A long time ago in a faraway land called Huntington, Massachusetts, I went to a sleepaway camp for six consecutive summers. It was there – in the fresh air and to a schedule dictated by a bugle – that that I had my first kiss with a cute blonde boy, where I learned to do the butterfly stroke in the dark and murky lake, and where I engaged in fierce battles of Color War where the entire camp was split into two groups and we spent a week engaged in tug-of-war battles that could get real ugly real fast. I was never the most competitive kid in the bunk, but during Color War, all bets were off; I wanted to f*cking win.

The enforced division that took place turned us all briefly into adversaries, but once the week ended and we were back in our bunks and allowed to wear any color shirt that we damn well pleased, the harmony came flooding back. And maybe nothing said “harmony” in those days quite as strongly as … Continue reading →

Here are some things I’d rather watch instead of a nasty drunk who has teetered on the edge of full-blown alcoholism for some time undergo a 21-day cleanse in an effort to prove to the people around her that she doesn’t need to mainline Merlot:

• Kyle shopping for matching outfits with all of her daughters while laughing her annoying husky giggle and slipping the saleswoman a fifty so that she will tell her that she looks like their older sister with a straight face. • Yolanda cuddling up beside her skeevy husband on his piano bench and asking him to play a piece of sh*t song that he once wrote for Peabo Bryson. • Kim expounding upon the majesty of that time when she, Ralph Macchio, and C. Thomas Howell went tobagganing down Witch Mountain. • Eileen appearing as both the earthling and the alien in the sequel to Stranger At the Pentagon. • Either one of the Lisas at the gynecologist getting a pap smear.

Yes, there is something abundantly distasteful about a … Continue reading →

I feel like the world has finally reset itself back onto an axis I understand.

Watching this episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, I found myself returning to a very familiar and long-term mindset wherein I realized something rather definitive: I DO hate Kyle Richards! My recently detached hatred for a woman who is proud of having shiny extensions and a best friend who capitalized on another friend’s murder by spreading it for Playboy – heeeeeyyyy, Faye Resnick! – is back and I now grasp this very real dichotomy: I can feel badly for the life Kyle leads as the sister of an addict in denial, but I don’t have to allow that empathy to mean that I want to mentally hold hands with a woman I’d much rather clothesline during a good game of Red Rover.

And weirdly, it was the precise act of another woman’s attempt at empathy being spurned that made me remember that I HATE KYLE! I do! And I don’t think I’m alone in having this reaction … Continue reading →