the ocean

We've been catching up on the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City recently. I was initially resistant to adding another housewives franchise, having been burned by Dallas, which started out amazing with anesthesia-induced allegations of blow jobs but ended up just kind of racist and boring. Of course, I should have remembered the lessons of Potomac, which I had resisted but now consider to be the Citizen Kane of crazy-lady-based reality television. All of which is a longwinded way of saying that Salt Lake is kind of bringing it.

We've reached the part of the winter during which shit officially gets real. The holidays are over, the decorations have all come down, and the creeping realization that months of cold and ineffectual attempts at weight loss are ahead of us is beginning to set in. This year, of course, it's worse than ever, because we can add the threat of deadly disease to the list of reasons we must be shut ins. And since we've already been in lockdown for well nigh a year now, the Netflix well is frankly beginning to run dry. There's a reason we're expanding our watchlist to include a fifth iteration of the real housewives now, and it ain't because it's quality television. Something must fill the hours. Something.

To that end, we've added recreational real estate shopping to our list of past times. We're just finally starting to get the townhouse the way we want it and I would literally rather pound nails into my skull than move all of our crap again, but being stuck in one's home 24/7 definitely has a way of making a move to a bigger place seem desirable. Plus, it is fun to shop for things in your mind, where you don't have to actually pay for them. So we've been looking at listings, and today we actually went to an open house. It was only like five blocks away from where we live now, but still, I view that as a major effort. The verdict was that it was a lovely house, but at 6000 square feet more space than most families who don't have their own show on TLC need. Also kind of cold, but that could just be me.

Anyway, now I'm doing this, and next I'm going to update my online banking profile in response to a letter I got from Chase. So yeah, clearly the schedule is just jam packed.

I have a hard time parting with my old CDs, DVDs, etc., perhaps because I am insane. There are several boxes of albums in my garage, including a shocking number of Dave Matthews Band recordings, even though I know they may incriminate me. I have no fewer than three dozen games for the original Nintendo console in my possession, including some of the ones where they were clearly just phoning it in and it's just like Ronald McDonald hunting for Big Macs or something. And just to prove that I'm not the only one who's weird, Ian has a VHS copy of The Net starring Sandra Bullock that he taped off of television. Or had, rather. The VHS player actually ate it in a tragic incident last January that should have been a sign to us of how 2020 was going to be. Anyway, we got a ton of wholly unnecessary stuff.

We’ve all gone through various stages of our pandemic response:  ransacking a grocery store, compulsive handwashing, buying random shit online, gentle sobbing. And now, watching Rizzoli & Isles. 

I’d only seen the show once before, when we were in Rome and there was nothing else on in English. Ian’s review was succinct but thorough: “it seems like they’re always fighting.” Needless to say, I did not feel compelled to watch it again after returning home, at least not until I had officially watched everything else. Seriously, like pretty much every episode of every iteration of Below Deck.

Um, it’s not great. But it’s surprisingly watchable. The unintentional (?) lesbian chemistry between them is white hot, and surely launched a thousand pieces of filthy fan fiction. I’m a sucker for horrific crimes rendered entirely cosmetic and easily soluble, and here they take down serial killers without even needing a two part episode. Plus, there are lots of extraneous characters for no reason, as though we actually felt compelled to meet the extended families of both Rizzoli and Isles. 

Of course, this has also led to a Rizzoli related internet deep dive. Did you know that Angie Harmon spoke at the Republican National convention for W, but announced on Instagram that she voted for Biden? Or that she embarrassingly campaigned online for the role of She Hulk? Or that she has combination skin? There is so much to be learned out there.

This is NOT a liveblog, partially because I’m not even sure at this point that I won’t give up and turn it off before it’s over, but we’re watching Wonder Woman 1984, and I have so many thoughts.

— It’s really refreshing that they decided to go all in on the lesbian vibes. The Amazonian contest that opened the movie was like a more athletic version of Lilith Fair.

— Are we really supposed to believe that a woman who looks like Gal Gadot has been unable to find a single man worth fucking in the half a century since the last movie? I could give her a list of names, if it helps.

— Can we officially declare a moratorium on ‘80s nostalgia now? Especially since we all know now how those awesome malls became opium dens and homeless encampments?

— I feel kind of sad that Wonder Woman can’t find a cuter apartment building than the Watergate.

— I guess part of Steve Trevor’s magical return was that he was rendered a complete moron?

— I feel foolish for not realizing that the Smithsonian just leaves the jets ready to go with the keys in them. That could have really souped up a lot of Eighth Grade field trips.

— I’m not one to cry plagiarism, but the script does seem to owe a bit of a debt to my sixth grade play, “The Trouble With Wishes.”

— I never knew I could feel this sorry for Kristen Wiig.

Okay, I’m done. We all go back to work tomorrow and I wasted my last night of freedom on this.