Laughing All The Way

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Insane Clown Posse of Orange County

There is a difference between being self-aware and self-absorbed. I know, this all seems so very basic, except for the fact that so many people get them confused.

The endless diatribe about being an open sounding board and blah blah blah, when the resounding truth is that people are rarely being honest when they claim sympathy or empathy. You are not walking in someone else’s shoes and even if you were there, the response and take away from any given situation is always unique. My sister and I grew up in the same house and being a year and a half apart in age a general assumption is that she and I had similar experiences. We had a collective experience, but our take aways were entirely different. In the past we would get high and share our respective memories of certain times in our family’s past.

Hearing our stories from the outside, most people would refuse to believe that we were at the same place at the same time.

Today, my early morning was occupied by watching “The Real Housewives of Orange County.” It’s like a train-wreck. I can’t help but watch with gruesome fascination. Not your typical American family, but then what is typical these days? Listening to these women speak about money, life, love, and family in varying degrees of self-delusional myopia makes me shudder with fear and excitement. One woman says that she has been dating the love of her life for the past six month, especially since they’ve conducted a practical world tour in those six months. I wonder what the four ex-husbands of this woman would say. I am sure they were each the respective love of her life.

Another speaks of how she’s a MILF and she finds that charming. Notably, there is no footage of any of her son’s friends actually proclaiming her to be said MILF, just the interview footage of the woman speaking of herself in such terms. Nice.

There is the 24 year old wannabe starlet shacking up with the 40-ish single dad in a light-bulb relationship (on again/off again). In the first season there were the epic relationship battles. Season II sees them back on, but not fully engaged and she’s looking at moving to LA. Of course she wants to move to LA, not that she wants to be famous or anything, she just, like you know, wants to be young and party, and stuff.

I don’t object to these people based on their personalities, if anything that’s what I respect about them. What I can’t stand is knowing the truth of Orange County. The fancy cars are leased and houses are re-mortgaged to the hilt. Housing prices are shockingly reasonable due to the fact that they aren’t all that close to LA and there is a whole lot more space there than in certain other places in California. All accounts of residents from Orange County, the five women picked to represent the millions of families that live within gated communities in America, indicate that these women are really just trashy steps down.

In one of the most recent episodes one of the “housewives” sits down to lunch with a friend and comments about how bad she feels because she can’t help but remember the time when this friend was watching the “housewife’s” children for a week and the friend’s house flooded and was entirely ruined. In her next breath, the “housewife” asked if her friend liked her necklace because it cost $15,000. Okay, new money and all, but really, kind of cuntish of her.

And in respect to the term “housewife”, most of these women were mothers, but only one was a true housewife. In fact, most of these women were considerable money makers, or the sole money makers, in their families. I respect any woman (or man, I’m down with the times) that stands up and says they are a housewife. Being home all day is an achievement, trust me, this is something I learned these past three months.

What really is driven home by this show is that once you put someone on camera they morph from self-aware to self-absorbed (there is a dynamic shift from Season I to Season II, with one of the first season participants fleeing Orange County after her attitude caused a skirmish wherein her husband punched another woman in the face. TWICE). And I can’t get enough of it. Maybe one day I will have children of my own, wealth of my own, a house of my own, or maybe not. All I know is that I am taking lessons from these women on how not to be a fake bitch with not even the loosest grasp on reality.

About the insomnia, still not sleeping normally. I have an appointment with a Dr. in a few weeks. Hopefully there will be drugs dispensed at that time and sleep will commence with regularity.