Top Chef thoughts having nothing to do with Top Chef

See, look at this! I all of a sudden have to wake up at six every morning, and that means I have to stay home and go to bed early and not go out and watch Andrew get kicked off with all my friends (Andrew! WTF Andrew? A sushi roll with parsnips? For cops? I seriously don't feel bad for you at all. I feel bad for myself for overestimating you. You did too much man, too much. ).

So I'm watching this show, and flipping over to "In Her Shoes" during commercials. By the way, Toni Collette can officially make me cry in anything. I don't know why. Maybe it's her teeth, but I would rather believe its the way she flips between lovable homely and seriously handsome. I think all somewhat homely girls would like to think they have that talent as well. It's like grown up Molly Ringwald syndrome.

There's a Dairy Queen commercial on lately, perhaps you've seen it...



In it, if you can't be bothered to waste your time downloading something I think would enrich our conversation here, a young girl (like 11?10?) goes in with her mother to buy sundaes. At the counter, she catches the eye of a young man across the room, and waves flirtatiously at him. She tells her mother to only buy one sundae. When her mother expresses surprise at her willingness to share (congratulations little girl on recognizing how to cut down on calories!), she says flippantly that she doesn't want to share, and then the waiter (waiters? at dairy queen?) comes over with ANOTHER sundae and says "Compliments of the gentleman in the donkey shirt".

Little Miss Blonde Ambition says "It's like shooting fish in a barrel". Her mother makes a face that says "I'm going to pretend to be shocked, but I'm really just impressed with what a precocious young woman you are."

And we're arguing about Miley Cyrus?

It occurred to me while watching this that maybe our problem with the sexualization of children in this country is not that we are all sweaty mouthbreathing pedophiles, but rather that we are just continuing the sick tradition of forcing our children to live up to our own past aspirations. We all wanted to be pretty popular young beauty queens, so we groom our daughters to be what we couldn't in high school. We groom our sons to be the strong macho salesman we couldn't be, the kind that tell the woman when the date is rather than asking if she would like to.

Mothers and fathers have always done this, some to more extent than others. But those past generations were much more, you know, "nuclear" and straightlaced and bound to moral conventions. Willing to be shamed by their neighbors. In short, this kind of show-offy social behavior, the kind of behavior we risked in high school and college, it's been getting more and more risque. Our parents did it, only a little less than we did. Their parents did it too, only a little bit less than mom and dad. Each generation has attempted to be a little bit more sexual, more open, less prudish than the last. And if the accompanying lesson isn't that with more sexuality, comes more responsibility to yourself and others, then of course the kids will be whores.

Do you think the mom is proud of her daughter? Proud of her ability to manipulate boys, and get what she wants by flirting? I think she is. I think Mom wishes she was a bit more like her daughter.

I'm going to bed to dream of distances between stars being pushed apart. Bye.