Bananarama

I don’t totally blame Kate Hudson, but I kind of blame Kate Hudson.

There’s been a steady drumbeat in my head that I should be less weird, more in tune with the wide, well-lit highway we like to call pop culture. I watched every episode of “The Wire” but I've never seen a single “American Idol.” This is not because I’m a culture snob but because drug policy in an embattled urban landscape makes me less nervous than people being mean to other people who sing off-key. See? Weird. I have never seen “The Bachelor,” “Lost,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” or any show starring Heidi or Spencer. Again, not a snob; it’s just that there are so many documentaries about unfortunate medical conditions on cable and we freaks have to prioritize.

But as the book inches forward, I have been encouraged to try to write for other mediums beside this blog. Other places aren’t nearly as patient as you all are about hearing about Lupac, my short-term memory issues and random small plastic dealies. Magazines care about what their readers care about, and readers care about things I have never actually experienced. Magazine readers don’t care about documentaries about cane toads or typefaces, mystifying as that is to me. So, I’ve been trying to catch up to the rest of the world. But it’s hard to cram a decade’s worth of People magazine-information into one's brain in a week. Do you know that “Lost” makes no sense? Are you aware that Amy Adams and Isla Fisher are, in fact, the same person? How do the Gosselins have so many children when it appears they hate one another? And I’m still not certain what I’m supposed to do with Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Please do not think I am placing myself above anyone who takes pleasure in these shows. I’m no better or smarter than the mainstream viewer. I’m weird. For the most part, I live with my weirdness the way I would live with a supernumerary ear; it causes me no pain and it only makes me marginally more unsightly.

Which leads me to the gym, where I am frequently unsightly. Sometimes I am very organized and bring something obscure to read as I walk to nowhere. Mostly, I listen to Planet Money podcasts so I can play the at-home version of the economic collapse. Yesterday, I was all caught up on our upcoming depression and had forgotten to bring my biography of Emily Post (See: weird, Quinn), so I grabbed a copy of Elle from the pile of magazines at the gym. Kate Hudson was on the cover glaring at me, but I didn’t take it personally. I started climbing to nowhere and skipped through the magazine. Ponytails are back, check. It seems that MC Hammer pants are back as well, check (with a derisive snort on my part.) And then, in a golden glow of youth and wealth, was Kate Hudson. Kate lolling. Kate pouting. Kate bending. And then the article, which was ostensibly about her (then) upcoming movie in which she not only starred but also produced.

Mostly though, this writer and Kate’s publicist were very concerned that we understand Kate Hudson is a much better person than you, the reader. Kate adores her parents. Kate gets along fabulously with her ex-husband. Kate gained sixty pounds while pregnant and not only lost it all, she lost it in all the right places. If you, the reader, have any unfinished business with parents, or exes, or are still carrying baby-weight and the baby is taking his driver’s test, well you’re just not Kate Hudson, are you? And then, because someone out there wasn’t feeling her inadequacies deeply enough, they got a quote from her friend Jen Meyer. Jen recounted how she’ll go over to Kate’s house and Kate will be looking perfect in a bikini, and then Kate will tell her son sweetly to get ready to go for a bike ride -- just as soon as the banana soufflé Kate has made without a recipe is out of the oven.

I climbed. And I brooded. I know the point of any celebrity’s public persona is to create the best possible image. This article would be known as a “Puff piece,” and expecting depth in here is no more productive than expecting to hear Nine Inch Nails at a Gymboree class. But this puff piece got stuck in my throat. It was that damn banana soufflé. You can either know how to make a banana soufflé or you can fit attractively into a bikini, but you can’t do both. Even if Kate said to herself, “I shall have no more than a bite of soufflé and then I will take extra stripper-aerobics classes to atone for that bite,” she’s still got a soufflé sitting around the house. What, she just ignores it? Next week I’ll be found unconscious in a pile of Girl Scout cookie-crumbs and Kate Hudson can deny herself warm banana soufflé? And don’t think I didn’t get that "without a recipe” dig; some of us aren’t too proud to admit they need to check The Joy of Cooking before baking a potato. The way I read it, I am supposed to understand that Kate Hudson succeeds at being both a traditional woman and a modern woman. Kate Hudson, like many people in pop-culture, is successful, smart, talented, kind and capable of wearing booties with miniskirts without looking stupid. I succeed at being her fat, off-putting friend who falls up stairs.

This is all too discouraging; I’m going back to being unapologetically weird. Heidi and Spencer will have to watch themselves.