Columnist thankful for various comforts

The holidays are near, yet still so far away. I’m actually shocked that you are reading this at all, because by this point, even turning the pages of a newspaper feels like too much work. I realize that if you scan this column and see political-looking words with a lot of syllables, you’re probably going to stop reading. Just too much work. So here you go: a completely gratuitous column about stuff I like. “Things I Am Thankful For”:

5. Slate.com’s culture blog, BrowBeat, for helping me pinpoint why John Mayer, against all odds, is impossible to hate. Their Nov. 19 blog entry was an attempt to reconcile John Mayer’s witty and wise off-stage personality with his singularly boring and innocuous songs. In other words, it seeks the answer to this question: How can the guy who said (via Twitter) to Australian fans, regarding their angry reaction to Britney Spears’ entirely lip-synced performance, “If you’re shocked that Britney was lip-syncing at her concert and want your money back, life may continue to be hard for you,” and the guy who wrote “Your Body Is a Wonderland” be the same guy?

Jody Rosen, of Slate, wrote “Let’s cut to the chase: John Mayer ... is a meta-douchebag — a guy who’s smart enough, self-aware enough, to know that he’s a douchebag, and to meditate on douchebaggery and its discontents in his music.” Well-put, Jody. (Also see CNN’s Nov. 19 interview with Mayer for infinite examples of meta-douche-ism.)

Slate, most music critics and I have collectively concluded that he’s not a good songwriter. (Sorry, Superfan, I know he speaks to your soul, and you learned the tabs to his songs and everything, but it’s true.) Nevertheless, he’s a great guitarist, and he’s elevated the privileged, self-centered and immature white guy-bit to performance art, with Twitter and Jennifer Aniston as his principle props. It’s hard to hate him when you know he’s doing it on purpose.

4. Celebrities’ comforting consistency. I’m a diehard Mariah Carey fan, so I keep tabs on her shenanigans. After popping back up on the scene this year for her newest, ridiculously-named record “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel” (which was not a surprise in any way), she actually did something unpredictable: She delivered a pretty good performance as an unglamourous social worker in the movie “Precious,” which is generating Oscar buzz. Then she went on “Larry King Live” and candidly discussed her history of abusive relationships. Maybe some of us even started to believe that she is more than just a diva with a voice that makes dogs whine.

But that’s not why we love Mariah. We love her because she does things like this: TheBlemish.com semi-seriously wrote on Nov. 19, in a blog entry titled “Mariah Carey Is Still Insane” that “Mariah Carey had her request to be surrounded by 20 white kittens and 100 white doves as she turns on Christmas lights at the Westfield shopping center in West London denied on the grounds that she’s bat**** crazy.” The blog entry goes on to point out, quite astutely, that “celebrities are like terrorists except they’re more successful in their negotiations.” That’s more like the Mariah I know: stiletto-wearing terrorist and a guaranteed funny story.

3. My own heroic resistance to all vampire-related things. I watched the first season of “True Blood” against my will. As I had suspected, the intro and theme song are by far the best part, and actress Rutina Wesley’s accent (Tara Thornton), is by far the worst part. As for watching or reading the “Twilight” series ... I’m standing my ground, and so is Miley Cyrus.

The teen sensation recently said, in a backstage interview with Cleveland, Ohio-based radio station Q92: “I’ve never seen (Twilight), and nor will I ever ... I don’t believe in it. I don’t like vampires, I don’t like any of the stuff ... I don’t like it, I don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t like the shirts, any of it.” Good for us, Miley!

2. Showtime’s “Dexter,” the most addictive show on television (followed closely by “For the Love of Ray J 2”). Both shows prove that part of the magic of storytelling is that we can and will root for any character once we get to know him, even heroes as unlikely as a serial killer or a D-list R&B singer.

1. America’s tireless determination to defeat weight gain by doing as little as possible. This year, we saw the debuts of Reebok’s EasyTone sneakers and The Shake Weight. The former is the first shoe “designed with style in mind” that tones your legs and butt a little extra when you wear them. The latter, an As-Seen-On-TV product, is a weight that you hold perpendicular to the floor and shake up and down for six minutes, utilizing some nebulous but vaguely legit-sounding concept called “dynamic inertia,” endowing you effortlessly with arms just like Madonna’s.

These two products, according to various sites on the Internet, may actually work, but even if they don’t, my heart is warmed by their indomitable popularity. Americans are hard-working and ingenious, and I’m happy to see that our brightest and most inventive minds are applying their talents to our “Fight Against Obesity/Exercising.” I’m totally on board with this, and I’m asking for my very own Shake Weight for Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving, UT!

—Robbie Wright is a senior in English literature. She can be reached at rwrigh24@utk.edu.