THE CONSPIRACY THEORY

THE CONSPIRACY THEORY

Oh, Kim Richards.  She’s kind of a living and breathing version of that creaky wooden rocking chair that sits on the porch of that nice madwoman who lives down the street, the one who maybe keeps a family of four chained in her basement. Like that chair, Kim’s sort of falling apart. Someone once tried to mend her with a little bit of spit and some scotch tape, but she will undoubtedly cause pain to whomever foolishly chooses to straddle her.  Still–splinters aside–I’d rather spend fucking eternity sprawled across that chair than ever be stuck in the same time zone as one of the vilest Housewives of them all.

Now sure, I understand that Kim Richards is an addict. I also understand that the only reason she appears on this show at all anymore is for a paycheck.  I suppose I used to feel kind of badly for her that her options were so limited that she was forced to pimp out her own questionable sobriety for profit, but the reality is that she’s such a lying and deflecting asshole that I have lost any and all empathy I ever pretended to have. I officially can no longer stand the sight of the woman.  I hate her oddly shaped eyes and how they squint and glare wildly at anyone who has figured out her very obvious truths.  I hate her bony fingers, the ones she likes to point in the faces of women who have decided not to believe a single thing this shell of a former human being says anymore.  I hate the rickety voice she uses to spew out lies before begging for mercy from people who had no idea what they were getting into when they casually agreed to climb into the back of a limo with her.  I hate that she still has the audacity to pretend that she and her family have been terribly wounded by people saying aloud that she started drinking again and that she never even considers blaming herself for all of it since – obviously – her actions spurred the stories and the pain.  But most of all, I hate that the appearance of Kim Richards means that she was never really just a terrible figment of my imagination like I’d convinced myself she was and I really hate how her presence makes me feel something that resembles sympathy for her long-suffering sister, Kyle, a preening specimen constructed primarily out of hair and ego.

STASSI RISING

STASSI RISING

Is there an exact date on record in the annals of history of the first time someone answered the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" with simply the word, "Famous"? Did that person just shrug dismissively when someone brave questioned whether or not he or she actually had any talent that might beckon fame in the future? And if we journeyed back in time and snipped that shrugger’s vocal cords and also maybe hired a sniper, would Vanderpump Rules even exist?

I think one of the things that infuriates me the most about this show is that so few of its participants appear to have any goals other than achieving some level of generic infamy. I mean, sure –you can argue that Sandoval's got a band and Schwartz is a model and Katie (who has never once worn an item of clothing I have coveted) has a style blog, but what do the rest of them want to do besides strip off their dignity season after season while cameras point and aim and shoot?  What is Jax’s long-term plan for his career and personal happiness?  Ready to laugh?  I recently heard that our favorite felon opened (or will be opening) a restaurant of his very own.  Riddle me this:  would anyone who has ever watched this show actually consume food prepared in an establishment that was started by one of the ooziest guys who has ever appeared on television?  How might one sterilize a dumpling?  Then there’s Kristen.  She claims to want to be an actress, one who is best known for her dramatic roles.   But here’s the undeniable caveat:  after being inside of this loon’s dreary apartment and watching her tell random strangers to “Suck a dick” and knowing that she proclaims to her bedroom mirror, “I’m 5’9” and I’m spectacular!” on a daily basis, can anyone even pretend to buy her as an authentically sane person or really believe her in any role other than Scorned Psychopath?

(I’d toss James into this little exercise too – you know, just for giggles – but the guy has already announced to the masses that he’s the white Kanye West. When it comes to this English weenie, I figure that I don’t even need to lift a fucking finger anymore.  The guy is just that ridiculous; all I have to do is record what he says and then walk away because this dude has become my living embodiment of a human mic drop.)

 

THE EMAIL

THE EMAIL

It occurred to me recently that there are entire stores dedicated to helping human beings try to outsmart dogs.  Seriously, walk into Petco or whatever establishment wants to charge you money for rawhide and just wander around for a while.  There are aisles and aisles filled with products and, regardless of their lovely packaging, the subtext for most of them is TAKE BACK CONTROL FROM THE ANIMAL YOU ALLOW TO LIVE IN YOUR HOUSE AND SLEEP IN YOUR BED, THE ONE YOU INSIST UPON DRESSING IN SWEATERS OR IN A NICE FLEECE WHEN IT GETS CHILLY. I was at one of those stores last month for the third time in one week and I stood looking for a moment at the array of items in my cart that I'd soon pay for and then lug home:

There was a plastic square designed to hold a wee wee pad in place.  I needed this item so my dog might stop ripping her pad to shreds before swan-diving into the pile of crumpled wee wee pad she created in what I think was an attempt to fashion a plusher fluff pad than the one I'd so lovingly provided.

There were sprays of all kinds. One was to stop her from peeing everywhere. One was to cover up the smell of pee when Plan A went to hell. And one was flavored bitter apple and it was designed to stop her from nibbling on my moldings, which my former dog used to wander by without ever showing the slightest interest.

I had two plush toys with tags attached that claimed the toys were demolition-proof. My puppy demolished all of the moose and half of the chicken in two days flat.

She kept knocking over the dishes in her crate, so I found hooks that promised to hang the bowls permanently. Those worked. I also found her a pretty sweater that she happily romped around in for a while before removing it herself because apparently she spends the time I'm at work practicing to be a stripper.

"How's it going with Tallulah?" a friend of mine asked today.

"She's the sweetest dog in the world," I responded with a smile, "but she's having a hard time with some of the commands I'm trying to teach her."

"Which ones?" he asked.

"You know – just sit, stay, and come."

I bought and read three training manuals. I spent twenty minutes trying to decide which training treats to buy. I debated the merits of chicken vs. bacon. I purchased a leash the "experts" recommended for teaching commands.

My dog sits when she feels like it.

