Even at the Golden Globes

Is is the weather? Everything seems so depressed. Even the Golden Globes seemed depressing. Everyone seemed so dour. Don't they have an open bar there? And I know they had these magnum bottles of champagne on the tables. Maybe that was it. I tuned in during the mid-drunken funk which occurs about 2 hours after drinking has commenced and about an hour or so before whatever event you are stuck in is due to end leaving you with a spinning head and little of the actual enjoyment of being drunk. So instead of seeing happy tipsy people, feeling fabulous in their often hideous attire (Did you see Teri Hatcher? What was with that dress? I hear she is auctioning it off now. Good riddance.) and excited to see who won, I tune in to see a bunch of Hollywood folk wishing Robin Williams would just shut up so they can get on to the after party where their drunkeness will have an outlet. Perhaps that is it...I can hope.

Newsflash: Prince was there. Prince! On the stage, talking! For real. OK, I don't really know what he said (other than a well deserved compliment to Jamie Foxx for his portrayal of Ray Charles) or why he was there because I was so excited to see him. There! On the stage! Talking! Prince is like the White Rabbit. You see him enough to know he exists, but he's often really hard to find. And at an awards show? For movies? No way. That's very exciting, particulary to Minnesotans because really, he is, unarguably, the coolest native. And he still lives here. Which I think makes the rest of us feel better about living here. Particularly in January.

Anyway, maybe I can attribute the glumness of the Golden Globes to alcohol but that doesn't explain everything else. I would like to think that this is just my particular outlook on life (right now, at least. I certainly hope it isn't a permanent condition). That the stess of building a house, selling a house and moving over Christmas just took the fun right out of the season and beyond, yet I talked to a lot of people and they just weren't feeling it either. So I look for answers.

Theory #1
The weather was just too nice.
See, we have an expectation of Christmas weather and no snow and 40 degrees ain't it. So instead of keeping warm shopping at the mall or baking Christmas cookies we spent it enjoying the weather outside and then by the time Christmas was a week away, we had nothing done and then had to rush, therefore causing stress, unhappiness and an unmitagated desire for Christmas just to be over.

Theory #2
The presidential election sucked.
When an election is that close, you gotta know there is going to be a lot of unhappy people. And I'm sorry, even if you voted for Bush, you must know he is an ass. How can anybody not know he is an ass? I think this election will go down as one of the top contenders for use of the "lesser of two evils" voting strategy. Who can be happy when the choice is between not great and worse? But I know many people were more comfortable with Bush finishing what he started, which brings me to...

Theory #3
The War.
It goes without saying that this a Very Bad War. The reasons why our troops were sent in the first place were unfounded and what was supposed to be short and sweet has lingered far too long with some of the most heinous violence being committed against our soldiers and citizens. This war was supposed to be over some time ago with few casualties, yet too often on the news I hear of yet another local soldier who was just killed over there. It's not good.

Theory #4
The Tsunami.
Natural disasters are always frightening even when you live in a landlocked part of the world like Minnesota where things like tsunamies and hurricanes don't occur and our risk of earthquake is low. To know that no matter how evolved we are or what technology we have developed that we are no match for Mother Nature is a scary thing. I think we like to comfort ourselves with the idea that technology can save us and that we can actually predict this sort of thing but the reality is that often we cannot. Yes, it would have been better if there was a warning system in the Indian Ocean as there is in the Pacific, however, even that is not foolproof. And the horror of the human suffering is unbearable. Watching your child, spouse, friend, swept out to a never ending sea? Having to choose which child to hang on to because you can't hang on to both? It's all too much. Don't even get me started on the California mudslides...

So maybe it is me. Although when I talk to people, they seem to be having much of the same feelings. Maybe all of these things do weigh on all of us. Perhaps it is my age (and consequently the age of who I talk to. We are not 16 anymore), and I am more aware of these things and they bother me. I don't know. What I do know is that by and large we don't talk about these things. We pretend they don't exist, that they aren't heavy on our mind, but those feelings leak out anyway because I think at the end of the day, so many of us just feel really helpless.

Even the beautiful and famous people at the Golden Globes.


Coming next week:
Something far more fun and far less depressing. I promise. It is after all January in Minnesota and what could be better than that?