REALITY TV OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP CARING CUZ I'M NOT HERE TO MAKE FRIENDS!

When my editor originally mentioned to me that “some woman from Dance Moms is coming to The Forum” my Super Secrets® boner popped the button-fly right off the ’90s jeans one can usually find me wearing in super secret.

Like most self-respecting adults would, he mentioned something along the lines of “all that’s wrong with the world” in tandem with receiving such news, at which I laughed nervously, pretending to share the same feelings. I sat with my shameful secret for as long as I possibly could (less than one minute) before realizing that living a lie is no way to live at all! Besides, these shows were there for me when no one else was, daring me to dream that I too could one day maybe be the Wife of a Basketball, or even lose 320 pounds in a dangerously short amount of time.

The truth is: I love reality television. All of it. All 400 of Gordon Ramsey’s competitive cooking shows that involve screaming and smashed hams. Anything involving people battling for money or jobs or marriages or modeling contracts. Miss Rap Supreme was easily the sweetest compromise to having to humble myself and move back home at age 25, and Flavor of Love was right there by my side as I continued my descent into “bottoming out” before finally Celebrity Rehab-ing my way over to the other side. So basically, I’m allowed to do whatever I want, and if you don’t like it you can go watch the lame news or whatever people with real jobs watch. You know what, I dare you to turn on the news right now, see if you don’t just find me picketing to have the entire BRAVO network radioed into everyone’s homes North Korea-style, and if you think you can just flip to the weather- GOOD LUCK- because I’m just gonna draw a bunch of dicks all over the map-and if I have to defend my choice to watch Bromance with Brody Jenner one more time, I swear to God...

…Wow you guys- I am so sorry. The laptop was getting really hot on my leg and it turns out I needed to eat food, in a very serious way. I’ve since eaten five of my honey-roasted “emergency peanuts” and I can promise it will not happen again. It just feels so good to finally be free of this embarrassing burden, it’s like I’m on the verge of an emotional breakthrough (thanks, Dr. Drew!) and I have to be rid of what’s holding me back. Here are just a few more deep, dark Super Secrets® I feel ready to share with you. I trust you will treat me with the utmost compassion.

I kind of want to “do” Kenny Powers. I have only mentioned this to one other person in my entire life, and I made her promise not to tell her boyfriend who I greatly respect and admire, so I trust that you guys will not spill the beans on me here. I cannot for the life of me explain what it is, but I find Kenny Powers of the HBO series Eastbound and Down incredibly attractive. Something about a white-trashy manboy with a perm, a sunburn, and a dangerous amount of self-confidence makes me want to throw what little self-respect I’ve managed to acquire right out the window of my newly refinanced 1998 Pontiac Sunfire (Bad credit? No credit? No problem!). Call me a romantic, but I just get the sense that his lack of appreciation for anything would nicely complement the depreciation I have for myself. I don’t need no Rock of Love to tell me that!

I sometimes find myself bobbing my head to songs in commercials. I am not talking about “I heard that ___ song in a commercial;” I mean I am dancing along to songs that were written specifically for said commercial. These are only “songs” in the extremely basic technical sense, meaning they are comprised of notes and a melody and I’m sure Pharrell played some part in the production process. There is one in particular, advertising for Target or underwear or pastel watering cans or something, I DON’T KNOW because I was too busy being swept away by the music like some basic, cornfed asshole. I don’t even realize it’s not a real song, but a commercial song, until it’s almost over, at which point I’m already compulsively refreshing any and all social media on my phone, as being alive in 2015 just naturally comes with a low-level of ADD.

I follow 12 different astrology channels on YouTube. You wanna know the best way to avoid taking responsibility for your life without feeling bad about it? Religion! Wanna know the second best? Astrology. The way to really get the most out of it though is to follow a bunch of different ones, then take a little of whatever it is you were hoping to hear in the first place and just run with it. It totally works! Throw a tarot card-reading guy in the mix and you can literally stop dressing yourself in the morning. Spending 15 minutes with a slew of beautiful mermaid women wrapped in a colorful assortment of scarves and rings and incense just makes me feel safe and good and hopeful, and inexplicably hungry for avocados. I may not know what a moon trine ascendant retrograde something-or-other means, but goddamn if I won’t spit this same jargon at well-meaning friends facing actual crisis (you’re welcome).

That about covers all of my deepest, darkest secrets. Not really, the dark stuff is between me and my therapist, as soon as I decide to go back to therapy. Until that day comes I suppose I’ll just keep on keepin’ on (watching Maury).