Last week I inherited a beaver’s self-portrait from my grandparents. At least, that is what we always called it. My grandpa found it down by the river one day. It’s a log, really. But Grandpa noticed this particular log seemed to have something carved in it, namely, a beaver sniffing its way up the tree. So he brought it home and, for as long as I have been alive, that beaver has been as much a part of the farmhouse as Grandma and Grandpa themselves.

It’s been over a year since Grandma died, but it was only this past Friday that representatives for the kids could congregate together to claim their share of the home’s contents. Five of the seven siblings were represented, including my sister and I, who split our mother’s share of the trust.

Though, how we are going to share this beaver log remains to be seen.

The beaver was one of the big ticket items. We drew marbles out of an old orange juice container to determine the order we picked things in. We used our first-round pick on the beaver. With the second round, I took some glassware Grandma got as a wedding present when they wed back in the 1940s. I don’t think those glasses had moved from the shelf for decades until I carefully packed them up, completely unsure how to get it back to me in Vegas.

I couldn’t give you a price tag on the set. Perhaps it is one of those Antiques Roadshow discovery worth hundreds of dollars, but it probably wouldn’t fetch much more than $50 if I had to make an educated guess. Other items I picked up during the event included:

• A mason jar with flowers on it
• A glass with old, real cotton in it
• A copper music box that plays The Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun”
• An old paper banner we drew for one of our cousin Christmas production
• Two small candleholders
• A green glass container shaped like a hen

If the list doesn’t give you some idea about my family, my mother always said she didn’t grow up dirt poor. However, when I asked my Uncle Tom on Friday, he laughed and said he never got the memo they weren’t dirt poor.

I didn’t grow up poor. We were rather upper middle class thanks to my father’s job as an electrical engineer at IBM. After he died when I was nine though, we gradually slipped down the social structure. By the time I applied for college, my expected family contribution as caclulated by the FASFA was $0 after I turned 18. Which is good, as my mom, who took a job as a clerk at a superstore called Meijer my senior year, informed me she didn’t have any money to send me to college, so she and FASFA were on the same page.

My mom’s family always said she was essentially a snob. They didn’t use that word, but even a 10-year-old me could read through the coded language and saw the side eyes at our clothes bought from mall stores like Limited Too. I have lost track of the times my family reminded me that, before my father died, he warned my mom she would have to start shopping at places like K-Mart. She never took that advice and, judging by how often I’ve heard the story, her siblings seemed rather bothered that she didn’t.

When I graduated from high school, family on both sides, including my three living grandparents, came to the ceremony. I could pick where the celebratory dinner was and chose TGI Fridays. As we were leaving, my grandma pulled her daughter aside and made sure to point out my expensive taste. Thing is, I knew when I picked it there would be controversy because I, like my mother, have always been labeled a snob by my family.

Even though they make their digs about my taste in clothes and penchant for wearing heels, I am nonetheless a part of the clan. We are currently 65 people strong on my mother’s side, and I can name every single one of them. Our definition of family is such that once you are in, you don’t get out. We may mock you, but we love you, and there is no way you can get out. It’s like the mafia. You’re in for life.

I tell you about my own family in an attempt to contextualize what I am about to say because I know it will upset some of you. Get ready.

When Hillbilly Elegy came out a few years ago, I gobbled it up. It was a story I profoundly related to, as both author JD Vance and I “got out” of our country upbringings. And, unlike other stories of the redneck-made-good, Vance admits he is torn between the two worlds. Like Vance, I grew up around family that wanted a better life for me, but simultaneously discouraged me from pursuing it in any way that veered too far off course from their own experiences.

I applied to ten colleges and got into all ten, however my mother nixed all but three because the scholarship offers, while, generous, were not generous enough. I could choose between Western Kentucky University, Northwestern, and USC which, believe it or not, all would cost me essentially nothing to attend. Even though WKU didn’t even have a film program and I would have to pursue a generic Communications degree, my grandparents rooted for me to stay local. When I ended up opting for USC, Grandpa didn’t hide his disappointment.

“I don’t know what you think you’ll learn out there that is worth anything,” he said with a smile. To his credit, he didn’t try to talk me out of my choice, but he also made no effort to hide his disdain for California, the people there, and the ideals they espoused.

And guess what? When I got to USC, no one hid their disdain for the kind of people my family were either. Every semester there would be a class that would rile me up and I would call my mom to rant about how rural poor people get blamed for everything. After a couple of years of this, she started to wonder aloud if maybe Western would have been the better choice after all.

Meeting people’s family’s, no parents ever turned their nose down at me. However, they would hear about my upbringing or how my mom supported herself or my sister’s struggles and marvel in awe that I ended up where I did, which is particularly amusing considered I ended up right alongside their kid doing exactly what they were doing.

Yet they really did seem to believe that I had achieved some sort of miraculous feat. Like being the granddaughter of farmers, raised in Kentucky by a widowed woman barely getting by was the kind of baggage no person could overcome. At the time, I sat there listening, rarely saying more than polite thank-yous, thinking I really must have made such an impression on them. As I grew older though, I realize the compliment they were trying to pay me is that I got out. That it was a great accomplishment to be nothing like my family. They assumed with my socioeconomic status I had to be a Democrat and would balk upon learning I identified as a Republican.

Criticism of Vance’s is focused on social commentary and making sweeping assumptions that endorse several arguably Republican notions about class and poverty. It’s a fair criticism, but again I warn you when I say, at the individual level, I observed much of the same self-sabotage Vance documents in his own story.

But what he really got at, at least in my two readings of the book, is that it often feels like there is really no way for us rednecks to win. I have spent my entire adult life learning how to live in a culture my family knows nothing about. I think being a cultured person is a great pursuit and I try to learn as much about other cultures as possible. However, I cannot help but notice that several cultural practices I learned from my family are dismissed by my peers as old-fashioned or outdated.

Conversely, my family can often live up to stereotypical close-minded county folk because when they come across something foreign to them (both literally and figuratively), they resort to the defense mechanisms of judging it and choosing not to like it before someone can do the same thing to them.

