I am convinced that when my older brother took the great dive into the gene pool, he took every good, normal gene right along with him. By the time that I jumped into that very same pool only three years later, it was devoid of water and the genes that I got to pick from were nestled in the dead leaves that had collected along the bottom.
Growing up, I did my absolute best to hide these faulty genes. Physically, they did not turn me into a three eyed monster with wings and clubbed feet. Mentally, however, I got pummeled: Depression, Social Anxiety Disorder, and the granddaddy of them all – Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
My mother claims that she knew I was a little off, but had no idea the seriousness of it all until my senior year when the three of them intermingled and I had my first full-blown anxiety attack.
Now I could go on and bore you with the details of doctors’ visits, diagnoses and medications or even tell you about the tumor which I recently found out resides in my pituitary gland…but those stories are just about as fun as actually hanging out in a doctor’s office.
You see, upon finally getting medicated and going through some counseling, I stumbled into another addiction: Entertainment. I began to thrive off of media, pop culture and pop-princesses-turned-train-wrecks.
What started out as reading an “Entertainment Weekly” here or there has blossomed into walls plastered with photographs and obsessive blog reading. My brain, while being faulty (but on the mend), now contains massive amounts of entertainment and celebrity trivia. Sadly, much of this newfound knowledge surrounds the busted up mess that has become Britney Spears.
For some reason, I am extremely protective of Ms. Spears. Say what you will about her: She’s crazy, burnt out, extremely annoying, psychotic, insane, an untalented twit, etc. I honestly don’t care. What does make me care is the fact that she seems to be just as, if not more flawed than me. The difference, however, is that she’s in the public eye having her breakdowns at Starbucks with a cigarette in hand. I luck out and get to have them alone in my very own bathroom with no paparazzi banging down my door.
The question I often get asked when people learn about my dark obsession is simply why. Why do I care that George Clooney and Fabio nearly came to blows at a charity dinner? Why am I so angry that Brad Pitt dumped Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie? Why do I insist upon having an entire wall of my bedroom plastered with photographs of Britney Spears?
And to be truthful, I can’t give you a straight up, point blank answer simply because I don’t know why I care so much.
I honestly feel that my devotion to these messes from afar roots itself in the fact that deep down, these ‘celebrities’ are just as human as I am. They wake up looking like a hot mess every morning. They shamefully watch shows like the “The Hills,” but won’t admit it to their closest friends. They dance around their bedrooms listening to terrible pop music as they sing into their hairbrushes (you know you’ve done it at least once).
So yes, when one of them screws up, the little sadist in me jumps up and down with glee. I may not have gotten the best genes from the pool, but from the looks of it, neither have the A-Listers…and in the end, that makes those leftover genes seem not so bad.
