Into the Celebrity Fray

I'm not much for blogging about celebrities.  There are a few reasons for this but the most important is that I am not clever enough to pull it off.  I've written the odd post about Paris Hilton (as a wordsmith) or Mel Gibson (as a drunk driver) but for the most part I am content to let others be clever and I laugh.

Today, though, I read a more serious article about Michelle Williams and her grief over the death of Heath Ledger.  I think one reason this article stood out to me today is that I've had a few conversations with people about grief lately.  (The caveat here is that I take everything I read online about a celebrity with more than a grain of salt.  For the sake of this post, let's assume she was accurately quoted in a reasonable context.)  

When asked about how she was doing, she said this:

"I guess it's always changing," Michelle finally offers. "What else can I say? I just wake up each day in a slightly different place -- grief is like a moving river, so that's what I mean by 'it's always changing.'"

Then, as her eyes well up again, she notes, "It's a strange thing to say, because I'm at heart an optimistic person, but I would say in some ways it just gets worse. It's just that the more time that passes, the more you miss someone. In some ways, it gets worse. That's what I would say."

I knew someone once whose young daughter died unexpectedly. About a year later, he and I were talking and he said that someone had, in frustration, said to him, "It's been a year."  My friend looked at his friend and said, "Yes.  It's been a year.  I haven't got to see my daughter in a year!"  I'm not sure how easy that idea is to understand unless you've lost someone.  The best way I can describe it is to imagine that your child/spouse/friend is somewhere and you can't see them or talk to them in any way.  Would a year seem like a long time?  Would it be hard to go that long?  Should you be over not talking to them after that long?

I know that things get better after you suffer a loss--eventually. I know that.  It is a years-long process, though.  Not a months long one.  However, I think that unless you've experienced it, you cannot grasp the enormity of it all. I am sorry for Michelle William's and her daughter's loss.  I'm glad though, that she shared so openly about it. I hope that her words reach out to others who have experienced it.  People who can say, "A moving river! Yes, grief is a moving river.  It is always changing."  I hope there will be a little comfort for them to know that someone understands.

(I have suffered many losses and have written about them ad nauseum, but I haven't lost a child, spouse or close parent.  I don't want to compare my losses to that of a child or spouse or close parent.  Without taking away from the signficance of my grief, I think those losses are more significant in a way than mine.)

25 down, 5 to go

This post brought to you hours early by my daughter's sore throat/fever and my son's stomach ache. I was afraid if I waited until later to post, I would miss the deadline due to vomitus eruptus.

Inexplicably? Really?

Warning: pop culture post of very little importance follows:

Okay, I'm not one to post about the entertainment industry and its icons. This isn't because I don't pay at least some attention to all that. In fact, I pay more attention than I care to admit. Let's just say I check out the entertainment links on Yahoo and leave it at that.

However, there is a story on said Yahoo entertainment news that leaves me a little perplexed. Apparently Paris Hilton has a video game coming out and was at some game conference this week to promote it. The perplexing part is the following:

Paris Hilton unveiled her new video game on Thursday, but inexplicably called it by the wrong name as she greeted throngs of fans and photographers.

Inexplicably? The Dictionary.com definition of inexplicably is: Difficult or impossible to explain or account for.

What universe is that reporter living in? The ubiquitous Miss Hilton's entire image is almost entirely based on her being a vacuous blonde heiress too wrapped up in her own self to pay attention to anyone or anything else. Wouldn't it have been a better use of the word if she had called it by the correct name and the line had then read:

Paris Hilton unveiled her new video game on Thursday, but inexplicably called it by the right name as she greeted throngs of fans and photographers.

Don't you think? I don't write this as a put-down of Paris Hilton. You can't believe everything you read or see portrayed about somebody. It may all be an act put on deliberately for some reason. The video game may have been called "Diamondquest" the entire time and the name changed at the last minute. Who knows? I just think that it is so weird that a reporter would choose that word to describe that faux pas.

Call me crazy but I think that is inexplicable.

Note: Dictionary.com was used to look up three words for this post. I'm a little worried. They were all words I used to spell without thinking. My brain is shriveling. Help me!