My mother was a master at this tactic. I once begged her to come with me to the nicest steakhouse in Lexington after I won $3,000 in a poker tournament. She acquiesed only because I wouldn’t let up and because steak is the one kind of “fancy” food my mom felt comfortable enough to eat in public. As soon as we sat down though, it was obvious how uncomfortable she was. The servers, the silverware, the fact this restuarant inexplicably did not have French dressing all resonated with her. Though she would never say it, I had even gotten too fancy for my snob of a mom.

Like my mother though, I never believed I was too good for my family. With their jabs, I sometimes wonder if they think I do. But I do not take to heart the clumsy compliments of people who believe the only way to thrive from a background like mine is to forsake it altogether. Vance hits on this in his book too. You can’t deride an entire population as victims and claim to be empathetic when the very system of mobility you created is designed to keep people like that out of it. Poverty is certainly something hillbillies want to escape, but being a hillbilly is not something they need saved from.

Just ask the beaver.

I’m not much of a prayer. Or a pray-er, to be more specific. That is not to say I never pray. I do. Like a typical selfish Millenial, I really only pray when things are really hard.

I rarely ask God to fix it. Instead, I tell him I am struggling. I say things like, “I don’t know how much more I can do this.” I don’t ask for solutions, mostly I just ask for strength.

No one ever really taught me how to pray, but looking at my family, I learned by example. My parents always prayed for guidance or fortitude. My grandparents always prayed for the well being of other people or to let God know they were grateful for the lives they had.

Only rarely did family prayers sound like anything close to a wish you would ask a genie. My aunts prayed for a miracle for my mother, but they seemed to know it would not happen. There was a point with my mom I prayed it would just be over, even though that isn’t really what I wanted.

Lately I have seen a lot of talk about prayer on social media. I try to leave it to those who get more comfort than I do from prayer to explain. Still, it reached a point I felt compelled to interject when it seemed like the goal was not to help people make smart decisions about Hurricane Irma, and instead it felt like an opportunity to tell people how stupid they are in a time when they probably needed help and encouragement.

Because, when it comes to prayers, I have more in common with those facing Irma than those who pray every day. I seek out prayer in these extreme times. Certainly taking care of a terminally ill relative is not as dangerous as a natural disaster. Both are extreme tests of a person’s resilience though.

In my situation, I prayed because I didn’t know who else to talk to given that Mom wasn’t going to talk about what was happening. During those long mornings and late nights when it was just the two of us, I would turn a corner, bite my lip, close my eyes and pray until I got it together enough to go back in her room. Showers were my chance to cry unnoticed. They were also the time where I dropped my guard and told God I didn’t think I could do this anymore.

But turns out I could. It sucked, but I did it, thanks to the kind of supportive, Catholic family no one really believes exists these days. We all prayed, and we all dug down and found energy I wouldn’t have believed I had a few months prior. So every day I asked for strength, and every day I thanked the Lord I had such strong family beside me.

You can tell me God didn’t help us, that we did it ourselves. Frankly, I don’t care because we survived. I needed those moments to do it though. And if someone came up to me during that time and said, “you know that is pointless and stupid,” I probably would have crumpled on the floor and sobbed until someone came to take care of me. It would have sapped my energy. It would have sapped my family’s energy. And it might have been the difference maker in being relatively okay about my mom dying and being in a state where I needed much longer to mentally get over it.

I think of those people in Florida and assume it is a similar feeling. You know what is going to happen. You get that what is coming is really scary. So you do what you can, like fill up the tub and stick your most precious belongings in your dishwasher. But in the time between that and the storm, you just try to get by. There comes a point where it is out of your hands, so you pray. Because there is nothing else to do, and rather than succumb to the fear it may not be enough, you hope to God that it is, and ask him if it isn’t to give you the strength to do more.

To me, that is what prayer looks like. Certainly there are extremes, as there are in any belief system, where people do not take action and assume God will take care of them. They take the idea of “que sera sera” to the potentially fatal extreme. I get why you make fun of them, even if I prefer not to do so myself. This is not the Christianity I know and defend. I do not believe that is how the Lord works.

I also know, myself included, that some of the ritual prayer that comes with being Catholic can draw a lot of judgmental side eye. I am with you, or at least I was.

We said a piece of the Rosary at my mother’s visitation. (Catholic tradition is to say the entire thing, but we didn’t have hours of time on our hands). It felt weird at first, but I quickly realized its appeal.

Oddly enough, it felt like when there’s a crucial play for your sports team. You can feel other fans around you hoping it happens, and even though that is not some magic guarantee it will, that feeling of inclusion in something bigger than just you has its own brand of majesty.

It sounds hokey, I know, but faith is a hokey concept when you really think about it. Hokey or not though, I personally need it in my day to day life.

And those of you who think prayer is akin to wishing on a magic lamp, I leave you with this:

If you can see value in meditation, you can see value in prayer. For most of the Christians I know, prayer is about channeling energy; finding inner strength if the prayers are for you, sending all the positive energy you can out in the world if the prayers are for someone else.

What we do with that energy is largely up to us. There are some that choose not to harness it and take action. Most of us at least try to though. So if you can respect that we are just trying to channel our energy and focus our mindset, it really doesn’t matter if you think the God we believe is behind it exists or not, right? Because hopefully the end result is the strength to take action, which is something I pray anyone facing Irma finds in this scary time.

I am aware this post is not going to be for everybody, just like Quentin Tarantino is an acquired taste. I have not acquired it myself. Jackie Brown is alright, I found Pulp Fiction boring, and Kill Bill 1 was so violent and gross I swore the guy off forever.

That is, until my friend Jesse insisted there is a Tarantino movie that would be different: Inglourious Basterds.

I was hesitant. I told him I know this is exactly the kind of movie I do not like, but he really wanted me to give it a shot. So I did. And rather than try to express my larger issues with Mr. Tarantino and his cultural appropriations or his inability to construct a good narrative, I thought if I was going to dedicate two and a half hours of my life to a movie I was fairly certain was not my cup of tea, I might as well track my thoughts about it to keep me invested in the thing.

So, for those who are curious, here are my thoughts on everything about this movie from the good performances and camera framing to the lethargic opening scene to the extreme violence to the inexplicable fonts. All of it. And maybe those of you who don’t realize how much I read into movies when I watch them will get a glimpse at why I nitpick, how distracted I can be when reminded of other movies in a referential movie like this one, and, most importantly, what an obnoxious snob of a film student I can be. Here it is, feel free to criticize and debate. It is only fair if I take shots at the movie, fans of the movie can take their shots at me:

(Note: In this rare instance, I did not self-spoil the plot before watching, so these are all real time reactions to what I am watching, which explains why I walk back certain criticisms when they get explained later on)

0:00: I do always love a retro studio logo. They do have me there.

