I really hadn’t been paying much attention to the whole Jon and Kate hullabaloo. I’m not a celebrity gossip rag reader and I’ve been pretty much forced to give up t.v. until the earth just slows the hell down and gives me a couple more hours each day. (And Jon and Kate isn’t even close to making my t.v. short list.) But there I was on Saturday night, standing in line at the drugstore with a box of diapers on my hip, and realizing that they were still all over the weekly covers. (And ZOMG it looks like Brad and Angie might be breaking up.)
It got me thinking, though, about our facination with the reality couple. Sure, it was their sextuplets that originally landed them their own show, but the kids are really peripheral now, aren’t they? This marital scandel has catapulted Jon and Kate into the realm of real celebrity. They are even better than celebrities insofar as we feel entitled to sift through the sordid details of their misery. I mean, sure, we’ll gobble up every iota of rumour and innuendo about regular celebs, too, but there is a sense that we are snooping and that just maybe these stars do have a claim to some amount of privacy. But Jon and Kate are asking for it, aren’t they? They sold out their children’s right to a private life by signing up for this t.v. show and are money-hungry, limelight-loving egomanics. It seems, is the general idea, that they deserve it.
As soon as I had a baby I knew I wanted a Jolly Jumper. I don’t know why, exactly (memories of bouncing baby sibs, perhaps), but want one I did. So I was pretty disappointed when our apartment had cheap, modern doorframes that weren’t wide enough to hang the jumper from. But I did without.