What I've realized is that training anything is really fucking hard, especially when you're doing it during the same months you've decided to cut bread out of your life. The benefits my sweet puppy brings to my life far outweigh the difficult moments, but it's not easy and it's made exponentially worse when you realize you've one again been bested by an animal that weighs 4.4 pounds and that means her brain is only, what, half a pound? I think I just always assumed my larger brain would prevail when it came to which one of us would outsmart one another and prove ultimately victorious. I was sadly mistaken.  

The thing is, I know I have to train Tallulah now. I've listened to all the random adages I've heard over the years! I know it's the journey that's important and that success is 90% perspiration. I also know that it's almost impossible to teach old dogs new tricks and that lesson has led me to start thinking about our dear Housewives. What kind of tricks would I attempt to teach them if they were my pets – and more importantly, what kind of dog would each of them be?

Lisa Rinna looks very much like a cute Yorkie I once knew, so I've decided that's her spirit pup. As for what I'd teach her, it might be nice if she learned how to stop over-apologizing for things she really shouldn’t feel so badly for doing.  Of course, should she piss in the corner of my bedroom in dog form, I'd like her to apologize for a day and a half straight. 

Eileen is clearly an Afghan. I'd brush her daily. And while I have no idea about the mathematical capability of hounds, I'd instruct her to take over the financials of her household because all of these references to Vince's gambling this season have started to worry me.

 

THE DECLINE OF FRIENDSHIPS...AND WHITE KANYE WEST...AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION IN GENERAL

THE DECLINE OF FRIENDSHIPS...AND WHITE KANYE WEST...AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION IN GENERAL

 

I think the dew is off the flower.

This is a real thing my gorgeous best friend said to me two nights ago when she discovered a line near the corner of her eye that she swears didn't used to be there.

Please, I told her. I've named the wrinkle on my forehead after the person I know gave it to me. I say "good morning" to it.

The truth is that both of us look fine. Sure, the passage of years means that we've changed, but she is still beautiful and here’s some proof: whenever my ex-whatever used to hear me say her name, he'd state happily, "That’s the one I like." He said it every time – and he never really liked too many people and, well, let's just say that he's slightly more critical of aesthetics than Anna Wintour, so I think it's safe to say that yes, my best friend is very pretty. Anyway, that night – after laughing hysterically over her dewy flower comment – we started talking about the weird and winding roads we once walked (and sometimes crawled) down that led us to become friends all those years ago. It’s funny:  I don't remember actually meeting her, but I do remember the two of us becoming real friends in a quick progression, as often was the case during those hurried college days before the concern about forever colored things, before my wariness about getting too close spiked sky-high.

Once upon a time, there were ten of us and we were really close and we stayed that way for about a decade. Even after we no longer lived in the same house or on the same street, we made it a point to get together frequently. Of those other nine girls, I can pinpoint the exact moment when I met six of them.  Many of my finest stories from those years involve them playing major roles. We shared private jokes that, even after they were told a thousand times, stayed somehow funny to us and for a very long time I knew almost everything about those girls and they knew just as much about me.

Certain memories stick out:

One of them collected every tissue and wad of toilet paper in the known vicinity and handed it all to me in a tragic clump when I found out that one of my top graduate schools had rejected me.

One of them used to take off her socks when I felt down because she knew the sight of her oddly shaped toes – they looked like water towers! – made me inexplicably smile.

But there’s also this:

One of them still has my grey Delaware hoodie and I miss that hoodie more than the person who stole it.

We had a good run, the ten of us together.  But at a certain point the group splintered. To me, it felt like a natural thing and a part of me always expected it would happen because some long-distance friendships don't last. I held no animosity for the girls I no longer considered my friends and I truly wished them all well.  And I had no desire to engage in the bitter war of words a few were waging for no good reason at all during the aftermath.  It all eventually broke down for real when one of the people who has remained my friend emailed everyone to say that she was fucking sick and tired of showing up to showers and weddings and birthdays to celebrate the major moments in the lives of a group of people who never once asked anymore about her life.  All she wanted was reciprocity and an acknowledgment of some sort that these people had become bad friends, but that’s not what she got.  No, these people – who for a few years there never once asked her how her career was going or how she felt after she moved to the city – all of a sudden had a shit-ton of things to say and all of it was defensive and not one of them ever apologized.  There were long emails that could have been turned into lengthy scrolls on which some girls swallowed any complicity they might have chosen to recognize and instead threw up the kind of bitter verbal bile that even smells accusatory.  Not one seemed willing to harness any self-awareness in order to say, “Hmm, this person doesn’t usually send me this kind of hurt and angry email.  I wonder if perhaps I contributed to her feeling this way…?”  As for me, I often asked her how her career was going, so I wasn’t part of her intended audience and I didn’t know what the result would be from a group of people I already felt distant from, but whatever my guess would have been, I’d have been wrong.  I watched with total puzzlement as the interactions grew ugly and it really surprised me.  I never expected such fury!  What was the point?  Did any of them really expect that ten of us would continue to walk into bars together until we turned sixty? Had they never before grown apart from somebody?  Why were they taking the loss of a friendship they didn’t care enough to nurture so hard? Was there no way to simply bid adieu to half of a group of friends and revel in the fact that now there were fewer people around who knew what we all looked like before we’d discovered waxing?  Would nobody even consider looking on the bright side?     

And since we’re on the subject of splintering friendships that are actually broken beyond repair, I tuned in to the season premiere of Girls Sunday night and watched as a Marnie the Bride surrounded herself with a group of bridesmaids who hate her.  They do not hate her because she’s getting married; they hate her because she sucks and the four of them have nothing in common anymore because it’s hard to find real friendships that can be sustained beyond the purview of college convenience.  And sure, recognizing the limits of a friendship can be disappointing – startling even – but sometimes it’s just best to move on and to do so before everything falls to shit and you can no longer recall a single thing you once appreciated about that person you once called a friend.