0:01: I will also give Tarentino this—though he rips off old movies and calls it homage when it is really just pastiche, I do appreciate anyone with reverence for opening credits. Though, these are a smidge boring compared to Feud on FX, which are the credits of the year imo

0:04: Waiting for these people on bikes to arrive at this French guy’s house is already boring me. Given the running time, I am concerned about this inauspicious start. Where is the suspense? The build? For a filmmaker who I will at least admit is energetic, this is such a muted beginning.

0:06: I am watching a dude drink milk. Send help.

0:08: Is it supposed to be ludicrous that he wants to switch from French to English after using the French word for inadequate? I am hoping this is part of the humor of this film and Tarantino just hasn’t tipped his hand as to tone yet.

0:12: The missing Jewish brother is named Bob? I am racking my brain on whether or not Bob is a common French nickname or not…Mostly because I am bored to tears and having nothing better to do.

0:13: I am also wondering what about the pipe is not a pipe. Is it a signal? Is it a bomb? Is it a mistake this guy made that Christoph Waltz is going to use to destroy him.

0:15: I understand this is supposed to be tense. Thing is, it isn’t. Tension requires me to be invested in the outcome and I don’t know or recognize these characters, so I am not particularly invested in the fact Waltz is inevitably going to catch and kill them. You can zoom in on him writing down that a 10 year old is involved, but the film hasn’t *earned* suspense yet. Sure, it is a kid, it helps, but I find it a little lazy. At least take Hitchcock’s cue and clue the audience in to something the participants don’t know. Thatis how suspense best works.

0:17: The comically large pipe tells me two things: 1. There is a sense of humor to this movie after all 2. The French guys pipe is not more than what it seems, it is an unnecessarily long set up to a cartoon joke.

0:19: Oh the French to English is a façade. That is a relief.

0:20: Um, these Jewish people in the floor don’t speak French, but they aren’t deaf. They can hear three soldiers marching in with boots on.

0:23: While it is not perfect, I applaud you Brad Pitt, for a reasonable Southern accent.

0:24: I can’t with all these monologues. None are particularly memorable so far and I can just feel my time being eaten minute by minute with unnecessary nonsense.

0:27: Oh God, he was not kidding about the scalps. Ew, gross. This is part of Tarantino I can live without, the violence just for violence’s sake. The redneck leader really needs to scalp people? Is it to tie it to the Western genre? Connect it with the heroic and violent for the era John Wayne war movies? Give me a better reason because these are all flimsy at best. He just wants to shock people and takes the easy way out.

0:29: This whole Hugo Blaxpoitation montage is the Tarantino I know and hate. Just derivative and violent because Tarantino thinks it is cool to insert this genre into a WW2 movie. Again, I just find it lazy.

0:30: I just want to go watch The Dirty Dozen instead so very badly right now.

0:35: After watching this poor Nazi get his brain bashed in with a bat, the “ew” count is up to three.

0:36: While Pitt interrogates the last Nazi the excessive panning from person to person to map to person is just one of my pet peeves. What about this camera move is adding anything to the story? It is not additive, it solely distracts.

0:38: Why do these intertitles look so cheap? Is there a reason? Given it is Tarantino I feel like there has to be, but I find it weird they look like I made them myself in Premiere.

0:39: And now Shoshanna’s title card is just a completely different, new font. The font inconsistency is also driving me crazy.

0:40: This shot of Shoshanna fixing the marquee is incredibly well composed though

0:42: These 180-degree rule violations while Shoshanna talks to the German soldiers are killing my soul. I want to believe there is a reason this is happening, but I think given the usual suspect, there is not one.

0:43: Not to sound wholly negative, the Orson Welles-esque low angle shooting is really lovely. The framing of shots in this movie is really nicely done. (See? I can say nice things too!)

0:57: Shoshanna’s reaction to having to wait for the cream to eat her strudel is how I feel about watching this movie. Silently rolling her eyes because she knows the cream won’t save this horrible experience.

1:00: I will also give Waltz and this blonde chick playing Shoshanna that their performances are quite good. I get why he was nominated. Looking at this remarkably weak and unmemorable field, I guess it makes sense he won, though I am Team Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones myself.

1:03: So another pet peeve of mine is inconsistent narration. We have not had voiceover in this movie for half an hour and when Samuel L. Jackson did pop off, it seemed to be part of the joke riff on Shaft, not a recurring thing. Then suddenly he reappears because we as the audience need to be clued in on a plot point and there is no more graceful way to do it? Boo. Boo I say.

1:07: Something I just typed to my boyfriend, who inexplicably wants to see Boss Baby:

“I would rather watch Boss Baby at this point. If I could tap out of the last 90 minutes of this movie and opt in to the Alec Baldwin talking baby cartoon, I would.”

1:09: Please tell me you are going to be around for more than one scene, Mike Myers. I need more of your weird smile.

 1:19: Y’all I have completely zoned out I am so unbelievably bored. Even more characters I have effectively no interest in are playing some sort of guess the celebrity game in a bar. Shoshanna aside, there is not a character in this movie I give even the tiniest crap about and we are at the point where most films are entering their third act.

1:22: I am curious about this director Pabst now that he has come up three times Not a German director I am very familiar with and, looking at his filmography, I have neither seen nor heard of any of his stuff.

1:26: Pretty certain you can remove this entire section and the movie would be much the better for it. It is just a silly excuse for another discussion about pop culture for Tarantino to show off what a film nerd he claims to be. These scenes can be fun, I enjoy Gilmore Girls, but Jesus get on with it already, like nothing has happened in this movie and we still have an hour to go.

1:30: Sorry undercover British guys, that isn’t how Euros count on their fingers. Guessing the jig is up. Thumb first, dude. Thumb first.

1:31: I will admit this is a good plot point as to how he inadvertently tips off the German guy in terms of execution, concept, dialogue etc. I don’t know why we need twenty minutes to get to it, but this moment was well done.

