Emily is very different from the typical girl we see on The Bachelorette, in the same way that Tebow is different from the typical dude we see in a football helmet. She’s impossibly attractive, slightly boring, and incredibly talented at looking pretty and pure.
The Bachelorette game is different for girls like Maynard. She’s confident and bold enough to have the show be played out on her own terms: filming in Charlotte so she can be with her daughter, making it known to all of the men that she’s looking for a dad for Ricki as well as a husband — something that would chase the boys away from us normal women if we were to admit as much on a first date. You have a kid? And you want me to be her dad? Uh, okay. Peace out. But for Emily, this is going to work in her favor in the same way the modelling thing worked exceptionally in favor of the brunette villain-ness Courtney from last season.
Now let’s talk about a couple of my favorite moments from Monday’s premier.
1) This comment, from Emily: ”This is so not like my normal life. When I go to the grocery store, guys are not pulling me … in fifteen different sections of the grocery store.”
Sorry Emily, but I’m calling BS. Maybe there’s not 15 tipsy guys doing the pulling, but whether you realize it or not, there most definitely is at least three or four men with their eyes on you wherever you go…they’re just not looking at anything above your neck. Or they’re the paparazzi and they’re going to get a big paycheck from US Weekly for photographing you in your yoga pants. I think it’s cute that she’s trying to be modest about her looks and play down the fact that she could stop traffic anywhere South of Tennessee if she tried. It’s part of her Tebow appeal — believing she’s normal like us and sometimes saying things that almost convince that us that she is. At the end of the day though, she’s far-removed from reality and won’t live a normal life as long as she’s hanging around Chris Harrison and the crew.
2) When Emily comes in for the cocktail party and stands in front of her 25 boyfriends and says – like the perfect, innocent, glistening Carolina girl that you see in the movies – “golly, I’m nervous.” Golly. She had to say “golly.” With her twangy Southern accent, this most definitely scored Emily some oh-my-gosh-she’s-so-cute points with the boys. As if she needed any more points than she’d already earned with her sparkly, form-fitting dress that perfectly displayed the goods the men came for. I thought the gown reminded me of something a figure skater would wear but what do I know.
3) The bobble-heads. Chris, a bulky Chicago native with a tiny mouth like a mouse who kind of looks like Gerard Butler’s uncool cousin, gives Emily a gift at the cocktail party.
Worse than a scrapbook full of pictures of him when he was in junior high, or a hand-written poem that sounds like a first grader wrote it, he gives her a pair of custom-made bobble-heads that are supposed to look like him and Emily. Ladies, how handsome does a guy need to be to actually charm you with such a creepy and retarded gesture? Brad Pitt handsome? George Clooney? I’d say George Clooney, maybe. But Chris wasn’t even 1/18th of George Clooney. Sadly, Emily seemed to like it. Unless she was just being nice, which would never surprise me.
4) Stevie the MC. You may know him as the guy in the ugly green shirt from the cocktail party with an even uglier goatee.
He’s the guy who calls Kalon, the luxury brand consultant from Texas who flew in on a helicopter, “helicopter boy” about 18 times like it was the best line of his life. The producers told Emily he has to stay on the show for at least 3 more episodes because he’s a shoe-in for the role of the token New York dude with a drinking problem who likes to start fights and wears clothes that are the opposite of fashion forward. He’s pure entertainment like The Situation and Snooki and a perfectly shameful excuse for me to tune in to this show every week. That, and for the performances from the Bachelorette we can’t hate.
You can be jealous of Emily amidst her harrowing journey to find love in front of a camera, and make fun of her choices and bad modeling shots and nonexistent sense of humor, but because her fiancee died days before she found out she was pregnant with his baby, you just can’t hate her with a clear conscious. Just like you can’t hate Tim Tebow. The hate is pointless because it only motivates him to try and win more and bow down to thank Jesus for it, which is exactly what sets him apart, as personal tragedy does for Emily. Sadly, though, I don’t believe any of the D-bags we met Monday night are worthy of this sad Southern damsel’s heart. But that’s what makes this good TV, isn’t it?
I crave the sweet surrender of sleep and my dreams’ uncensored communication: no tiresome small talk, sucking up to impress, or tiptoeing around charged topics. Dreams are the naked truth; get ready for it.”
― Judith Orloff
It’s time for bed. It’s time to let my ponytail down and sink into soft blankets and cool bed sheets with the white noise of the fan humming in our bedroom corner. It’s time for sweet dreams. I hope they are sweet, at least. Nightmares aren’t cool. Reading by candlelight in the other hand, is.