My experiences might not be universal, but one thing I have found is that some friendships are not fully linear.  There can be a period of time that passes with nothing but silence and then a connection somehow transpires and the relationship reforms with new common ground, one that is now supported by the foundation of history.  Just this last summer, I found myself reconnecting with someone who had once been one of my closest friends and we each waded back in gently but with a smile.  She asked me to meet up for lunch and I took care with my outfit like I was heading out on a second date with a guy I might really like.  The second I saw her, I realized three things:  1) she looks exactly the same 2) she picked out her clothing carefully, too 3) it was like no time had gone by.  We did not rehash any of the old animosity because there was no anger anymore.  Time had taken the sting out of anything we’d ever done to one another, and I left that lunch with a big grin on my face and feeling like I had just made a new friend who I wouldn’t have to take so much time to explain my history to because she already knows it. 

Over lunch she suggested that all ten of us should get together again.  I have no problem with that prospect, but I can’t say I’ve actively missed some of those people and I cannot imagine that they are losing any sleep missing me either.  I mean, I’d probably do it just out of curiosity and to see if those old jokes still land funny, but I wouldn’t harbor any hope that we’d end up becoming a group like we once were.  Also, I know off the top of my head someone who would rather set herself on fire than be in any room with some of those people, and while I share none of her still-raging acrimony, I can see her point. 

Some friendships simply should not be rekindled once they have finally been laid to rest.  There are just events some people cannot get over, incidents that once crackled too loudly to pretend there could ever be a peaceful silence in the present.  That said, I am living proof that a former friendship can be rebuilt if you are both able to harness a quiet forgiveness that doesn’t need to be continually explored or rehashed because all of that is just fucking exhausting.  I also know this:  probably one of the best ways to avoid having to repeatedly have unpleasant conversations you don’t want to engage in is to stay the fuck off a reality show because yammering away about past conflicts so they can remain present conflicts is clearly part of the job. 

And speaking of our Vanderpumpers, what have we learned about them so far this season?  We know that Stassi became so lost that she was willing to believe that she found a safe harbor on a lunatic’s couch and that she desperately wants to be friends with people she used to loudly decree were beneath her.  We know that Sandoval spoke for ten minutes straight about why he didn’t want Kristen to come to Hawaii – he told her all of the reasons directly to her face and in alphabetical order – and this crazy woman still walked away from the conversation by randomly announcing, “Congratulations, Ariana – you win.”  We know that Ariana, of course, continues to win just because she’s not Kristen.  We know Katie and Schwartz are heading into a passionless marriage and that he doesn’t ever want to sell sangria.  We know that there’s clearly a fierce battle going down between Jax and James to determine which of them is awful enough that science should jump on in here and make at least one of them extinct.  But perhaps the thing any of us watching with at least one eye knows best is that these people probably wouldn’t be friends with one another anymore if not for this show.  It’s too messy now and, even if they all reconcile, they will end up on a two-part reunion where every single thing that hurt each one of them will be discussed ad nauseam and that kind of miserable retreading is not what typically leads to closeness between people who sort of want to maul one another. 

Since we've still got a ways to go before the reunion, there's more of a mess yet to be made and we begin this week's emotional pigsty in a lingerie store that allows cameras and hands out champagne you must suck through a straw. Scheana has set up the whole shindig in an effort to reconnect with Ariana and she’s gonna let Katie watch as it happens.  Also, Scheana once heard from Jax that girls trying on lingerie in a group setting is a complex fantasy some guys harbor and, knowing that it might not work out with Shay in the long-run, Scheana would like to keep herself attractive to all men so she can have herself some options. As for Ariana, Scheana misses her and she can't imagine why Ariana isn’t there for her, especially after she made sure to continue to invite Ariana’s nemesis out for drinks even after that nemesis continued to imagine aloud the very best ways for Ariana to be killed. Still, if anything can bond women it's trying on garter belts together and the whole excursion might have been a success if Ariana didn't bitch about every bra she strapped to her body. Katie walks out with some new stuff and she also lets us know that she and Schwartz have still not had sex and I wish I'd formed a bracket at this point so we could all place bets on how long this newly-engaged couple will go before one of them explodes.

On another stressful note, Stassi has been texting Katie but Katie is still not interested in making amends with someone who so ingloriously ditched her. It's not going any better for the guys in their little group. Ariana tells Katie and Scheana that Jax flipped the fuck out on Sandoval last night but Scheana is quick to correct her and to blame Sandoval for the mess because that's exactly what you're supposed to do while you're trying to win back a friend and the lingerie shopping didn't work and she hates you anyway.

Speaking of hatred, the next scene is all about James and the single greatest accomplishment of his life. Yes, I too thought it would be his tank top collection, but in fact it's a Pump complication CD! So just how talented is James? Well, let's allow him to tell us! "I don't mean to be conceited," says this ridiculous human specimen that needs to be studied quickly. "But I'm the white Kanye West." That can't possibly be a statement that'll come back to haunt him, right? (Ten bucks says he copyrights that sentence and starts putting it on tee shirts.) I think what James means here is that, just like Real Kanye, he too is easily 50% more influential than any person – living or dead – on planet Earth and in a totally unrelated note, is there an ETA for when a civilization is ready to start on Jupiter because I think I need to move to a planet where people refrain from saying such idiotic things.  As for our White Kanye, he's working in the studio on his masterpiece when Lisa comes by to check on the status of the project because she's the one who is financing this little operation. James tells her that his song with Lala might not make it on the CD cause bitches be crazy.  He also lets her know that he’s been making the very intelligent choice to miss Kristen. Shaking her head at his nonsense, Lisa tells him to stay away from negative influences – like alcohol and his ex-girlfriend – and James thanks her for her advice with an odd glint in his eyes that is so weirdly cold that it almost caused me to shiver. 