1:36: Say Auf Wiedersehen to your Nazi balls? Ugh. I get that this is fun to people, juxtaposing a 90s action movie scene into a WW2 movie, but I just generally find it stupid. It is a preference thing, I am not right or wrong here, I just personally find it to be the furthest thing from entertaining.

1:42: I did like the delayed explanation of why this undercover op went to hell for those unfamiliar with how some Euro countries count.

1:48: I think there is a fly in my apartment. Or something is buzzing or maybe broken? Is it a fly? Is it a machine? These questions are more interesting than this movie.

1:49: Um, is this Davd Bowie? I am so bad at music sometimes. What is with the sudden introduction of the anachronistic music? Because I guess we are homaging the 80s now because, hell, why not? I know this is supposed to be fun, but the tone of this movie is so baffling to me. It is irreverent, but it is not quite out there enough to justify the random narration and abrupt genre homages. I know this is supposedly his niche, I just think the Cohens handle this screwball, irreverent tone so much better and I wish their deft hands could fix this.

1:55: All these Nazis in the theater have me hankering for one of my favorite movies featuring Hitler, To Be or Not To Be. The Lubitsch original is the real one to watch, but Mel Brooks’ version is really solid too.

1:57: I will give this movie this—I am impressed how many people watched this movie and seemed to like it that would generally be averse to watching foreign films. The majority of this movie is subtitled and he appealed to a base who normally can’t tolerate subtitles, so I guess there is something to be said there.

2:01: Guys, I am so excited. There is only half an hour left.

2:04: AS we seem to be bidding her character farewell, I will remark how stunning Diane Kruger looks in this movie and how obsessed I am with her blue sparkly dress.

2:21: It is moments like these where I think to myself, “Where is narrator Samuel L. Jackson?”

2:24: Sappy music? Not dead German. Girl, he is going to kill you, ru…oh, too late.

2:27: Is Shoshanna speaking in English in this movie within the movie? Why would she be talking in English to a theater full of Germans? I mean, I guess I can assume she is speaking French or German, but given that it is subtitled every other instance of the movie, this is a little weird. And we established in the intro that she does not speak English, so I am even more perplexed.

2:28: And now we are in a Jimmy Cagney movie. Oh what I would give to be able to watch Yankee Doodle Dandy right now.

2:29: This is a section of the movie in which my personal movie tastes really impact how things affect me, especially Tarantino. I do not find this tommy gun bonanza interesting or invigorating. I find excessive violence really unappealing and I just tune out completely, so this climactic moment totally works for most people and I am fully aware the only reason I am bored out of my mind while Eli Roth shoots Hitler for the 100^th time is a matter purely of taste.

2:30: This scene in the woods is very Miller’s Crossing. Which again just makes me think about how much better the Cohens are at these kinds of movies and how good Brad Pitt is in Burn After Reading.

2:33: Well, I tried. I do think there are moments and pieces of this worth noting, like the Shoshanna girl, Waltz speaking four languages and stealing the show, and the general mis-en-scene, but so much more is a miss for me. Pacing is a disaster with no sense of urgency at any point throughout the movie, there is minimal character development, I for the life of me can’t really sum up the plot of this movie in any succinct way…I mean, to me these are pretty substantial issues that extend beyond my general distaste for the director’s ultraviolent style.

There is only so much pithy one-liners and a rather absurdist sense of humor can save. For me, cinema is a narrative-driven medium and I have yet to see a Tarantino movie where the narrative has done anything but inhibit the rest of the film. In that sense though, that is also a matter of taste. There are those who love formalism, privilege the visual component of cinema, and I get that, it just for me is not what makes a movie I enjoy. I respect Scorsese, but save for Hugo, I don’t really dig his movies because I cannot get into the story. Is he visually skilled? Sure.

Is Tarantino visually skilled? That I cannot answer so definitively. He is a masterful mimic, which is worth noting, but it is all just pastiche to me, throwing things together not to make a point, but just to make something look cool.

The Quiet Man, and his redhead

It’s not a good day. Halloween never is. On a day when you’re sad someone you care about is gone, everyone is running around expressing sentiments like, “You know what I love? Dead people!”

This year is the 24th I’ve been through, but it is the first one without Mom. Throw in a long week filled with stress, sleep deprivation, and the exhaustion that comes with the endless stream of thoughts in my head like perpetual, crippling self-doubt and long hours spent wondering how anyone could like those horrible Fraggles, who let those Doozers work their tails off all day building, only to crassly come by and eat their progress as an afternoon snack (What a terrible existence, Doozers. Like Sysiphus) and I hit the predictably high level of malaise and depression that comes with this festive holiday

This year though, I didn’t have to go it alone. I talked to my dad. One of the benefits of being the daughter of the earliest of early technological adopters is you started using the internet in 1990. Daddy sat me down to explain we could write letters to Grandma and Grandpa over the telephone.

“Why wouldn’t we just call them?”

I had no idea what a gift the idea of the internet was.

Back in the day, early email providers like Prodigy charged based on how many messages you sent per month. In order to keep track of messages and not go over, my dad printed out each message on dot-matrix paper and set them by his desk to keep count. When he died in 1992, my godfather Uncle Randy logged into his email and printed out those final few notes, written in the time spanning between my ninth birthday and his death roughly three weeks later.

I knew these emails existed, but I had avoided them. As a teenager, we found them and I read with a self-centeredness that focused only on emails about me. Some were hard to take. He was tired after my eighth birthday and vented to my grandma about what a handful I could be. I read that one and stopped. My idea of Dad was so fragile, so unshaped with so little time to get to know him that I couldn’t handle the idea of ripping it apart with every comment about his bratty daughter, who, I will be honest, was very bratty.

When I moved in with my family as my mother was dying, I found the emails with Mom’s help. In those late nights by her bed, I would pore over them, filing them in chronological order, reading each message and response dating back to before his diagnosis. I was relieved to find nice stories, like the time I saw my mother’s father give my dad his crucifix, a necklace I had never seen him without. Unaware it was one of many identical ones he owned, I apparently drew Grandpa one and gave it to him before he left town because I didn’t want him to be without it.

Dad was pleasantly surprised. He told his own mother he didn’t think I wanted to talk about what was happening since I didn’t ask many questions, but after seeing this, he realized his little girl was processing more than he realized. His mother wrote back and assured him he was right.