Goodnight, my friends.
As a girl raised in the swamp-lands of Florida, I know how to handle the heat. That doesn’t mean I enjoy it or look forward to it, but I can manage to power through a 90 degree afternoon without losing my marbles. My favorite time of year won’t be coming around for another five months (hurry up, Fall!) but as I have always said of the seasons, every time of year has it’s own unique reasons to be deserving of praise and awe. The organic way the air subtly changes as June slowly settles in to replace the warmth of May with the first heat-waves of Summer feels nice at first. Then Summer’s wrath is let loose upon us all and we’re dreaming of Popsicles and beaches and barefoot BBQ’s at sunset with cold beer and no work — the way we’d all trudge through the dog days of Summer in an ideal world.
In anticipation of Summer, I’ve been doing what 70% of women have been doing for the past month and finding “pinspiration” for not only surviving, but celebrating Summer’s heat on Pinterest. Light, fresh dishes and cool, colorful clothes and fruity Margaritas, this is why Pinterest exists and why it’s awesome even though I find myself lamenting how much time this website shaves off my productivity on a day like today. (How is it already 4:30?)
Here are some of my “pins” for Summer which represent all of the trendy and fun things I’d love to actually follow-through with and make a part of my Summer 2012. But knowing my track record with Pinterest up until this point, it’s mostly just eye candy and wishful thinking and planning on the web.
Either way, cheers to Summer!
Holy sunshine. My face is as pink as a peach from this past weekend. I spent Saturday outside most of the day and it was bright and breezy and perfect. I started out the morning with an iced tea at the Coffee Bean and a phone call with mom. From there I drove to my favorite running route and decided to go for a fun, relaxed, long run — just me and my music. I run most Saturday mornings so this is nothing new but for the past couple of months many (not all) of my long runs have been difficult, slow, and frustrating. I’ve cut back when I’ve needed to and never pushed past pain or fatigue and have become best friend’s with my foam roller and tube of icy hot. Being outside and pounding out miles on the sidewalks, weaving in and out of suburbs on a free Saturday morning has become an experience I crave and look forward to, so it’s been hard when my legs have been weak and just off. Saturday’s run was a hard, honest attempt at 10 miles, which I completed, but slowly and with plenty of walking and hiking breaks. The sun got nasty with me after forty minutes as the heat climbed above 80 which made it harder to push through but every ten minutes or so I walked or found a hill to hike up and reveled in the time I got to spend exploring and drinking up the vitamin D. I wasn’t focused on my time or mile splits, I just wanted to finish the distance without falling apart. And I did. I don’t feel ready to sign up for a race yet, which is my goal — get back in half marathon shape and register for a race. If I count my lucky stars and experience a miracle, maybe I’ll be ready by mid-Summer? We’ll see.
The truth of it is I’m not ready to race 13.1 miles until my hamstring is totally strong and dependable again and also because training has been difficult over the past few months thanks to that mean ol’ thing called ‘stress.’ I’m not always good at coping with stress and it has affected my running. Because running is more of a mental discipline, if I’m mentally distracted, stressed, or anxious, my runs are dragged down from the extra baggage in my head. Many times running is what alleviates stress and anxiety for me, but only if it’s manageable. There have been a lot of times when the stress of life has not felt manageable for me over the past few months and so a run wasn’t able to fix it, and I wasn’t motivated to literally go the extra mile. It’s interesting how stress works with and against our bodies in such complex ways, isn’t it?
At the very least, Saturday’s run and today’s little jaunt on the treadmill after work have helped me feel better in small but significant ways once I’ve gotten to the other side and finished them as strong as I can.
Okay…onto much more important issues.
The Bachelorette season premier on ABC tonight. I’m excited for this, people. Emily Maynard (Brad’s season) has everything it takes to make this season unforgettable. She’s exceptionally sweet and Southern and blond and too pretty to be single, even though she’s got a kid which I think has become her selling point. She lost her first true love in a plane crash and has a daughter she will probably cry about missing every episode — two very valuable playing cards for her. The men are going to weep with wine-induced love over her. And I hope it get’s as dramatic and intensely shameful as last season with Bachelor Ben.
I’ll be posting about the show here and there as the season plays out so if you’re a fan of The Bachelor/ Bachelorette series, stick around. And if you’re not, I formally apologize for all of the trashy reality show banter that is to come. I’m a sucker for these shows and I don’t care who knows it.
Cheers!
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