There's something very off to me about young James.

In an office across town, Schwartz and Sandoval sit together in a waiting room. It's a rough day for Schwartz. Sandoval is getting his tattoo removed so they will no longer be ass tattoo buds and it’s sad when something real ends. I'm not taking it too badly, though. I think these two will be married to one another in less than a decade and I'm already happy for them. But before I can purchase them some flatware, Ariana calls to tell Sandoval that Jax – age 36 – claims that the reason he lost his mind the other night and formulated sentences like, "I'm the most popular one!" was all because Sandoval wanted to talk about his band. The entire fight between these two is so silly and there's no time to focus on any of it because we're about to see Sandoval’s ass tattoo get removed with a device that looks like it was developed in a medieval torture chamber. 

In an IKEA-and-Pier-1-decorated torture chamber across town, Stassi is starting to feel right at home getting trashed on Kristen's couch during the daytime.  She's even able to offer her benefactor some support! Kristen, who is known mostly for her dramatic roles, is involved in a comedy project (besides Vanderpump Rules) and she's a bit nervous about it, but the subject almost immediately gets changed to Stassi’s obsession with Katie, a girl who seems to have somehow morphed from Dullest Vanderpumper Ever into Queen Bee of a hive I’d guess is rather sticky. Stassi doesn't know what to do because Katie won't talk to her, but Kristen has an idea! She will drag Katie to Palm Springs and shove her unknowingly into a room with her former best friend and she will hope for the best and she says this like it's actually a very good and sane idea. Stassi, who is clearly losing her mind due to what I hope is some undiscovered form of Stockholm Syndrome, hops on board with the “Blindside Her Into Listening To My Apology” plan and then she and Kristen sit side by side on a couch and lament the loss of friendships they didn’t seem to appreciate in the first place.

In yet another waiting room, Brittany is filling out medical forms for her breast enhancement while her miserable boyfriend tells her that he's unhappy in all areas of his life. He feels like he's falling back into bad habits and he doesn’t want that for himself so he tries to be a little more mature right then and there and he accomplishes such a feat by fondling some silicon in the doctor’s office, saying "boobs" several times in a row, and purchasing his new girlfriend some new tits.

Who says bad habits can't be broken? 

As for those new breasts, Jax all but peer pressures his girlfriend (who might not ever become President of MENSA) into believing that yes, she totally wants to be a D cup, and the two of them giggle once the decision is made and I sort of hope that her new cleavage crushes one of them during the night.

Two people who probably should be in a doctor’s office are Scheana and Shay, but they are at home where they’re having another conversation about his drinking issues and her mothering issues and, listen, these are major issues – true problems – and now it seems that Shay has some other problems too. The guy is thirty and has no career and no prospects but he does have a new video game. One day he would like to teach and coach, he says. But looking at these two? That day seems very hard to imagine.

In a happier space, Ariana rubs lotion on her boyfriend's tender heiny and then Jax enters and the mood grows dark. He's there to help remove the couch on which he once nailed Sandoval’s girlfriend while Sandoval’s slept blissfully oblivious in the next room. Now, I'm not sure how great it would be for the environment to burn Naugahyde, but I think the thing should be destroyed forever and we can maybe risk a minor biohazard to rid the world of that stained sofa. While moving the furniture, Jax decides to keep the change he finds beneath the cushions so maybe he can also purchase Brittany some brand new nipples as well. The peace between the three of them does not last.  Outside, Sandoval and Ariana confront Jax about his crazy behavior and he reacts by crazily screaming and yelling and pointing fingers and deciding that it's Ariana who is escalating the situation and I really wanted him to walk down the street muttering, "Congratulations, Ariana – you win," but I guess some dreams don’t come true.

Now it's the day of Brittany’s surgery and Jax, backwards baseball hat and all, is positively giddy about the gigantic boobs heading his way. The surgeon begins the procedure by saying, "Let's rock and roll," and Jax compares his girlfriend's swollen chest to a 70" TV – evidentially not a flat screen – and then enters the recovery room by calling her "Boobs McGhee."

I swear that I no longer think this guy is real.

Over at SUR, Lala chats with Peter about how she's now reading Ayn Rand because she's had the time to allow philosophy into her life after cutting James loose. Peter's got some good gossip about the guy the planet at large will eventually name Earth’s Best DJ – so long as all the other DJs have gone missing first. Seems James and Richardson, Lisa's head guy at Pump, got into a spat that might or might not have started after James decided to drunkenly profess his love for Kristen. Apparently, James told Richardson that the guy is below him and he tossed several other class-related insults the guy's way. Upon hearing this information, Lisa is appalled and I hope that we'll get to watch him be fired in slow motion after which he'll ride off on a Pegasus into the animated heavens just like the Real Kanye’s mother did during his fashion show/album release/most recent pubic mental breakdown.

Back home and sore, Brittany needs Jax's help and he's not really a guy so accustomed to helping, but since new tits are part of the equation, he summons up all the kindness he can muster. She requires assistance bathing and changing and peeing and all I can think when I look at her is that she's only been here for a few months and her boyfriend has already been arrested and she's already had some surgery. Katie and Schwartz stop by next and they let Jax and Brittany know that they're having a party at the beach while they take their engagement photos and Lala will be there because Katie wants to stop the invitation fatwa they've been randomly waging against one another. Schwartz is kind of dreading taking the engagement photos for reasons I don't fully understand and this is maybe the most grumpy engaged couple I've seen since that girl I know got engaged to that gay guy.

