i didn't truly comprehend the phrase, "dying of boredom" until i wearily arrived home in portland after four months of living the fast-paced life of a londoner, and found, to my great displeasure, that having all of my friends still away at school and having no job yet is not a recipe for fun or success. rather, it is the recipe for extreme monotony and general tedium. i spend my days wandering aimlessly through channels until i eventually concede and decide to devote the next seven hours to watching a pre-grey's katherine heigl star in a series of christian pioneer movies on the hallmark channel that can only be described as 7th heaven on Prozac, set on the western frontier.
there is but one glimmer of saving grace in my days. one hour where i forget how much i hate my non-life, where i forget that not only do i not have friends, even the dog won't sit next to me, where i forget that i spent my monday night out in the...suburbs (it almost kills me to type it) watching my father's softball team (comprised of middle aged computer nerds) pant their way to first base after hitting an underhand pitch ten feet. said glimmer: ellen. ellen, oh ellen. how i love thee.
there are many basic reasons why ellen is the greatest thing to happen to daytime television as well as my life.
1. a lot of the time, ellen brings adorable children with weird talents onto the show. this includes the kid who is in love with vacuums, emily bear the piano prodigy, and that little girl who hiccups her way through the alphabetical states song. who doesn't love to watch cute kids do cute things? ellen's show is a perfect mix of my two favorite things: precious kids and celebs.
2. ellen just has this unidentifiable talent that makes people want to be on her show. anyone will come talk to her! john mccain for godsakes, visited the set and allowed himself to be bamboozled into questioning regarding gay marriage, which he had to know was going to happen! george clooney, notorious for being interview-shy, deemed ellen a worthy enough goddess, and graced her stage this year. not only will people come onto her show, they'll open up to her. case in point: lindsay lohan last week. enough said.
3. ellen changes minds about gay people. well, i don't know if this is actually true but here is my thought process: who watches the most daytime television (other than yours truly, of course)? undereducated white trash, correct? and how do white trash feel about gay people? poorly, i think we can concur. but who has the highest rated daytime talk show? ELLEN. therefore, if most of the undereducated white trash people watching tv at 4pm watch Ellen, and continue to do so, then they must like her and therefore their foolish views on gay people must have been altered. flawless theory.
4. this is the crux of it - ellen gives the people what they want. and what is it they want? why, the people JUST WANT TO DANCE! you can look as stupid as you want doing the scuba move or a half-sway but by god, you're dancing with ellen, so it doesn't matter! name me a person who doesn't want to dance, and i'll call it a duggar, but other than that - spot on assessment of the people's wish, ellen.
so thank you, ms degeneres. not only are you one half of my favorite lesbian power couple, you're also my favorite daytime television goddess devine. you have brought meaning and laughter back into my life, and i couldn't be more thankful. unless, of course, you read this post, realized i was more of an adoring fan than crazy stalker, and gifted me with tickets to your show (preferably when someone cool is on, not like today when you had joan & melissa rivers - hate to say it but laaame). then i could be more grateful.
