Carole Radziwill: I Want to Be Offended...by Everything

So the joke starts out…Two skinny girls walked into a bar…I mean, bra party…ba da-dum…it ends somewhere between I get my period every 30 days and Huh? It’s kind of like hearing a friend you suspect drinks too much say, “What? I don’t drink too much, I never even black out." Ummm, okay.

This is the first time I’ve heard the period defense, and I know lots of skinny girls--myself included. Do you not get a regular period under a certain weight? What weight is that? I’ve been underweight my entire life but not so much that I didn’t get my period. So is skinny really never bad? I’ll have to disagree…it’s fine until it interferes with normal bodily functions. Red flag.

I’m used to people commenting on my body, even women I have just met. Yes, I’m a carb junkie. No, I don’t workout. God gave me a nice frame, but he gave me a bunch of other issues. It all evens out. So it wasn’t a surprise that Jules directed our conversation to our bodies. I mean, we weren’t at a medical convention, we're standing in front of a mirror trying on bras for godsakes, what else is there to do? We are two skinny girls in a town lousy with skinny girls. Big deal. Hahahaaa…I call her toothpick, she calls me elderly. We’re so funny.

Enough about that. We aren’t the only funny ones at Bravo, which reminded me --I love the titles of these shows. I’d like to meet the person whose job it is to title. Give that gal her own show on Comedy Central. Can you see them on your TV? I see them on the screener that Bravo sends me so I can watch at the show and write about something I find amusing. This week I find titles amusing. This show is called The Biggest Boob. That is a fun job, right? Show Titler. I know what you are thinking, even though I’m an elderly woman, I have the humor of a teenage boy.

I’d like to give out the Biggest Boob award for this episode to Ramona! She shouldn’t have repeated gossip she’d heard about John. We’ve have all been hurt by women on the cast repeating gossip they hear or simply nonsense that they make up. There is very little accountability on a “she said/she said” show. So you can say anything you want. (Please refer to last week’s blog.)

But if Ramona is the Double-D of boobs, Jules comes in second at Double C. Thing is, Jules is cute and nice and easy to laugh. She had me at hello, but she lost me somewhere between menopause and mom.

I wasn’t even going to mention this because really, who cares? But from here on in I’ve decided I want to be offended…by everything. Offended that Ramona is offended that I was offended by her constant talking. Offended that Dorinda says Ramona and I can’t be friends. Offended that Bethenny offended Snoopy. Oh, yeah, and offended that Jules seems to have age-shaming Tourettes. These women could be my mom. They’ve gone off their menopause meds. The elderly. As the kids say, what up? It’s only the third episode. I was going to let it go, honestly, I was. But I see a pattern, because later on in the season she insults my age to my unlined-face. At the time, I thought that was an isolated instance, a momentary lack of self-awareness, a brain-fart. We’ve all had them. Me included. But now I think she has a weird age thing.

What is surprising is that other than her hair flipping she doesn't seem to be that much younger. We’re not talking different generations here. She’s generally cool on other subjects, so why all the slights about women’s age? Is she insecure about her own age? Or aging? Or maybe her ignorance of the meaning and origin of “Et tu, Brute?” the final words of Julius Caesar who Shakespeare immortalized in his play by the same name and not a movie? I thought it was charming.

I suppose I could have been a teen mom. My mom had me when she was eighteen. I would have been 17 when I gave birth to Jules. I could have made that work, sure. Thing is, Jules couldn’t be my daughter. I would never have raised a daughter who made dumb sexist jokes about women. The same misogynistic crap we hear every day from men. The same misogynistic crap we hear from John in this very episode, first to Bethenny’s face, and then behind Ramona’s back. And menopause, last I checked, is a medical condition that affects two billion women in the world. Some women experience severe and debilitating side-effects. Is it okay to make light of a medical condition but not a mental health condition? In my opinion, neither is good.

But it’s getting late, and I’m old. So as I close my lids, I have visions of college girls, binge-watching RHONY and rolling their eyes as Jules flips her hair and washes her hands in the ice bucket. Oh mom, you are soooo embarrassing.

P.S. I have to say, though, that I love that Dorinda and Jules have brought back the “smoking section.” The edgy girls in high school that hung out in an area normally no student would venture except that it was deemed cool by virtue of it being “the smoking section.” Smoking is the new black.