On the beach, the happy couple meets up with Sandoval, Ariana, Shay and Scheana. Why there's a crowd gathered to watch them take engagement photos confuses me, as does the fact that anyone feels the need to make sure that other people know that Jax's account of things might not be totally accurate since he's a fucking pathological liar. Still, it takes Sandoval explaining things slowly to Scheana for her to finally understand that Jax is the asshole in the latest scenario, not him. And then the asshole arrives and he really wants to hear a story about someone who might be a bigger moron than he is, so Scheana puts on her Mother Goose outfit and tells Jax The Tale of James. The story goes that James wandered into work at Pump already drunk and insulted everyone in his eyeline and now he has to answer for his actions. The guy he verbally abused will be there as Lisa tries to get to the bottom of the guy’s latest fuck up. She knows he's going to be a ball of warped contrition – that he will beg her for another shot – and that's just what he does. He tells her the Lure of Kristen made him behave badly and he’s sorry the night became a complete fiasco. In another language, Lisa implores Richardson to reveal just what it was James said to him that night and it turns out to have been some form of, "You're nothing and I'm James Kennedy," making the White Kanye slightly less grandiose in his assertions of self-mastery than Real Kanye. As for Lisa, she wants James to understand that those are the kind of words he speaks when he's drunk and that he's maybe not cut out to work at Pump.  In response, James rolls his eyes and begs for just a suspension and Lisa tells him to go away and grow the fuck up. His response is to cry and to ask about his Pump CD and then fold his arms across his chest when it’s revealed that the greatest DJ in the land has been demoted to being a busboy.

That sound you hear in the distance is Kanye West weeping about how he’s now the planet’s sole genius.

At a party she was finally invited to, Lala feeds right in to Jax's blatant instigation when he asks her where James is and how he can possibly be involved with someone new when he was just shouting about his love for Kristen from the gutters. Desperately needing a friend because of that time she was ostracized in the third grade, Lala happily agrees that James sucks before the conversation changes to Kristin and how she brought a new guy to her comedy showcase where she made sure to tongue him in front of cameras just in case Sandoval stumbled across the footage. But Ariana could care less about the new guy in her stalker's life. What she wants to concentrate on here is how Kristen is pretending that she knows anything about sketch comedy when that bitch hasn't even taken a motherfucking class and nobody  takes sketch comedy more seriously than Ariana and that must be why people always seem to have such a joyful time in her presence. Nobody laughs anymore, though, after Katie tells Ariana that she's being really gloomy right now and Ariana responds by saying that she's been pretending to enjoy Katie and Scheana's company for about a year. There's a beat of silence that tends to follow the truth and one is taken here as well and into that silence bounds James. He has shown up with some girl named Laurel, but Lala has vowed not to break and allow jealousy over this idiot to consume her.  She glares at James who in turn glares at Kristen who is staring out into the abyss and wondering how long it will take for the tides to sweep Ariana away forever and this is what I'm talking about: there is zero reason for so many adults who dislike one another so severely to ever be in the same space and these people just keep thrusting themselves back into these questionable scenarios in an attempt to revisit relationships that are brimming to the rusty rim with toxins and they are getting fucking paid to do it. 

Proving once again that he is a garbage person, Jax immediately sits down with Kristen to tell her that Ariana was talking major shit about her and her new mastery of sketch comedy. See, Jax once accidentally stumbled into a Psychology 101 class after he stole a beer cozy from a campus bookstore and, harnessing his impressive education, he now has a plan. In an effort to redirect all of the problems he's caused with Sandoval, he will instead blame Ariana for riling him up and to prove that Ariana is nuts, he will have Kristen attack her in public so Ariana can lash out and prove her total lack of stability in the process.

I didn't say it was a good plan.

Nothing makes Kristen happier than the thought that Ariana hates her because that must mean that Ariana perceives her as a threat! But while she alleges that therapy has made her far less confrontational, the thought of verbally bitch-slapping her until Ariana eats sand gets her all tingly. (Guess ignoring the issue is just out of the question. Did therapy not cover that strategy?) They all start screaming at one another and it comes out quickly that Jax and Scheana have been talking about Ariana a lot ("It's because you're negative," explains the crazy lady. "If you can just be positive and be normal...") and see, that's when I would have gotten up and either calmly stated, "Fuck this" and removed my microphone and walked away into the sunset or ripped every stringy hair out of Kristen’s head and made a dreamcatcher out of it that I would hang over the bed where I happily slept with the bitch’s ex-boyfriend.

As for why she's so close to people who used to abhor her, Kristen wants Sandoval to know it's because she has learned to own her shit and Ariana and Sandoval stare at her kind of blankly when she says that, but I think it's because they're just scared and I sort of don't blame them because Kristen is so delusional that she has become a genuinely terrifying presence.

On another section of the beach, Jax laments to Peter about how there must be something wrong with him to be this age and still be so screwed up. He is not proud of himself for a lot of his actions and he wonders if there is "something wrong upstairs" because he is fueled by a mindset in which he needs other people to be talking about him or it means something is wrong. Maybe the guy has a narcissism disorder. Could be that he's a common sociopath. Perhaps he's just a jerk. Whatever it is, with an interior monologue like the one he’s got running through his brain, a reality show is either the perfect place for him to exist or the very thing that might eventually drive him legitimately mad.

Do I believe that Jax feels badly about the problems he’s caused for himself and for others?  Sure.  Do I think that anything will ever change?  Not in a zillion years.  But on the plus side, I have discovered that watching Vanderpump Rules can be both an edifying and soothing experience.  I have learned that there is no limit to the damage former friends can inflict upon one another and I look back now at the people who are no longer in my life and I forgive every single one of them.  Not one ever slapped me across the face or recommended that I puff up my tits.  As far as I know, not one ever slept with my boyfriend on a couch I paid for or told me that she faked enjoying my company and what all this means is that I have officially decided to just move on.  I even forgive the girl who stole my hoodie!

Fucking bygones, am I right?