I cried, relieved to know he saw a glimpse of the type of person I was turning into, one always perceiving but often internalizing, but also so distraught that the only other person who really understood how much I didn’t talk about when things bothered me was on her way out the door too.

Mom saw how happy these emails made me. I would come to her with revelations and discoveries and she would nod with a tight-lipped grin. She seemed sad, which I thought was about her own longing to have her husband by her side for the scary process of dying.

One day though, in one of our final lunches out together, she looked at me after my latest email story and said, “I am glad you have those emails. I’m sorry I can’t give you something like that.”

Dad always did the writing. It is generally assumed engineers are typically not great writers, but my dad didn’t just only have much prettier penmanship than my mother, he had a surprising way with words for a math genius and computer whiz.

Dad wrote the cards, especially for occasions of importance like First Communion. He won over my mother with wonderful love letters written from Georgia Tech while she was in Memphis. Letters so personal and open and emotional our mom spent her last mobile days desperately searching the house to find them, not to share them, but to destroy them. She was willing to share pretty much everything our father did with us, but these were her letters and hers alone.

I didn’t understand her unwillingness to share at first, but the more I read from Dad, the more I understood. For two years, he sent nearly daily correspondence to his mother and father as well as to my Uncle Randy, who was not his biological brother, but more than just a brother-in-law. Uncle Randy called him his best friend. My Dad was ill and Uncle Randy was away from his family training to be an anesthetic nurse in Nashville. My dad filled a lot of the loneliness for him, a family man with three children who, in order to follow his dreams and provide them the kind of life he wanted to give them, sacrificed time with them.

I knew he had gone to Nashville. Even as a kid, I understood it was hard, but what I didn’t know was he had something I have spent almost a quarter of a century longing for: advice from Glenn Welman. Sure, plenty of his emails were rundowns of what we had been doing (I swear he documented every single solitary movie he saw via Prodigy mail), but he had a penchant for veering into discussions that felt more like my blog entries than the letters I had seen my mother write her folks, which read like reports rather than thoughtful conversations.

Mom wasn’t expressive. She could listen until the cows came home, but she rarely had much but practical advice. She was melancholy at our lunch because she knew how desperately I had wanted that in my life. Then she saw how much my dad’s words brought her comfort. I think part of her was happy, the way she was always happy for me when I did things far out of her own comfort zone, like a person who can perceive someone is feeling something but can’t understand why, but that was obviously not her prevailing sentiment.

I stopped trying to force these conversations with her and retreated to the seven-inch tall pile of paper with fading ink where my other parent, the one I thought from his discussions of me as a kid he only realized late in the game that I was processing, internalizing, constantly thinking, the one I thought didn’t understand who I was, was there to tell me exactly what I needed to hear.

“He was The Quiet Man,” Uncle Randy said of Dad. “He wouldn’t say a lot at family things..but you can tell he thought a lot!”

I was far from quiet, but I presented a chipper, energetic girl who wanted to talk and entertain. Like Dad, I saved the version of me scared at what was happening and distraught that her life, which had always been dictated by fairness and was now so far from fair, for Dolores Welman. The Quiet Woman who listened plenty, but was mercifully blessed with a disposition that didn’t include the constant racing thoughts of her husband and youngest daughter.

Late last night…early this morning really, I dug up this email from Dad to Uncle Randy. I take it out when I know things are getting tough. I read it and marvel at what a silly optimist he could be, but I also see that though I may never match him in the optimism department, I managed to develop the “survivor’s mentality” he often spoke of and saw in Uncle Randy too. I take a deep breath, sometimes I cry, and I am grateful to have hundreds of Prodigy emails to give me insight into my dad, so he was at last a person, a confidant, a parent and not just the computer prodigy, the genius, the legend.

Mostly though, I cry with a sense of solace that these words from Dad which speak so strongly to me as an adult had to have sunk in to that bratty eight-year-old somehow, even if she kept mum about it. Relieved I didn’t become this way because my dad died. I became this way because he lived long enough to instill them in me.

So, I share with you a letter from my father, dated 8/4/91. Written less than a month after being diagnosed with cancer, my dad instead focuses on fixing my uncle’s jumpy monitor and his new year at school. He encourages, he problem solves, and then he delivers the kind of optimism I thought only existed in PG-rated uplifting movies “based on a true story”:

Dear Randy and family,

Hmmm, that’s a good question as to why Prodigy is jumpy sometimes. How jumpy is it? A little twitch every once in a while or constantly jumping? Of course, once you answer all of the questions, I probably still won’t know what it is! It could be Prodigy is just using a video mode that no other programs use and your monitor is just a little jumpy in that one mode. If there are any controls on your monitor, you may want to try adjusting them. It just depends on how jumpy it is. You also didn’t say which monitor it is.

I bet you are probably really getting excited about school by now. Especially since you are getting ready to move some furniture that way. I know that you will do well. I guess it is my basic nature to treat people with the “you can do it” attitude. We all probably don’t live up to our true capabilities. I’m as guilty as everyone else. Or maybe I have known all along that attitude is everything. Both with your schooling and with life in general. Basically, that is one of the premises in one of the books I mentioned. Attitude makes a world of difference. If you think you can do it, you probably can. If you don’t think you can do it, then you probably can’t. Lucky for me that I have a good attitude. I believe that I can lick this melanoma. The book also talks about dreams and visualization. I had a dream before my surgery. we saw a tornado coming at us and so we found shelter. The tornado missed us. Then afterward, I went outside and my car wasn’t where I left it. So I went looking for it and found that it was OK but in a totally different place. So I interpreted my dream to mean that even though a bad situation was headed my way, I was going to be OK. However, things were going to be different from now on. I know that everything will turn out OK. I hope that I didn’t misinterpret my dream.

We sometimes have to take what life throws at us. But we don’t have to sit by and not do anything about it. Those that can meet life head on are the ones that are the real survivors. Maybe that is why I encourage you so much. I guess I can see some of those same survivor’s qualities in you.

Oh well, so much for all the rambling. I guess I better close this letter down. I really appreciate all of the prayers going out for me. I know that everything will turn out just fine, whatever the outcome is.

