Oprah Notes


My Soap-Operatic Life

"And speaking of new images, what's with Oprah having to change her image/theme song/set every new season? Now it's "a new era of Oprah." Short of becoming a minster or ripping off Jerry Springer (joke, guys), how much more different from each Old Oprah can she get now?" -Me, August 31
My mom is still trying to get with whatever "program" Oprah is promoting. And her new one this year- well, I have to admit that it's different- kind of "Self-Help Guru's 'R Us" now, or as she refers to it, "Change Your Life TV." I was and still am kinda disappointed in this- what if I don't feel like changing my life and just wanted to see celebs acting stupid? Every day she's now going on about how we need to take baths and walk the dogs (only she calls it "remembering your spirit"), and except for her first day she's been rotating self-help gurus that she wants to bring back a helluva lot. Unfortunately one of them is John Gray. I never paid any attention to this guy before- he has got THE MOST ANNOYING WHINY VOICE I EVER HEARD. I think (although no one's gonna agree with me here) it's worse than Fran Drescher's. I don't know how people can listen to him speak. Mom kept yelling "Are you watching this?" and I kept yelling back "I can't stand listening to it!" And she's bringing him on every Wednesday? Thank God I'll be in class then so I won't have to remember "It's Wednesday, skip Oprah." Thursday she brought on someone whose idea of getting you out of debt had to do with writing down your anger (don't ask).

And yesterday, Mom was watching it again, and again I was trying to ignore the proceedings. She calls to me, "Come watch this, she just told a girl to get over a guy and get on with her life." I run in, and that turned out NOT to be the topic under discussion, so I walk back out. As it turned out, Mom was taping this stuff, and made me watch that show today.

Hmmmm.

I only get interested when they bring on this chick that had been on the show before. At that time she was one of those women I despise- the ones who are "nothing without a man." She wouldn't decorate her apartment or do anything (besides dye her hair blonde- not a great look) because she was "waiting for the man" who will provide her with a "real home." She'd been saving this bottle of champagne for eight years (I think), which she planned to open when she got engaged, and she'd bring out the bottle sometimes and dream and cry.

Well, since she'd last been on she'd consulted with the guru of the day, an Iyanla Vanzart (puh-leeze don't ask me how to pronounce it, I'm still not sure how), she'd dyed her hair to a prettier/normal color, met The Man, got a great job, and moved out of Chicago. A success story, even if she still hasn't opened the champagne yet (it's in the fridge). In short, she is now "living her life, not sitting in place."

Iyanla then went on today to this girl Cynthia (Mom kept saying, "She sounds like you!") who was griping that it's almost impossible to find a man in New York, and then I (I'm just gonna call her I, okay?) started doing this annoying little shut-up gesture with her hand a lot at her and yelling that "You get what you believe! If you believe you won't get a man, then you won't! That's what The Universe (there was a lot about "The Universe" that I didn't get) says!" or something like that. Oprah started spouting "You become what you believe" and "You get what you expect, not what you say."

I still don't really agree with this kinda thing, even if it turns out to be true- I am not exactly sure if it is. I've believed that lots of things would or wouldn't happen to me (for instance, that I'd never go to a prom), and things went the completely opposite way (I went to three!). And I don't understand how you're supposed to go around believing The Man will show up, like that woman originally did. I believe in living your life the way you want to live it (NOT leaving a hole for a guy to fit into or whatever), and if you find a guy, great, then you deal with it. I know many of you are now going, "You are saying this? Ms. Male Obsessive is saying this?" I mean here that I don't go around living my life only in pursuit of the menfolk. I don't dress like a slut each day/read the sports section in hopes of attracting male/compromise my general personality/NOT act weird in order to adapt to a guy's mold. You live your life as if things will continue as they are now, not as if you are waiting for your "real life" (with a man) to begin. (This was pretty much I's message, but she put it much differently than I do). I believe in "hope for the best, prepare for the worst"- but I betcha that if I'd been in the audience and said that to I, she would have done the annoying shut-up gesture to me.

Mom is now watching Thursday's "Money Matters" episode, and she said to me, "Do you believe that your thoughts create your reality?" I said, "No, my thoughts and reality work completely opposite from each other." This is true- when I've thought things would go negatively they sometimes surprisingly haven't, and (even worse) vice versa.

"You are blocked by your past," however, I completely agree with.

Links to other sites on the Web

By Design (prince and Cinderella, e-mail)

In all likelihood, this is probably going to be my last entry here for a while unless I get some unexpected free time- the parents are bugging me to pack ASAP, and we're leaving Monday. So if you want to send me anything, e-mail gr3ruth@pacbell.net sometime before Monday afternoon, okay? I'll try to get on one last time before then.

For those who are wondering if I'll be writing up my Hawaiian adventure/first days of school/etc. and posting them when I have access again- to be honest with you, I really don't know if I'll have the time. If I have time to write anything in Hawaii I'll try to write up stuff without a computer, but if I can't get Ethernet to work before classes start and I don't have access until I'm overloaded with homework and trying to type past and present entries plus homework, etc, or if I do have Ethernet up but am too busy being a sock to have the time to type 'em up before classes begin . . . well, it might not be happening. I am truly sorry for that, but I can't help it.

So for now . . . goodbye, y'all. God, I'm going to miss doing these entries.


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