Nell Kalter teaches Film and Media at a school in New York.  She is the author of the books THAT YEAR and STUDENT, both available on amazon.com in paperback and for your Kindle.

 

 

LESSONS I NEVER WANTED TO LEARN

LESSONS I NEVER WANTED TO LEARN

I sat in my car today as the light outside grew more and more dim and what was left of the sun disappeared so quickly that I kept checking the time on the dashboard.

Is it supposed to be this dark this soon?

I’d set up a late afternoon appointment with my accountant and I was, as is my longstanding custom, incredibly early. Technically I suppose I was actually very late since our meeting was to have taken place two days ago, but my clenching uterus was apparently at war with whichever organ wanted to casually exist beside it and I was in the shower when the pain hit. I grabbed tightly onto the glass of the shower door and tried to steady myself. I was sopping wet and conditioner was combed through my hair when I was rendered motionless. Really: I was doubled over in agony. Thoughts like should I call an ambulance were running through my head like a bad song, but I could also hear a faded melody that tried to remind me to just breathe through it and that sound came from someplace else, a tucked away area of light that I knew I'd see again. 

Anyway, through a blinding stab of physical misery that eventually subsided, I sent my accountant an email and rescheduled our appointment for today. I like my accountant very much. He's professional and he's pretty warm for a man who plays with numbers all day long. He likes me too. Not only am I his easiest client by a landslide because I show up with a grand total of four pieces of paper when I get my taxes done, but he frequently comments about how I'm always smiling. I smile again as he says it to me today. 

I do not tell him that ten minutes before I flashed him my dimples I sat alone in my car and stared out the window and wondered what was next for me.

I do not mention as I hand over my W-2 that it was only about a month ago when someone who mattered described me as "so funny" and "ridiculously smart" and the person with whom he had the "deepest conversations about everything." When I unfold the paper on which I tallied my expenses, I do not say out loud that what that person said about me was entirely accurate and I felt the same way in return and that's maybe why it consumes me sometimes.

 

THE SCARY BARBECUE

THE SCARY BARBECUE

You know how there are certain words people just hate? The ones that always make me want to tear my ears off and then fling them across a crowded room so I'll never see them again are "moist" and "panties." Combine the two and I'll never eat solid food again. I don't know why it is that those words make me cringe, but the reaction is real and it's probably somehow related to the way they grossly they roll off the tongue and the visuals that I connect them to in my head. At any rate, there are scores of other words that make me smile. "Poodle" is my favorite word of all time and I have no answers for how that came to be. What I do know is that none of us should ever use the words "cunt" and "scary" in front of Kathryn, our newest Housewife, a woman who likes to engage in battles over linguistics in an effort to make her guests feel as uncomfortable in her home as is humanly possible.

We begin this week still in San Diego. Erika Jayne and her liberating gyrations on Pervert Night are just a thing of memory now. Over at Kathryn's San Diego house, a chef is preparing lunch for a group of people who – at best – tolerate one another for payment and – at worst – do not trust one another in the slightest. Think about the conflicts that are a ‘brewing along with the coffee the chef is currently slaving over:

Kyle doesn't like that Kathryn thinks Faye is a cunt – even though Kathryn would never ever use that word and Faye is totally a cunt. 

Kyle doesn't appreciate that Lisa Vanderpump did not decree that Kathryn should be shot after uttering negative words about Faye at their joint birthday party where everybody had to show up in costume just so they would all have something to talk about.

Lisa Vanderpump doesn't appreciate that Yolanda tossed her kids' medical records into her lap at a restaurant like she's some basic bullshit OC Housewife since we all know those ladies are a nickel a fucking dozen and Ms. Vanderpump should be anointed like she's fucking royalty.

 

 

RIDING THE FLUX CAPACITOR TO VANDERLAND

RIDING THE FLUX CAPACITOR TO VANDERLAND

I've always been kind of fascinated by the idea of time travel, but only in a theoretical and romantic kind of way because the actual science behind it makes my head hurt. I'm guessing it all started with wishing it were me getting into that DeLorean with Michael J. Fox, but then it progressed into an idea that I started to associate with second chances and who doesn't crave a few dozen of those? I know exactly the moments I'd return to and in some I'd say something different and in some I wouldn't say anything at all. Without question, all of my elective time traveling would involve me going back to the past and not hurtling forward into the future.  When it comes to the future, I just figure that I'll get there eventually.

It's probably regret mixed with the understanding that comes from retrospect that makes me daydream about getting a redo, another life, like I'm Mario trying to save the Princess. (Fun fact: when I was in the 9th grade, I could get the Princess with one life. I was in my gawky stage then. It was better for society in general that I stay indoors and I had to pass the time somehow.) Now I'd like that extra chance to go back to right some wrongs, in some cases against myself. I guess I just don't subscribe to the idea that negative experiences stem directly from fate. I think they begin with bad choices and I think I'd sleep better if I had the opportunity to correct a few. The time traveling me would be braver in some of the moments to which I returned. In others, I'd stop worrying about how I looked. I'd stay awake in a few. I'd never have entered the room in one.

Before the movie should have had a real effect on me, I loved Peggy Sue Got Married. I got shivers when Buddy Holly played over the credit sequence. I wanted to wear the silver fifties-style dress Peggy Sue wore to her prom to the mall. I managed to pretend that Nicolas Cage wasn't in the movie. And the line, "If I knew then what I know now, I'd do a lot of things differently," haunted me, even though I hadn’t lived nearly enough life yet to be haunted by anything. My biggest fear became that I would do life wrong, that the choices I would make would lead to roads I wouldn't get back from.  I became determined to at least think things through and try to meander down the right paths so course correcting would be less necessary in the future.

