I have to confess…..

I think I am going to create a new category for my site devoted only to blogs beginning with those exact words—because I know there will be so many more than just today’s.

I have to confess I just bought ________

I have to confess that I ate _________

I have to confess that I never ______________.

It might be more fun if someone other than me fills in the blanks.  Or it could be a new board game.  Which segues into the fact that V and I were at his brother’s house tonight and we played that board game again: Loaded Questions.  Which is so much fun I would love to write more about it but I don’t think I could do it justice.  Obviously they are reading my blog, since this time my sister-in-law made sure to cook us a fantastic dinner.  (Note that I made a tiny step today technologically–if both of those links actually work and lead to the post “Let the Games Begin.”)

We just got home and it’s late, and I still have to write my blog.  And of course you’re thinking I head straight for the computer.  We’ve only spent a few weeks blogging together, and you already assume you know me, right?  Wrong.

This is the part where I’m going to say “I have to confess that…”  And I’m going ahead with this since I already started, even though I am pretty much guaranteed that a decent portion of people reading this will be disappointed to hear this about me.  For instance, I am hoping that my classmates from Yale are all spending the summer on remote islands in the South Pacific without computer access.

But I’m going to be honest since that’s the whole point of a blog.  At least, this blog.  Besides, there’s something liberating about revealing flaws and petty things.  It’s surprisingly cathartic.

So after we get home, what I want to do is not the blog.  Something else.  Something that is part of every week for me, but is far more important this particular week.  Because when we get home tonight I know today’s mail is waiting.  It’s waiting there because I didn’t have time to go through it before we left for dinner.  And in the pile of bills and junk mail and catalogues is the one piece of mail I look forward to getting every week:  People Magazine.

Now that you know what “I have to confess”… you also know why this particular week is more important.  Unless you really have been on a remote island in the South Pacific, you know that Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline are on the cover.

I admit there are some contradictions about me reading People.  One is the fact that I actually worked for the magazine for a short time as a freelance reporter.  Another is that one of the major reasons I wanted to leave Los Angeles 15 years ago was to extract my children and myself from the materialism and celebrity culture surrounding us.

So what’s the logic of this?  There is none.  Just one of those conundrums without an answer.  And in the right mood, I could enjoy blogging about why this culture of celebrity has grown to such gigantic proportions that any magazine would pay 14 million dollars just for the privilege of putting two infants on its cover.  Yes, I think I would definitely enjoy pondering that question.  But not tonight.  I’ve already seen the picture of the Jolie-Pitt twins on the internet, and now I want to go and read the article.

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Update 12 hours later:   In order to keep myself, and you, both accurate and current, I want to disclose a few things:

A–I’ve now read 2 positive reviews of “Swing Vote” so I owe an apology for what I said in yesterday’s post and plan to see it ASAP

B–I had another blog posted on the Huffington Post today called “No Weigh!!”–but I am already so blase about that, I’m only going to mention it right here

C–The Jolie-Pitt offspring are absolutely gorgeous.  (See “Grandma Envy“)