Confession of a Guilty Pleasure.....

i have to admit: i frequent the celebrity gossip sites. and by 'frequent,' i mean i look at them for updates whenever i am on the computer for any browsing length of time. and i apologize to humanity for this. i know it is wrong. i know it is trashy. i know i am part of the problem that these sites feed. i am adding fuel to the flame of unhealthy fascination with voyeuristic superficialities. but i have excused my behavior for several reasons (keep in mind they will be rambling ones).....

in a lot of ways, i feel sorry for those individuals who are plagued by paparazzi. the ones who aren't addicted to the attention. i guess i feel sorry in a different way for those who are. i am creating a market for that attention. additionally, if i rationally think of the concept of sneaking peeks at these gossipy photos and blogs, it turns my stomach. it would be something i would decisively oppose based on the concept alone. i have a friend (she used to be a much closer friend, now i should categorize her as a distant acquaintance as the years have passed) with whom i was hospitalized a few years back (eating disorder) that moved to Los Angeles about the time that my life started over, approximately 3-ish years ago. she was from kansas, but she met her future husband and they moved to LA shortly thereafter. for a couple of years after our long hospitalization together, we talked on various instant messengers very often, and were close. this kind of subsided around that time, and i reconnected with her only to hear she was moving west and planning a wedding etc. and of course i was thrilled for her. she had been in recovery for much longer than i had (i had only weeks under my belt, she had much longer so she had been a big support for me). long story long, she has lived in LA the duration of the time that my life has been wonderful--coming up on 3 years. she quit whatever communications job she had out there to pursue modeling and acting. i rooted for her, but IMMEDIATELY was terrified for her to even be in that sort of a social setting muchless pursue that career avenue. i haven't talked to her at length for probably a year, except to check on her. she is struggling very badly with E.D. and has been for quite some time.

all this being said, i am fervent about my distaste for that kind of a society and what a fungus it creates and how it hurts people. heck, i don't even ever want to watch big budget movies because of the implications. i always want to seek out the quirky artsy low budget/indie ones. so i have long since tried to analyze my fascination with the above mentioned fungus.

years back (during the same college years as the hospitalizations i touched on), i had dialup internet. my guilty pleasure (yet i am defensive of it because i had FEW trivial pleasures at the time) was looking at people.com at the picture slideshows of the gowns at awards ceremonies and fashion police-esque kind of things. i would never even glance at those magazines in the checkout aisle at walmart, yet i looked at them online. it was really enjoyable for me, in a distinctly GIRLY way. i have always had psychological qualms with not feeling like i was adequate in this department since i didn't have a lot of girlfriends all through school and whatnot. so i indulged, and sat and waited for minutes at a time for these pictures to load!

through the years, i have had trouble settling my mind. i definitely could never read back then. i could hardly watch tv and be at peace. so something calm and distracting and yet interesting to me was very valued. and it still is. in the three years since i have been happy and healthy and started my life over, i have instyle.com, people.com, perezhilton.com all bookmarked. truthfully? the boomark is entitled: "gossip crap/guilty pleasure". for real. and i am ashamed, but defensive at the same time i guess. i detest how popular they have become. i tend to intellectualize the whole thing, but i just have some sort of human, maybe even primal, urge to engage in gossip. and i do think it is very human.

speaking of theorizing (and i'm not trying to excuse the behavior, just understand it), i have kind of a funny theory that parallels a theory i have of my sweetness wes. he loves crime shows. he loves watching bios of serial killers. i'm using the word LOVE here. and it doesn't creep me out (although i have a hard time watching them myself) but it is hilarious for me to think of back when i first met him---he told me he liked watching these things, plus he is quiet, plus he is book-ish/intelligent-----it's a wonder i didn't think HE was a serial killer. but that is a different subject for a different and comical blog. getting to the point here: i think his strange enjoyment of this kind of subject matter is similar to mine with the gossip sites. it's sort of an ambulance-chasing kind of a thing (pardon the annoying cliche). although, i know myself and my morality and my uber-idealism and i can't believe i have this guilty pleasure and it seems like it should be an antithesis to all that i am.

hold the phone, serial killer bios and crime stories aren't exactly wes' "thesis" either. so i suppose it is an entirely human (nonetheless complex as HECK) issue.

i used to have a lot of vices. and things i did ritually to hurt myself. hurt myself deeply. SO, while it is not simply OK for me to posess this vice, i'm going to let it stick around. i apologize.

did i mention i no longer drink coffee? i have switched to decaf ONLY for my health, after so many years of THAT vice. and i couldn't be more proud of myself. COULDN'T BE.

i best be going, i have even more golden globe gowns to examine ;P