as long as you remain trophy-wifed. as soon as you get divorced, sorry, new host.

of course, if you got divorced and traded up, then you could keep your job. like if katie lee joel had become katie lee springsteen.

living in a foreign country can turn you into the worst possible version of yourself.

right now i am back in america: visiting with my family, hitting up the sturgis south biker rally, eating fattening foods, trying to determine which city's housewives are the real-ist. i'm going with new jersey, mostly because they are the housewives i fear the most.

(side note: it turns out that when one is actually sober enough to walk around the sturgis south biker rally, it ends up being a little bit like every other outdoor happening in mississippi. sunburned people who have no business being shirtless eating funnel cake and drinking beer at 11am. but maybe with a tad more racism.)

amongst the many things that i miss in korea (kimchi, my girls, being able to afford stuff), i really miss being able to talk about strangers with impunity. yes, i understand that makes me a bad person. you see how polite and civilized you are when there's a 97.8% chance that no one else on the subway will understand what you're saying.

a while ago my good chingu william and i were walking in downtown daegu when a poorly dressed woman ran into traffic.

william: she just tried to kill herself!
me: oh, god, look at her shoes!
william: look at her hair!
me: it's like she's already dead.

just can't do that in america.

the first and second ammendments

let me begin by saying that i may never forgive the media for making me re-think my stance on gun owners. i do not like being wrong.

also, i do not like guns. i think guns are terrible, awful things. guns are the only things in the world that exsist solely to take life. sure, you can kill someone with a knife, but you can also slice bread or spread peanut butter. can't slice bread with a gun. i guess you could make some fairly leaden bread crumbs, but that's another story.

i've, like every other person with a television and eyes, been watching the controversy over the islamic center in new york unfold. and i don't understand the big deal. the first ammendment says that everyone has the right to practice the religion they choose. so, you know, case closed.

which got me thinking about the second ammendment. which says that people can own guns. i don't really care for this ammendment. i like the ammendments that let me vote and make my classmates not slaves, but i just don't think people need guns. oh, if only that were how the constitution worked!

plus, if we're being honest, it's not really the guns i have trouble with. i don't like the people who like guns. in my mind, people who like guns are this guy or these guys .

here's what i've come to understand: i don't have to like gun owners. don't have to invite them into my house or meet them for drinks or swap bread crumb recipies. but i do have to respect that the constitution gives them the right to buy guns and sell guns and keep guns in their homes. and the people who want to buy guns and sell guns and keep guns in their homes are only asking to do something the constitution promises them the right to do.

you don't have to like what a person does, and you don't have to like what a person believes, but until someone shoots up a school or crashes a plane, he isn't a criminal. he isn't evil, and he isn't out to destroy your way of life. he's just doing what the single greatest document ever written affords him the right to do.

nostalgia

i'm going home soon, which has me thinking about all of the things i like at home.

i grew up in a dry county - no cold beer, liquor store closes at ten, last call is midnight. i hear vague rumors that my county is getting less dry, but i'll believe it when i see it. when i was little, sometimes on a sunday, my dad and i would drive out to the crossroads in his old beater truck to get a six pack of cold PBR (for him) and a grape slush puppie (for me). those are, honestly, some of the very happiest memories of my life.

the last time i was home my dad and i went out to columbus, the next town over, for some sunday beers. on our way we passed the latest addition to the crossroads: The Pony. the pony may be the skeeviest strip club ever. outside the pony is a huge metal statue of (natch) a pony. with a raging boner. the pony boner. a poner, if you will. during the daytime hours, the poner is covered with a neon pink thong. imagine that being your job: time to go put the thong on the poner, steve!

that, in a nutshell, is small town mississippi. if you're laughing, then you understand why i miss it.

what i love #3 - procrastination

and i'm not just saying that because right now i'm at work not working. i truly, deeply love procrastinating. i love the feeling of knowing whatever i am doing is not the wisest, most sensible choice. i remember, in university, the feeling that would overtake me the night before a final exam, of being equal parts so very deeply screwed and so excited about organizing my huge collection of magazines (#4 - magazines).

right now i should be editing the kindy monthly objectives for my school. but i am blogging. awesome.

right here, right now

i wish that all of you reading this, all of you who aren't in korea anyway, could experience just five minutes of living in a world cup-crazed country perched on the brink of war. because, when the air raid siren goes off, small soccer-mad children just run around screaming "vuvuzela!" makes it kind of hard to be terrified.