Category Archives: Mockingbird

Will Write for Attention

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Say hello to my little friend.

Say hello to my little friend.

“This could be our last big surprise in life,” I said to my husband on our way to the gender-reveal ultrasound of our second child a couple of months ago. He laughed at the melodrama of the statement even as we both acknowledged that the news was likely to be anticlimactic, since the perinatologist had already guessed–and we had suspected–that we were having another boy. An hour later, our suspicions were confirmed. I was set to be the lone female in a house populated by Y chromosomes.

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Will Write for Attention

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“Should we do it? Are you up for it?” my husband asked from his couch cushion. I shrugged, considering, from mine. Finally I answered. “Sure. I can handle it.” He grabbed the remote and queued up our Netflix-sponsored episode of The Walking Dead, season three. Also known as The Season with the Governor. Also known as sixteen of the most hard-to-stomach hours of television I’ve ever seen.

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Will Write for Attention

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Weekday, early morning. I hoist my two-year-old son into his booster seat, scatter some Cheerios over his tray, flip on the Today show. As I wait for the coffee to brew, I notice that the lead news story concerns Justin Bieber’s latest run-in with the law. The camera pans across a sea of teenage girls holding up signs of support as Justin is escorted out of prison.

I think, This is the top story? And where are their parents? I glance over at my son, who stuffs cereal into his face as he stares at the screen. I switch to Charlie and Lola.

But the images stay with me, and over the next week, I watch more of them pile up: Bieber gets into more trouble. Richard Sherman abrogates his ability to be articulate in favor of spitfire trash-talking. Zach Braff tweets a picture of himself seated next to Mitt Romney on a plane, noting how surprised he is that someone can disagree with him and still be “a cool dude.”

I am shocked by how obsessed our culture has become with the two-dimensional.

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Will Write for Attention

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courtesy thetangential.com

courtesy thetangential.com

I have a confession to make: I still watch Nashville.

I realize this hardly makes me a singular phenomenon; last week’s ratings indicate I was joined by five and a half million. The reluctance of my admission finds its basis in the direction the show has taken since around the second half of the first season, when the narrative’s musical focus was usurped by suds: Rayna’s failed marriage (that was quick!); Teddy’s transgressions turning from financial to sexual; Juliette taking showers with a dude named Dante, for Music City’s sake. I considered dropping the recording from my DVR list several times, most of them coinciding with the appearances of Avery’s childish pout, which could have generated its own drinking game.

But there remained one reason for me to tune in each week. Okay, two: Connie Britton’s hair counts as both a reason and a work of art. Reason number two? The show’s resident addict, Deacon Claybourne.

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