Why She Did

She's wearing horns, and sometimes she'll wear cones instead of a blouse. She's dancing over an air vent, she's wearing this little thing and it's showing other little things whose scientific names make us uncomfortable, like "areola." She is stripping off what little there is, but not entirely. She looks like she wants us to see everything, she moves in that way that maybe, we think, she does.  She's wearing a stuffed leopard over her crotch, and sparkly rainbows over her nipples. What does that mean? We're not sure. These are new, complex images that bring us to old conclusions.

And she used be be such a nice girl when she worked for Disney, when she tasted Kix cereal in the commercial, when she wasn't shaped like rising hills, the ground that defies gravity, this girl that we don't know any better now than we did then. Why would the girl who kissed Mickey Mouse shave her head?

Why she did, and why she does, and why she will do it again, none of us will really know. We can ask her, or we can let some else ask her, and we can read it in a magazine, the one where she's in an acrobatic position on the cover. But no matter what her answer is, we'll draw our own conclusions. Some of us will think she's a tramp, some of us will think she's liberated, and some will think she wants attention or money.

I think about Halloween.That night, when it was young, human beings used to wear masks, not for candy, but to frighten evil spirits. We wore horns, we stuck out our tongues, and we shouted at the devil to keep him from taking our souls.

Tomorrow there will be a picture of her in a spandex gum wrapper. Her hair will be sprayed and teased into the shape of a vulva. She'll hiss, and scream, and shake, and bear skin. And some of us will look but most of us will turn away just when she wants us to, so that we can't take her soul.

And we used to be such nice girls.

Trendings Never Endings

Everglades snakes, Cruise ship captain, Jessica Alba, 1,100 year old tomb (of a female singer) were some of the things that were trending on Yahoo the other day. Like the terms "TTYL" and "Jessica Alba," "trending" is a term that I hear but don't understand. Ok, I'll admit, I know that TTYL is text language for "Trending Takes Yogurt Literally." I'm not THAT out of the loop. But when I think of the word "trending" I think of "trendy," you know, like "hip." Is this what it means? Because if it does, then this means that 1,100 year old singers are trendy! Woohoo! Archaeologists besides Indiana Jones might finally be popular instead of nerdy!

Wait a minute...now "Madonna single" and "Willow Smith" are trending. Not Everglades snakes? Well, why not? An Everglade snake could eat Madonna and Willow Smith in one gulp! Does trending not follow the laws of the food chain? Does it follow any laws, this trending, or is it some kind of renegade thing that chooses random topics for people to think about and perhaps click on when they should be doing something else at work?

Because if that's it's game then I have fallen for it. I'm not likely to click on Madonna, but 1,100 year old singer, who could pass up that one? Who was this singer? Perhaps the Madonna of her time? One of the judges on Egyptian Idol? What did she sound like, I mean, what constituted as exceptional singing that would make a Pharaoh's heart swell? It's so much more exciting for me to imagine something like that when I'm at work than focusing on the data entry stuff that I'm supposed to be doing. Um, and in case my manager is reading this, that I am HAPPY to do and DO do all of the time!...Most of the time!...Um, this is not Genevieve's blog. This is Jessica Alba's. Fire her.

There are other terms I don't understand that I should. Like "housing bubble." I keep hearing this term on NPR, and though I have magnificent reading comprehension skills and should be able to figure it out, and though I owned a house for eight years, I still don't know what it means. I can tell that it is a bad thing when it bursts. That's what the news guys seem to be saying, anyway. But what is it? It sounds kind of cute. I imagine a charming little home floating in a bubble like Glenda the Good Witch. A bubble makes the house magical and shiny, but when it bursts it gets soap all over it and everyone inside is sticky. Is that what it means? Because if it does, that's no so bad. Then you just hose off. I suspect it's something other than the cartoon that plays in my head though. Something that involves numbers, money, and other words that I don't understand like "escrow." Which makes me think of "Scarecrow." This entire paragraph only solidifies the fact that I should never own a house because the entire business exists for me in the form of "The Wizard of Oz." You know. That movie where the house FALLS FROM THE SKY AND KILLS SOMEONE.

OH! I just checked Yahoo, and the trendingness, whatever it is, has already changed. Now the top trend is...Nano quadrotor. What the hell is that? And how does it one-up Madonna being single? I don't understand trending, what makes things hot from one moment to the next. Trends bursts like house bubbles, big one minute, small and covered in liquid soap the next. It's sad really.

TTYL.