We love Y’all and we’ll be praying for you as you get started in your new career Randy. And also for you too, Kathleen, that the job works out for the best.

Love,
Glenn, Dolores, and girls

When I learned I would be attending my first pro wrestling, I was skeptical. We were a house full of girls growing up, so wrestling is more than a little out of my range of interests. My friend Alan insisted the theatrical element of wrestling would appeal to me though, comparing it to So You Think You Can Dance. And we know I love So You Think You Can Dance.

Plus, this wasn’t just any wrestling show. This was Pro Guerrilla Wrestling (PWG), the cream of the indie wrestling crop, and it was Battle of Los Angeles (BOLA), the cream of the PWG crop. Over the past few weeks, I got a bit of a crash course in wrestling from Alan and a to-do list for the big night which included, “wear sneakers”, “stick to basic colors”, and “never take your eyes off the ring, as someone is liable to fly out of it any minute.”

So, last Friday I traveled to Reseda for the big show, unsure of exactly of what was to come. What follows are my impressions of each match. While I learned quite a bit from Alan and the oh-so-patient Shayna Baszler, who sat next to me and enthusiastically filled me in on the matches and who these people were, this is very much the story of a noob who luckboxed her way into the front row of a wrestling event several of my friends would kill puppies to be at in my stead. None of it is intended to offend, I had a great time, but some of my assessments are very much that of someone who doesn’t understand wrestling. So sit back, relax, and revel in my naivety.

This video gives some highlights of each of the matches from Friday when I attended (you can even see me, mouth agape in the front row, from time to time). Let me give you my rundown though:

Marty the Manbun vs. Zero Miedo

Now, I did my best to learn the wrestlers’ names, but let’s be honest: there were a lot and it wasn’t like there was a Playbill to reference, so a lot of them got nicknames. Such was the case with Marty the Manbun, who I guess had a last name, but I couldn’t hear it over the preponderance of man buns at this thing. Marty was the only guy who rocked it in competition though and I assumed based on the hair in tandem with a very Kid Rock-esque floor-length fur coat and an umbrella (which he thankfully did not open inside) that he was supposed to be an unlikable douche. When he removed the faux fur to reveal his Speedo had “Villain” emblazoned across the ass, I knew my read was right.

On the other side of the card was a Mexican wrestler who probably has a real name, but who I called “Zero Miedo” because that is what people chanted when he was out there. It apparently translates to “No Fear”, which was rather charming and, because of years of loving Strongbad and his emails, I am always gonna be partial to dudes in Mexican wrestling masks.

It looked like I was on the right side of things early on, as Zero seemed to have the upper hand, but after a night of watching, I quickly learned the point is to make it seem like one person is winning and then turning the tables, so I was more than a little disappointed to see the Manbun, who was a little unmemorable save for his hairdo and his penchant for snarling like an animal. I mean, I understand wrestling is inherently violent, but I am not sure I can get behind a non-verbal dude with longer hair than me. Apparently in the PWG community, this puts me in the minority, as this Marty fellow seemed to be kinda popular.

Jeff Cobb vs. Ricochet

Call me a homer for loving the guy from Paducah, Kentucky, but I do. Ricochet is amazing. He calls himself the Architect of Aviation, but I thought he was more of a flying squirrel. His smile and mischievous nature were perfect for this match, which pitted him against Olympic wrestler Jeff Cobb. Watching Ricochet scoff at the idea that lil ole him was supposed to wrestle this beast of a man from Guam was entertaining. When he hoisted Cobb over his head, my jaw fell to the floor in shock. The perfect blend of athleticism, theatricality, humor, and surprise, this was the match which made me think wrestling was better than I gave it credit for.

Hennigan vs. Seidel

Okay, I don’t think that is how Seidel spells his name, but it was too amusing to me that a guy named John Hennigan who, no shit, apparently goes by “Mundo” was fighting another guy with a poker name. Really, I am shocked I remembered their names at all. I generally just thought of Seidel as “Guy with the pants that look like they were purchased at a Gadzooks in 1998” vs “Guy whose pants look like the clothing porn version of an Affliction snuff film”. Even Shayna had to wonder how these studded, seemingly polyester pants could possible breathe or move very easily.

We had plenty of time to mull over these fashion questions though, as this match was super boring. There was a lot of low-to-the-ground kicking and even more hairography. For those who may not be familiar with the term, hairography is where excessive tossing and twirling of hair is used in place of substantive material, in this case, wrestling moves.

The Rooster Guy vs. Irish Will

Rooster Guy has a much cooler name, I just can’t remember it and the little fabric situation at the top of his Mexican wrestling has him looking like a rooster. I’m sure it is supposed to be a much more intimidating animal, I am just being honest.

The big talk of this match was the synchronized elements they did, which, while nifty, didn’t impress me as much as they were supposed to I guess. As my friend pointed out, I am literally the only person who didn’t jump out of my seat when it went down. Part of it is I have watched *a lot* of gymnastics, dance, and figure skating in my day, so watching people aerobically be in sync, while nice, isn’t as death-defying as it seemed to others maybe? This is more likely the result of me being unaware of how difficult wrestling is and not their unawareness of how advanced gymnastics have become. Lots of people, Alan included, were big Will fans and I can understand why, but on the whole, this one doesn’t stand out in my memory. It is not them. The issue here is obviously me.

Emo Spats vs. Tommy End

Alan tried to win me over to this guy they call Sabre Jr early on by showing me a short documentary on the up-and-coming Brit. Now here is the part where I am not sure if I am about to say what I am about to say…

We all know wrestling is fake and there are no unscripted results, right? So, yeah, I can play along when people play angry that they lost or play thrilled that they won, but there is a point where the pretending stops making sense for me. If you won a match and were so excited and overwhelmed that you gave what amounted to an Academy Awards speech after your match, it would feel like a little much. So, in this doc, where Sabre gets all emo about this match he lost as if he really truly was crushed this fake horrible thing fake happened to him, I rolled my eyes a little. If I wanted this level of macabre, I’d fire up my Dashboard Confessional albums.