I'd be curious to know which moments of their lives the Vanderpump Rules cast would go back and correct, and I'd like to suggest a couple as a purely sweet gesture on my part. They don't have to take my advice; after all, it's their lives and their imaginary time travel, but if they get to a point where they're having some sort of inner conflict about deciding, maybe my ideas can push them over the edge. My perspective? Stassi should go back to that time she was in middle school so she could respond with anything but, "I want to be on a reality show!" as an answer to a question someone asked her about her long-term goals. Jax should have been severely punished for whatever was his first major offense against another person that I’m guessing the person instead allowed him to get away with, setting up a behavioral pattern that is antediluvian. Katie should have put down the orange hair dye she bought a few years ago and bought Pringles at that CVS instead. Kristen never should've broken the social media stalking seal on that long ago twilight when she first broke into her boyfriend's Myspace account and instantly memorized every feature on the face of every girl who messaged him so she knew for sure who she should scrawl on her newest hit list. And James? He should bypass his entire history and crawl back into his mother's uterus so that he can do the whole thing over again and maybe not end up a badly dressed evil troll. 

At any rate, I'm not crawling into a time machine with any of them. I call shotgun on that fucking DeLorean. They can call an Uber.

 

 

 

 

MATH I UNDERSTAND

MATH I UNDERSTAND

I've been in love 5 times. I'd say that 3 of them were truly good relationships in that they were all about equality. With those 3, I spent a lot of time with their families and they in turn spent a good deal of time with mine. There were 2 where we combined families and spent the holidays together. I thought 3 of them could potentially propose to me. The idea of such a thing terrified me with 2 of them and so excited me with the other that I kept my nails manicured for a year straight, which is not something I usually do.

The thought of being with any of them now sends me momentarily spinning to an alternate universe where I'm not entirely miserable, but I'm not entirely myself either. 

No matter if I broke up with them or they broke up with me, one of the things that always happened was I'd have to cut some music out of my life, a practice that is inconvenient to say the least and searing in its inherent agony at its very worst. It's been good music that was compromised, too. I mean, I never burst into tears when I'd hear an Ace of Base song. But it's only been about 3 years since I've reclaimed Crush by Dave Matthews after talking myself into believing that it was my song before I thought of it as our song and I needed to take it the fuck back and I'd go on a march to do it if I had to. The hardest loss was Pearl Jam. I couldn't listen to them for a good 2 years. I finally let them back in, but I haven't listened to Just Breathe for 5 years now besides that time I was at a cafe with friends and some guy was playing acoustic guitar in the corner and all of a sudden I heard the melody of the song being plucked out and my head started to shake back and forth involuntarily. On the plus side, I found out I have a superpower I never knew about before: I can go spontaneously deaf if it means not crumbling to the floor in public. The music association hasn't impacted me for a while, but that's changed a little this week with Kanye releasing new music and proclaiming his brilliance to the masses. That shit has briefly complicated things. It'll pass, though.

With 3 of the guys, I spoke about politics extensively. Of the 3, 2 of them knew what they were talking about. I miss talking politics with only 1 of them, especially this month.

I experienced a lot of firsts with all of them. First real date. First sex. First good sex. First trips. First heartbreak. First realization that I'd hurt somebody tremendously. First thoughts of forever. First Springsteen concert. First inclusion in another family's family portraits. First blistering fight. First time jet skiing. First time snow skiing. First time I drank a cappuccino. First time I drank sake. First time I wore lingerie. First time I felt comfortable wearing lingerie. First time I felt like a writer. First time I felt like I was someone's person.

THE CUNTY TEMPTRESS DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH

THE CUNTY TEMPTRESS DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH

The other night I saw God and it turns out he looks exactly like Bruce Springsteen.

I haven't completely figured out if there's a poetic meaning behind it all, but my 30th Springsteen concert was part of The River Tour, meaning he would be playing the entire iconic double album straight through before launching into another full set. I'd missed the original River Tour. I was too young to go to a show, a fact that didn't comfort me in the least when my parents and my sister left the house and promised to bring me back a tee shirt. No joke: I remember almost nothing from the earliest part of my life – and when it comes to the night I had to miss the Bruce show, I can vividly recall the name of my babysitter and that the feety pajamas I was wearing were yellow.

I still have the shirt they brought me. It fits now. I've been to many shows since and I feel nothing but blessed for all of those perfect nights, but still – the River Tour was always the one that got away. 

Then December came. Springsteen released The Ties That Bind, a collection of outtakes from The River. Soon after, he announced that he and the band were heading back on the road for a mini tour and they'd be making two stops at The Garden. Pretending for a moment that I'd actually internalized anything from that time I secretly read The Secret, I entered the date of the show in the calendar of my phone before tickets even went on sale. (I think the pretend-gurus call this action "visualization.") The thing is, I knew I'd end up with tickets somehow. If 29 concerts had taught me anything, it's that I would happily trudge through gigantic cold parking lots looking for scalpers or suck it up and just pay far too much on Stubhub to gain entrance to a cathedral where holy music was played on a black electric guitar.

It was my first stop on the Let's-See-How-Much-I'll-Pay-This-Time ride, but I didn't really expect to come away from Ticketmaster victoriously. So many times I've frozen when it's time to type in that weird computerized security code and then a terrible message pops up to coldly inform me that all the tickets are gone. I think there's also a pop-up that appears that tells me my hair looks shitty at the moment, but my devastation might just be causing momentary hallucinations. This time – for this tour – I got tickets immediately. They weren't the best seats in the place, but it was a sure thing: all these years later, I was going to hear one of my favorite albums of all time played from side to side (to side to side). It could only be better and more memory-inducing if The Garden's floor was covered in a rust shag carpet for the evening.

