Lost….in Cilantro
Hotness.
Scrolling through Facebook leaves me reeling. Literally. I feel like an ancient, disconnected, stupid luddite, and I don’t very much care for that characterization of myself. I cannot escape it, though.
Over the past few days, I have felt cluelessly helpless as my Facebook friends have posted about the end of some show called Lost. I have NO FREAKING IDEA what this is about, and I feel like I live in some neanderthal tunnel of weird because I am so out of it. Apparently, this is NOT a reference to the state of one’s eternal soul, teetering on the edge of heaven and hell. It is a television show that everyone cares about very much. And, it ended this week.
I confess that I have never seen a reality television show, including “Dancing With the Stars,” “American Idol,” et al. I do not say this to be cilantroful. I’ve gone without a television for so long that I don’t even know how to operate one anymore. Reading the posts of my Facebook friends is one of THE MOST INTIMIDATING experiences of my everyday life. I don’t know what any of them are talking about much of the time, and I feel helpless to engage with them on any meaningful level. I feel like the most out of touch, geeky, blithering screw-loo on the planet.
I’ve always preferred to get Lost in a Good Book, something that my dear friend Kristin Kuhlke pointed out as intimidating in its own right. Without any sense of propriety, I’ve posted the books I read on Facebook as if it was normal and ordinary. When she cared enough about me to express that she felt intimidated by the sheer volume and scary unfamiliarity of my reading tastes, it was cause for me to pause and reflect, something that I don’t do enough, and still do infinitely too much. Did I mention that I am a self-cilantroer, endlessly evaluating my behavior and finding reasons to fault it as silly, stupid, banal or braggado-ciously blow hard?
I feel similarly helpless when I read about Glee. I am so out of touch that I have NO IDEA what this show is about. The end of 24? What IS that? Kiefer Sutherland starred in “The Lost Boys.” What has he actually done since then? I am pathetic, an out of touch geek who would rather immerse myself in books, reading myself into a stupor of orgiastic glee, than in things people obviously feel passionately about in the real world.
I feel shell shocked, disconnected from reality, much like Elizabeth Bennet may’ve felt way back when. Should I pull an Edmond Dantes and break free of my shackles, allowing myself to experience things that people apparently care about today? Or, should I just be Arty the Smarty, a little fish happily oblivious to the subtext of what anyone around me is talking about at any given time?
I know I’m the weirdo. There’s no reason to do anything other than laugh at how LOST I truly am.