The only thing this Sabre guy had going for him was that his wrestling boots were white, and looked like spats. Other than that, there is not much cause for celebration. He is emo, his face is naturally very serious looking, but then he would be incredibly hammy when hit, acting more cartoonish than a lot of other guys. Throw in the fact that his trademark move appears to be bending people’s fingers awkwardly and you have a recipe for the guy I was most excited to see go away at the end of the night. Unfortunately, he went away victorious, while the talented Tommy End had the crowd on his side, but not the end result.

Chris Hero vs. The Ancient Ligre

Before the matches began, I had the opportunity to meet Chris Hero and marvel at how incredibly nice he was. Then I watched him beat up an old man they call Ligre (I am assuming it is like the Napoleon Dynamite animal, not a name). At least, I think he was old. That is what people tell me, but I can’t say for sure, as he had an elaborate mask on. Judging by his fleet of fans though, people love Ligre and he does seem to be the big deal my friends claim he is.

What was weird was that apparently Chris Hero is pretty beloved and approaching legend status too, so one of these guys had to be the bad guy and Hero seemed pretty intent to take on that role. The folks who go to PWG all the time kept talking about how strange it was to see Hero play what they call a “heel”. I can simply parrot what they said, as I don’t have much insight on the topic. What I can say is I certainly hope in my mid-50s I am half as athletic as a ligre.

Dalton Castle and the Boys vs. Young Bucks & Adam Cole

As a writer, I hate to say “no words” to describe something, but really, no words on this one. From the moment Red Dragon came out masquerading as Dalton Castle’s “fan boys” (fan like Gone With the Wind, not actual fanboys), I was totally sold. Pretending to blow their opponents over with fan and wind power was well-executed and hilarious. Really, that was the theme to this whole match for me. I found my jaw open and smiling the entire time as these guys put together a match that was beyond entertaining, but highly athletic to boot.

My biggest problem was knowing where to look. Like a Cirque du Soleil show, every time I started watching one thing, something else incredible would happen out of the corner of my eye and I was sad I missed it.

I had been told I would love Castle’s campy nature, but I didn’t expect to like Cole and the Young Bucks nearly as much as I did. While their parts weren’t as flashy, they were still fun and impressive, so while the team I wanted to win didn’t, I was still pretty pleased with the end result, which included all of us fanning Dalton back to life like he was Tinker Bell in Peter Pan.

It was an incredible experience, and I am glad to have gone, though the more I write, the more I worry you wrestling fans will be grumpy a noob like myself got to experience BOLA and didn’t even appreciate a synchronized flip off the rope. Rest assured, there is more wrestling in my future, so there is still hope I will get better and smarter, but I can tell you one thing–I am taking the campy and theatrical over the angry and emo every single time.

It has been a couple of years since I challenged my movie viewing with a project. Last time, the obstacle was the list of 400 films nominated on the AFI 100 Years, 100 Movies list. This year, I am going even further out of the comfort zone thanks to the recently released list from the BBC of the 100 Greatest Movies of the 21st Century.

Now, either my personal belief that movies are getting continually worse is true or this list is an attempt to troll people with pretension, as it is populated with no comedies, numerous foreign films, and several experimental movies that I refuse to believe people actually like and only say they like to make themselves look smart. Nonetheless, this list of 100 movies only had 39 I had seen before, so how can I really pass too much judgment on it? Sure, of the ones I have seen, several are (IMO) legitimately awful movies, like Moulin Rouge, A.I., and Wolf of Wall Street, but others like Stories We Tell, the works of Wes Anderson, and Amelie are delighful, often overlooked, works. While I am guessing I am going to hate a lot of these, the act of pushing myself to watch something out of my comfort zone is worthwhile in its own right and just might lead to more undiscovered gems in my future. So, the new challenge for the rest of the year is as follows:

Watch as many of the following list as I can. If I find a movie unbearable, I have to give it at least 30 minutes of my undivided attention before turning it off, which I already did with my first attempt on this list, an unbearable film from Jean-Luc Godard (more on that later). I will update my progress here and let you know which are hidden gems and which should just stay hidden.

Here is the list. The ones in bold are the ones I have seen. All the rest, with the exception of one or two that aren’t available have been added to my Netflix queue, Amazon queue, or will be sent via DVD/Netflix.

Take a deep breath and get ready for one haughty list:

100. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, 2016)
100. Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
100. Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010)
99. The Gleaners and I (Agnès Varda, 2000)
98. Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2002)
97. White Material (Claire Denis, 2009)
96. Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, 2003)
95. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, 2012)
94. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
93. Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007)
92. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)
91. The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan José Campanella, 2009)
90. The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)
89. The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, 2008)
88. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy, 2015)
87. Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
86. Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)
85. A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)
84. Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)
83. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
82. A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2009)
81. Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011)
80. The Return (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2003)
79. Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe, 2000)
78. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)
77. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, 2007)
76. Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003)
75. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)
74. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, 2012)
73. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)
72. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)
71. Tabu (Miguel Gomes, 2012)
70. Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012)
69. Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)
68. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
67. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)
66. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring (Kim Ki-duk, 2003)
65. Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009)
64. The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)
63. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, 2011)
62. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
61. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
60. Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006)
59. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)
58. Moolaadé (Ousmane Sembène, 2004)
57. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012)
56. Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr, director; Ágnes Hranitzky, co-director, 2000)
55. Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)
54. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011)
53. Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
52. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
51. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)
50. The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)
49. Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
48. Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015)
47. Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014)
46. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)
45. Blue Is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)
44. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
43. Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)
42. Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)
41. Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015)
40. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)
39. The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005)
38. City of God (Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, 2002)
37. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010)
36. Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014)
35. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
34. Son of Saul (László Nemes, 2015)
33. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
32. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
31. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011)
30. Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
29. WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
28. Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)
27. The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
26. 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)
25. Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
24. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
23. Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005)
22. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
21. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
20. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
19. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
18. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009)
17. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006)
16. Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)
15. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007)
14. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)
13. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
12. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
11. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2013)
10. No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
9. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
8. Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Edward Yang, 2000)
7. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
5. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
4. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
3. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
2. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
1. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

Any insights on where to start? What to avoid? How many you’ve seen? Give a shout in the comments!

I was unhealthily preoccupied with The Hills when it debuted in 2006. Weirdly, I did not watch Laguna Beach, but as a girl transitioning out of her early and into her mid-20s, this show about what a typical twentysomething in LA did fascinated me to no end, in part because I actually was a twentysomething in LA for a while. In grad school, in-between seminars, my friend Leah and I would break down the newest episode like film students break down Citizen Kane. I taught pieces of the show in my Introduction to Interpersonal Communication class to discuss how American females perform friendship by having these “big talks” where they talk about who is the better friend, who hurt each other worse, and eventually apologize after crying. Lots of crying.