I can hardly remember the first song he played, so dumbstruck I was rendered the minute he walked onstage and I realized that I was in the same room as someone whose words have defined my entire life. So yeah, the first verse of Meet Me in the City is a little fuzzy, but I recovered quickly and the night was magical. It was almost a little bit bizarre – but in a beautiful, hazy way – to hear all those songs that once played on a loop in my den as I built forts with my sister. Images came rushing back like a wave and the water was warm and still. As we all went along on Bruce's River journey, I found myself going on my own memory tour and I began to understand my past just a little bit more clearly.

There's a real gratitude I feel when words someone assembled and then crafted into a sentence moves everything inside of me. I think that one of my biggest goals is to write that one line that resonates so powerfully within somebody else. It's the dream of sharing that kind of lyrical collective consciousness that I guess I find so damn interesting and during the show, I thought that dream just might come true.

I mention all this because I'm imagining the act of seeing Erika Jayne perform live brings upon the same kind of emotional peace. Sure, the guy's been famous since before I was born, but I'm pretty sure nobody's ever called Springsteen "an enigma wrapped in cash."  No, Erika Jayne is the real legend and I'm guessing that watching her hump that stage will finally convince all of us that real art does exist and I know that she will dazzle me to such a degree that I'll have the immediate desire to leave her show – while she's still singing – go home, and bedazzle everything I own.

 

PLATO'S GOT A POINT

PLATO'S GOT A POINT

A few weeks ago, I was given the mindless task of proctoring a History exam during midterms and the test took place in a classroom I've never been inside of before. See, my room's on the top floor of the school and my heels are simply way too high for any aimless wandering to take place so the truth is that there are probably a lot of places in my school I've never been. On the day of the test, I did what I needed to do: I passed out booklets and paper to kids I'd never met so they could write some essays and then the time officially started and I realized that I was expected to stare at these strangers unflinchingly for the next two hours. I got tired of looking at them after five minutes; all they were doing was writing and stopping every few minutes to shake out hands that already appeared to be cramping. It was 7:30 in the morning and they were writing essays about Colonialism and, well, I just felt too badly for them to continue to stare. Instead, I started really looking around the room for the first time. Tests during midterms are held in random classrooms and I knew I wasn't in the room of a History teacher, but I wasn't actually sure just whose classroom I was in until I saw the person's name written in what looked like wite-out across a stapler. My first reaction was to roll my eyes and wonder who in the world would write her name on a stapler. My second reaction was to feel a wave of an understanding as to why my staplers always disappear.

What I liked immediately about the room were these gauzy curtains the teacher had draped near the windows along with a bunch of colorful paper lanterns that dangled down from the ceiling. The touches made the room feel homey and they managed to accomplish what I think they were meant to accomplish: to make every student in that room forget they were really there to learn math. Still, the curtain look was working for me and I started to contemplate that maybe I should hang some flowy curtains up in my own classroom and I started to seriously consider which color would best highlight the Taxi Driver, Fight Club, and Pulp Fiction posters on my wall. What hue of curtain goes best with the spatter of cinematic blood?

My minutes-long curtain fantasy faded once I realized that the chances were sky high that I'd never take them down to wash them and they'd probably just wind up gathering mountains of dust, causing students who sat near them to sneeze, blow their noses, and then toss those germ-filled wads of Kleenex into the garbage can that sits right beside my desk. Since I've decided that I'm allergic to other peoples' germs, I officially put the mental kibosh on the Curtain Plan and decided to pass the time instead by checking out the quotations emblazoned on every wall of the room. I'd been in a lot of classrooms that testing week; I'd become pretty accustomed to seeing breezy and optimistic proclamations decorating barren walls. It all made me realize at some point that I don't have any quotations on the walls of my own room and I was almost sure I should quickly scrawl, "And don't call me Shirley" on some construction paper, but I still wasn't a hundred percent sure because maybe I should use a quote from Primal Fear instead and, by the way, does anyone know where I can find some construction paper?

None of the quotes on this Math teacher's wall came from excellent movies, but they were all sweetly uplifting, especially the one by Plato: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." Plato has a very good point, I thought to myself – and I swear that I could almost feel a steel hardness inside of me instantly begin to grow soft as I began to consider how the paths we're all on are unfamiliar and difficult. But just when I was about to become someone my yoga teacher would be very proud of, my eyes flicked over to the next quote and my burgeoning kindness began to melt. 

The other quote actually said, "Life without geometry is pointless." Now, I'm somewhat positive that there's an adorable mathematical pun hidden in that quotation, but fuck if I get the joke. I've never been all that big on math humor and along with biblical allusions, those are the connections I probably understand the least. I did try for a moment to imagine what kind of roads I would have had to have taken in my life for that sign to ever hang anywhere on one of my walls, but just the symbolic journey got me immediately lost so I decided to start wondering instead about which Vanderpumper could most associate with the quotation’s meaning. (It's very worth explaining that I don't have these people invading my thoughts because they're fascinating. The reason I think about these people at all is because I write recaps and I've never been one to just bang out a "this happened and then this happened" kind of post since it's more fun for me to weave a little narrative. Also: proctoring is mind numbing and you've gotta think about something.) Anyway, the (maybe) hilarious geometry quote wasn't attributed to anybody – because that person is embarrassed – so I began to wonder if maybe James could have written it. Can't you just see it happening? Imagine James – obviously wearing a low-cut tank top – surveying the crowds of people dancing blandly to the beats he's created as the hemisphere's greatest living DJ and he has a moment of total clarity where he realizes that he's pathetic and maybe he should quit music and go to college for math. Or maybe it was Kristen who thought up the math message. Perhaps she was out on one of her frequent "walks" – the ones she goes on wearing all black creepy crawling clothing like she's a Manson Girl. Maybe one evening she was tucked in some nice shrubbery while she separated the bills she'd stolen from Sandoval's garbage cans and she was calculating how costly Ariana's life is and she decided right there in that bush that Ariana, like geometry, is pointless. Of course, it could have also been Jax who came up with the quotation, but I'm pretty sure he can't read or write.