A Trashy Confession

I like to consider myself a relatively cultured person. I like museums, genuinely love to read, and can sometimes even tell the difference between Mozart and Beethoven (which is akin to noting differences between a kumquat and a giraffe to a real classical music lover, but I digress).

Deep inside me, however, there dwells a dark craving for all things shallow. All things flashy, tawdry, and pop. An irrepressible urge to veer off from the natural foods section and stand, coolly calculating, in front of the magazine-heavy endcap at the checkout line, determining which celebrity gossip rag will offer the maximum amount of mindless diversion per page. Before-and-after sections make it an automatic must-have. Makeovers run a close second, and "Who Wore It Best" polls pitting glamizon against glamizon are a perennial favorite. Usually, both women are so blindingly beautiful that one is reduced to condemning thigh size or manicure color to make the cut. One of my favorite tricks is to count the number of accessories. More than three is tacky and unacceptable.

I don't like to think how many hundreds-- yes, hundreds-- of dollars I have spent in an effort to contain this urge. These days, just one US Weekly magazine can last me for weeks, but back when I had actual free time, it would sometimes be three a weekend. Some women are embarrassed about their number of sexual conquests, but I'm ashamed to admit that I only recently tossed out my cache of People "Real Weight Loss!" specials. They dated back to 1999.

And now there's another way for me to feed the need...crappy, upsettingly bad reality television downloaded straight onto my iPod. Ladies, you haven't used a breast pump until you've balanced the horn in one hand and the tiny little video screen in the other, engrossed in MTV Real Life: Fat and Happy.

Tonight, I'm feeling blue because my I've downloaded and watched all the episodes there are to have of the Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious. I am now and will be forever grateful to Flavor Flav, because if Flavor of Love did not exist, I would have wasted eight hours on the most compelling anthropological evidence to date that this ship is going DOWN.

It's a show shallow enough to be almost woman-hating, and yet I've laughed and cried (yes, cried) as Tiffanie, Nichole, Natalie, and Chrystina have vocally stylized, gyrated, and floor-humped their way into being a money machine for Geffen records. I've marveled over the lip-penciled distention of Robin Antin's lips. I've shaken my head alongside vocal coach Ken Pave, because if someone dares to think themselves actually worthy to sing "What About Love" by Heart, then they're maniacal. And above all else, I've craved the little backstabbing comments they've made about each other when back in the "privacy" of their wired-for-sound bedrooms.

I'm not proud of this obsession. I'm not proud that, with money as tight as it is, I shelled out almost $20 to download the entire season. I'm not proud that I Googled the lyrics of "Like Me" because I'm so freaking old and these youngsters talk so damn fast that I couldn't understand what they were saying...and I wanted to know.

Over on the bookshelf in the living room are the nineteen books I can't wait to devour. Chopin's Nocturnes are gently tinkling through the speakers on the monitor. I recently got into an argument about the canonical worth of a metaphysical poet.

But I'll be damned if I'm not logged onto Netflix at this very second looking to see if America's Next Top Model is available.