We all need a clown to make us laugh

I'm generally an entertainment snob. Sure, there are the occasional Adam Sandler movies (Billy Madison is freaking brilliant) and funny voices and midget wrestling that appeal to my basest need to giggle, but for the most part, I'm fairly discerning. Smitty refers to it somewhat like this: "Oh, it wasn't nominated for an Oscar? Then Emily won't watch it," which is not really fair, I'm not that snobby, but you get the idea. Brief sidebar: How excited am I about the new "Planet of the Apes" movie? James Franco AND monkeys bent on destroying the world, but only because the world deserves it...it's like Hollywood created a movie based on a focus group of me. Add in Yoda voices, Al Gore as the President and the utter annihilation of anyone named Kardashian, Lohan, and Rush Limbaugh, and it's heaven on earth.

Nonetheless, with all this taste of mine, lately I've been glued to TruTV's reality shows like "Hardcore Pawn," "South Beach Towing," and "Repo Games." I partially blame this on the utter lack of good summer TV and for God's sake, don't tell me to read or enrich my life. I read a lot, and I'm enriched adequately. Trust me. All of these shows are visual showcases of human misery, and I am somewhat ashamed for watching them, but I am unable to stop.

If you're not familiar, basically they all represent rock bottom in some form or another. I saw a guy trying to pawn/sell a penis ring  (who would want that, I ask), a woman who sold jewelry to replace the money she was given for bills that she lost gambling, only to go gambling again, a woman who left her poor dog in an illegally parked vehicle inside a duffel bag for TWO hours and then was stunned she couldn't get him back, rival tow truck drivers engage in fisticuffs....do you get the idea? It's horrible; I wish these shows didn't exist, so I wouldn't be drawn to them, but they do...and I am..

I look at it like this:
A. I feel much, much better about my station in life when I see this behavior.
B. In the current economy, as outlandish as some of this behavior is, we can all somewhat relate (except to the dog woman, she should be locked in a car with a bag thrown over her for two hours in the Miami heat).
C. It's just plain entertaining to witness others engage publicly in ways we would never, ever imagine actually doing, but have perhaps envisioned in a Walter Mitty-esque kind of way.
and
D. Some people just act like complete ass clowns when money comes into play. I adore money, but I'm not going to yell expletives at someone because they don't want to buy the earrings I bought at Claire's Accessories for $100. It's just common sense.

My 34th birthday looms like the guy in "The Crow," which I watched part of last night, which is not a movie I would recommend watching before bedtime. I guess when it came out, I was in high school, and it was very cool to be deep and tortured, but that movie is seriously depressing..but has an excellent soundtrack. Thirty-four...my parents had two kids by the time they were 34, not realizing that the best was yet to come..(ME). I don't feel 34, I don't think I look 34, but damn...34..I feel the need to adopt some Malawian puppies or live in India for 6 months or maybe just clean my car out and dye my hair. All of those things currently sound exhausting.

I have arthritis in my finger? Yesterday, I cut off my Barbie's hair and colored it with a Magic Marker. 
Nightly I think about losing my remaining parent or my love having a cardiac arrest in his sleep, and I drift away to dream of recess and tennis matches and the time I was the Queen of Hearts in a parade.

I won a spelling bee and now can barely remember you have to be desperate to 'pe(e)' to remember the difference between words, and speaking of 'pe(e), I have to interrupt what used to be a constant slumber to assault my eyes with pre-dawn fluorescent light and curse the existence of soda and tea.

But my skin is clear and elastic; when I pinch my hand, it snaps back like a rubber band, not like my grandfather's used to gather and take its time to return to its position atop the bones. I can't be old. I can still stand on my head for five minutes straight. I'll show you if you want to see.

-- me, 2011