confused

So here we are.

And I am confused. Maybe it’s because I may or may not be a Sagittarius anymore and I don’t know how to spell or pronounce this new 13th sign that I’m supposed to be, or even what qualities I’m supposed to have now. I used to be a fiery archer. Now I guess I’m supposed to be officious.  (Is that how you pronounce it?) That is, if this new sign is going to be recognized. I don’t know. Confused.

But I think it’s because Miss America is back on network TV, like it never went away, like nobody stopped caring. I didn’t even know it was going to be on TV tonight until I got an email from DSW promoting it. Confused, indeed. How can a discount shoe purveyor possibly have enough spare cash to sponsor this pageant? Those big glass steps don’t build themselves. Unless they weren’t really passing on those savings to me at all...

I’m also confused as to what year this is. Ventriloquism in the talent portion? For a moment I thought it was 1982.

But it’s not just Miss America that confuses me. 

I was watching television, as I am wont to do, and I saw what I thought was one of those anti-drug PSAs. You know, it starts out with a girl spiraling into trouble at a party, then moves backwards through her night until when she left the house and lied to her mother about going out to study. I was waiting for the voiceover: “Parents, talk to your kids.” Or something like that.

But it wasn’t an anti-drug PSA. It was a promo for MTV’s Skins.

It was like seeing the egg hit the frying pan and hearing “This may look like your brain on drugs, but we’re sopping it up with biscuits. Join Paula Deen on Delicious Drippings, weekdays at 7 on Food Network.” 

I’m confused. I’m not a fuddy-duddy. I’m not a fogey. Maybe my use of those words defines me as something other than being on the edge of today, but come on. Those emails from AARP are spam, I tells ye. Spam!

And yet my reaction was plunked squarely in the “huh-the-who-now?” category.

Who am I? Why am I reacting like this? Is it because I’m astrologically muddled? 

I do know that I am painfully square, but I also am more than happy to let other people live whatever lives they want to live and do whatever they want to do as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. But wow... what does it say for the state of schadenfreude today when you use the promise of a gal getting drugged and... ahem... compromised... as the carrot on the stick to tune in? And even as I read that last sentence, I know how I sound. 

Maybe there are other promos I’ve missed. Maybe there’s more to it. Goodness knows I love me a good tawdry British import. Maybe it’s not just a more naked Gossip Girl.

But I’m still confused. Some guy on Slate wrote that we shouldn’t put two spaces after a period, ever. I never got that memo. I have spaced both ways for eons. (Perhaps I am not so square after all.)

And I also don’t understand why this winter seems so much colder than any other winter.

This is why I would make a lousy Miss America contestant. (No, it’s not just the obvious reasons.) I would admit when I didn’t know the answer to the question “what should we do to fix America?” I would stand there -- in someone else’s figure with someone else’s shiny hair and bleached Osmond teeth -- and with a bright, smile I would say “I don’t know. I’m confused and frustrated. I am a girl in an expensive dress, and my breasts are taped together. These lights are hot, and frankly, until we have civilized dialogue, news programs with actual news, real campaign finance laws and a good hard look at lobbyists, there’s nothing I can even begin to think of. Sorry. I have to go sit down. My feet are killing me.”

No offense, DSW.

Yes indeed. Welcome to me.