Secret Indulgences

I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. I did well in school, earned a graduate degree by going to school full-time while working full-time yet maintaining a 3.8 gpa, was raised by a strict mother. I'm pretty well-read and although I hate politics, I have a decent amount of common sense. I know grammar good and spell allrite.

I don't really dig a lot of the popular bubble gum shows out there like The Hills, Gossip Girl, the Real World (is that still on?) and all those reality shows, for the most part. For some reason I've started receiving Us Weekly in the mail every week (which terrifies my husband because he keeps thinking we're going to get charged for it) but I didn't order it so I'm not paying. I think it said somewhere on it that it was a gift for filling out some questionnaire online. I don't really read about the drama going on with the celebrities, but just kind of look at the pretty pictures and throw it out.

It's not that I feel like I'm above that stuff. And I'm certainly not judging the people that are into it. I have some friends whose entire lives are based around celebrity gossip and tv shows. I just have better things to do with my time, especially since SB's been around.

In fact, I don't even watch a lot of tv, if you don't count SB's kiddie shows, because I generally don't really pay attention to them. Dora kind of creeps me out, Diego is whiny, Word World bores me to death, and Sponge Bob Squarepants...well that's actually a pretty cool show.

But I have my secret indulgences in the pop culture world. For example, I am completely obsessed with America's Next Top Model. I tivo it every week and even though it's recorded, I won't answer my phone while I'm watching it. Or go to the bathroom. I don't know why I still watch it, because every single "cycle", as they call it, my pick comes in second place. It's frustrating! I also watch America's Best Dance Crew as if my life depended on it. I actually knew someone (brother of a friend) who was in the first season but I didn't start watching it until the second season. I think I might have cried a little at the finale. Not because I was upset with who won, although I was rooting for Fanny Pak until they got booted off, but because I thought the dancing was that beautiful. Yeah, it's that bad.

I also have a secret obsession with Britney Spears. Not the recently rehabbed and making a comeback Britney. I mean old HOT Britney. This is pretty embarrassing to admit, but when I was running a LOT on the treadmill I would watch her videos for the entire run (which lasted anywhere from 30-80 minutes). Originally it was a special of her greatest hits taped from television. But I soon got bored with that and tired of having to fast forward through stupid commercials so I actually bought some DVDs. Yeah, I'm the proud owner of 3 Britney Spears DVDs. Two concerts and one Greatest Hits. So I pretty much know all the words to all of her songs up until My Prerogative.

As the wife of a musician, and someone with a fairly respectable history with music (I played the piano since I was 3, played the guitar and drums in high school, and seriously considered being a music major in college before choosing the ever-so-handy Mass Communications degree instead), I must clarify that I see Britney as an entertainer, not a musician. Although not to the standards set by my favorite artists (Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington), Brit's songs are entertaining, the dancing is impressive and the body was fantastic. Good motivation for someone who's running, especially when she has 75 lbs of baby weight to lose!