Just got home

from my friends' home (the other Nathan and Amy.....don't ask), and had a conversation with my good friend Stacy. We were just talking mostly about how easy it is to get very attached to the things we surround ourselves with. As an example, Nathan and I are looking at new couches because our old one has a huge, gaping tear from where Abigail accidently chewed a hole in it when she was chewing on her foot (again, don't ask). The small, accidental chew-hole grew more and more gaping and now, whole pieces of stuffing fly out on a regular basis. All that to say that I found a couch I like at IKEA that is very versatile and functional, and of course, very cute. I keep thinking about getting that couch, how I can't wait to get it, I can't stop showing the website to my friends, etc. So this evening, I just began to realize how couch-crazy I was getting. Our culture is saturated with materialism. Yet there are children who sleep on rice sacks! Something is wrong with that. How can I get so "American" that I want to puke?

In some ways it reminds me of a movie (Far from Heaven) that Nathan and I just saw the other night at the Drafthouse. The setting was this perfect, 1950s, Norman-Rockwell painting-type family, and just under the surface, everything was broken, and falling apart. It made me so sad, and yet I think we still behave like that today. We are broken people, with problems, and our couches have holes with the stuffing coming out! Why can't we look just below the surface, and embrace each other, flaws and all? I may be one of those people who is worried that if the outside isn't pretty enough, what will that say about underneath?

OK, it's not wrong for me to want a new sofa, just wrong for me to be obsessed with it. As a side note, when you blog after 1:30 in the morning, you may get a little confessional.

Help!

I've been sucked into the world of reality television. I never thought something like this could happen to me, but here I am. I've been hooked on Joe Millionaire, Star Search, Meet the Folks, trashy dating shows of all shapes and sizes and even American Idol, where tonight Nathan and I were surprised to see a guy we went to college with who actually made the first cut and is going to Hollywood! The scary part is not how easily this old schoolmate made it into the world of crappy pop, but how unsuspecting I was when I began to casually watch these addictive shows. I was only experimenting, but now I can't stop. It's become more than a guilty pleasure; it's a nightly event! I think I need an intervention.

People all over the world, join hands.

Happy MLK Day!