Walking the walk...

The much-despised cedar allergy season has arrived here in Austin. This is the time of year when zillions of cedar trees in the hill country fling their potent pollen into the air, where it’s carried on the winds and eventually finds its way into homes all over the city. I think there’s a big invisible cloud of it here right now, invading my personal space… even a pouring rain, which we had last night, seemed unable to wash the miserable stuff out of the air. Unless it actually DID wash some of the pollen away… in which case, if it weren’t for the rain, I’d be sneezing even MORE than I already am. That’s an unpleasant thought. I often wonder why we don’t chop down all the cedar trees in this area and create lovely cedar closets for every home in the city. Everyone loves a cedar closet, right? And so many people around here are allergic to the cedar, I can’t imagine too many people would be upset with the loss of the trees. Goodbye cedar trees! Hello cedar-scented closets! It’s a reasonable and practical solution. At least I think it is. Of course, my thoughts are probably being swayed by my Benadryl-induced haze…

Okay, I have a confession to make: I am addicted to the VH1 marathons of “America’s Next Top Model.” I never watch this show when it’s actually on network TV during its regular season. I don’t even know what channel it’s on. All I know is that every few months, VH1 will have an America’s Next Top Model marathon, where they show every episode from start to finish. And I actually WATCH it. What’s wrong with me? The whole thing is so silly and superficial, yet Tyra Banks and the rest of the modeling “judges” do their best to project an air of drama and complexity into the competition. Tyra is constantly reminding the wanna-be models how hard it is to stand still for a camera. And how vitally important walking is. I mean, this is not America’s Next Top Neurosurgeon. No one needs to know anything about the medulla oblongata or the cerebral cortex or the parietal lobe or the hippocampus – all they need to know is how to WALK. Most of us have been walking since we were toddlers (granted, we were not the most graceful of walkers – hence the “toddler” designation) – but apparently it’s a lot more difficult than we realize. “My walk is so bad! I have to practice my walk!” If you have to practice WALKING, how far behind must you be in all those other little skills we learned before kindergarten? Do these models have to practice eating with a fork (when they actually EAT, that is…)? Do they need to practice writing their first names in crayon? Have they progressed beyond the sippy cup?

And in every season of this show, they have an obligatory “plus size” model wanna-be. In the world of fashion, “plus size” seems to be about a size eight... I think they may have even thrown in a size ten one season. But it’s obviously only a pretense – they include the “plus size” so the show can, temporarily, appear slightly less one-dimensional. Like we’ll believe that some day, they’ll decide to choose someone who is NOT exactly the same as the girl they chose last year. But I seriously doubt this show will run long enough to see the day a “plus size” girl is named the “next top model.”

And yet like I said, when VH1 has a marathon, like today, I actually WATCH this show. Again, I must ask – what’s wrong with me? Some of the “drama” on one of the episodes today centered around a girl who refused to cut her hair when Tyra Banks told her she should. She was adamant about not cutting her hair (which was already pretty short to begin with) because, “by trying to make me change my hair, they’re trying to change ME!” Wow. So your entire identity is wrapped up in some strands of dead keratin protein? That’s rather sad, if you ask me. She ended up quitting the show – just for a few inches of hair. If there was a show called, say, “The World’s Next Top Travel Writer” (because who wants to be limited to America??), and the prize was $100,000 and a guaranteed career when it was all over, I would SHAVE my head if they told me to… and hair doesn’t even have anything to do with writing. It’s just HAIR – it grows back. That’s the great thing about it… you can chop it off, and it comes back eventually. So it’s weird to me that someone who was dreaming of becoming a model would refuse to cut her hair. She should’ve been worrying less about hair and more about walking… it’s sooooo hard to walk…

And just so no one gets the wrong idea – I don’t actually sit on the couch all day and watch every single episode of this show. It’s just something I might have on in the background while I’m cleaning the kitchen, or writing emails or blog posts, or while I’m working out on the treadmill. After all, if I sat on the couch all day, I’d be dangerously close to morphing into one of those “plus sizes.”

Not to mention I need to practice my walking…