I needed more than a single word to describe my fascination with the show’s star, Lauren Conrad, who took the girl-next-door concept to a new level by never being the prettiest, the smartest, the most successful, or the nicest person. Girls seemed to flock to her because she was so accessible because everything about her seemed so plain.

There was another word for it though, I just didn’t know it at the time. Lauren Conrad and her massive sideswept bangs were…

Basic.

Humorously enough, the girl who used to eat Pinkberry on the regular, wore nothing but oversized tunics and leggings for a good two years, and inadvertently starred in 14 Natasha Bedingfield music videos took offense to Allure calling her basic. Eventually though, she realized the very plain, boring, scarf-loving truth: she is the queen bee of basic bitches.

Perhaps that realization helps explain the ten-year Hills reunion, which opted to focus solely on Lauren and not interview Heidi and Spencer, Audrina, Brody, Justin Bobby, and my personal Hills hero, the sassy and hilarious Lo Bosworth. Instead, we got an hour ode to Conrad’s lifestyle brand in a seemingly behind-the-scenes carefully cultivated representation of her life both in the present day and on the show.

About ten minutes in, I realized Conrad has Taylor Swift-levels of brand management happening and that brand is as basic as it comes. Throughout the hour, Conrad discusses how she is not particularly bright (she barely managed a C-average in high school), was so naive she believed she actually earned her internship at Teen Vogue, and had a “problem” of being too candid on camera. The moment of peak hysterical “aw schucks, lil old me?” hijinx came when she earnestly proclaimed New York City “too fancy” for a girl like her. She simply wasn’t trendy enough to keep up. She said this in a limo on her way to a fashion design awards ceremony wearing this absolutely insane lipstick:

Photo property of US Magazine

It was then I realized Lauren Conrad isn’t basic and accessible–she is aspirationally basic. For girls who want to believe their plain nature and obsession with Pinterest will pay off, they need look no further than this starlet-turned-fashionista who is now married to former Something Corporate guitarist-turned-lawyer William Tell. If you told me all I had to do was keep my nails pretty, rock some thorough highlights, down 45 pumpkin spice lattes, and sing the praises of inoffensive things like kittens, Harry Potter, pool days, and white wine, I would get to spend my life with a guy partially responsible for Konstantine, I would be all about it. Sign me up!

Conrad realizes this, there is no question, and in this hour, she spins the perfect vision of aiming-for-the-middle, basic success. Her testimonials take place on not one, but two cream-colored couches and, in both, she wears a breezy but crisp outfit with immaculate white pants. In both, she also elects to be barefoot. The message? Look! How relaxed I am in my own skin, even though I’ve been in hair, make-up, and styling for over two hours. Sorry, Lauren, I read my middlebrow fashion mags and I am well-aware of the InStyle-patented casual-designer-clothes-barefoot-on-a-couch photo shoot. Aniston was rocking this basic tableau while Friends was still on the air, convincing women far and wide she was accessible and down to Earth.

While some of Conrad’s aspirationally basic choices are timeless, others see her adapting as the trends of the basic evolve. Instead of a bare face and all the mascara of her Hills days, she now wears minimal make-up and enough eyeliner to be on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Look! How relaxed I am with my carefully tended to face, boosted by a 17-step skin regime. This bronzer is practically invisible, which means I can get away with wearing excessively cat-eye eyeliner and claiming I’m “fun” and “fashion forward”.

What remains unclear is whether Conrad believes she is actually pulling the wool over her audience’s eyes at her “accesible” lifestyle or if she understands that the beauty of her baseness is how obviously coiffed and cultivated it is. What may have just been the result of being a boring teenager is now an active choice, styled like a Teen Vogue photo shoot.

An educated guess is Conrad is in on her conspicuous basic consumption. There was a moment in the reunion in which she gushes about her husband and she tells the camera, “The best thing about William is he didn’t know me when I was on the show.”

Time out here for a brief aside. Your husband is a lawyer, who went to USC (Fight On!) and was a part of one of the defining emo bands of a generation and the best thing you can think to say about him is he didn’t know you when you were 22 and awful? Come the eff on!

Moving on, she tells an anecdote of her husband stumbling on an episode of the show where Lauren brags about being at the Roosevelt pool weekly and he abruptly turned it off. She shows a keen self-awareness that everyone should hate the person they were at 22, so she mocks her choices to highlight just how much she’s grown as a person. Look! I used to be accidentally basic because I was too dumb to know better. Now it is a life choice and a life choice that takes up a shit ton of time and most of my bank account.

This active pursuit of Instagram perfection and the easily digestible life that is so plain and inoffensive everyone can relate to it isn’t just aspirational though. It reaffirms the entire worldview of the basic bitch that yes, it is worth spending all this time planning your fake wedding, yes, it is worth browsing for scarves on Etsy for six hours, because in order to ascend to the level of basic beauty that is so perfect no one can ignore it takes work. It takes work to be this pretty yet inoffensive and approachable.

There is no doubt Conrad works hard to maintain her brand–her work and effort to cultivate this perfect sheen is part of the image. For, in order to embrace the newer Minivan Majority (though what is with her bragging about being on the cover of Redbook, my mom’s version of the basic bible?), the basics. Unlike her predecessors, who could win our moms over by simply being real, relatable, and rocking a white t-shirt with jeans from time to time, Conrad has it tougher than Aniston, Julia Roberts, or Reese Witherspoon. She can’t be real because of the very machinations The Hills helped perpetuate. While her image was established around her authenticity on a patently inauthentic reality show, everything she does is still ultimately a performance. It is role play for girls who would never deign to admit they know what D&D is–if given their fashion magazine dream scenario, how would they behave? Like Lauren Conrad. It is a believable fantasy, just accessible enough to keep fans tuned in to her brand for over a decade. We see through the PR of this contemporary Cinderella story though, and part of the fun is peeling back the layers underneath it, so she has to perform real, embrace the basic, and live it like it should be a goal versus the insult it was intended to be.