Damn, this turned out to be a long one. And all about one thing, no less.

Here’s my problem with you all. No one is watching Starting Over and it’s really getting on my nerves.

I go to the message boards at their site to hope to find a kindred spirit. Good lord, those women make the Survivor boards look like a meeting at Mensa. These people are sitting in their house on blocks with their 4-year old on their boob typing this shit out. (I do not want to hear from angry moms with 4-year old boob suckers. - you do what you want, I think it's weird.)

I understand that this isn’t the most riveting hour on television. But by gosh I’ve gotten into it, and I’m tired of not having any intelligent banter about it.

There’s a good mix of us here that watch Survivor. But what is the biggest draw about Survivor? Not the show, really. It’s the dialogue that we can all share after the show. We love to dish to each other what just happened on the show. We love to pitch strategies and outcomes to our spouses, sisters, and readers.

So here is this engrossing, ridiculous program that introduces 6 strangers (women) into a million dollar home in Chicago, and they all “start over” and work through their “issues.” Actually there are technically 7 people in the house, because one woman’s eyebrows (Lori’s) are an entity in and of themselves. More about that later.

They all come to the house with an emotional obstacle of some sort, that is preventing them from being the women they think they should be. The progress is stimulated by 2 “life coaches” (Rhonda and Rana) that assign homework and projects for the women to inch closer to their goal, and eventually….graduate. So far the issues range from “I never learned to drive” to “I am a complete and total paranoid, emotionally and physically detached person that is annoyed and uncomfortable by any human interaction at all..” (That’s Lori.)

There have been 4 women graduate so far. As one woman leaves, she is immediately replaced by a new woman with new issues. The house dynamics are incredible to watch. Since the show is on 5 days a week, you see a lot more mundane interaction than you do on Survivor, for example.

So basically what I’m getting at, is to hell with you all. I have no one to talk about this ridiculous show that I find myself hopelessly addicted to. So I am going to make you all listen to it to get it off my chest.

Today I am going to go over a couple of the cast of characters.

The aforementioned Lori. Lori came to the house with long, long frizzy, unmanageable hair and dorky glasses. She looked like something out of a Sylvia Plath poem, sans the black dress. She had only dated one man in her life – her husband. They married, and 3 months later he died. That was 5 years ago. Since then she’s been a veritable recluse, working a dead end accounts payable job hiding from her co-workers, her life and herself. She was the epitome of unsociable. She was unable to carry on a surface conversation, such as “how are you?” “how about this weather?” etc. Even now, though her conversational skills have improved remarkably, she still speaks as though she has to use he longest word and he longest sentence no mater what. She has no ability to “small talk”. Instead of saying - “I don’t want to do that” she’ll say - “The issue here, is that some people aren’t understanding that this particular exercise is very uncomfortable for me, and I’m not sure it’s something I want to attempt at this stage.” She’s a nut. She's come a long way, but isn't there yet. She looks great now tho, with a good haircut and some lip gloss.

She’s one of the last 2 remaining original housemates, (other is Cassie) and I believe Cassie is graduating this week. The stigma of being the last original housemate to graduate should jet Lori’s esteem right over the moon, don’t you think?

Lori’s eyebrows get their own classification as a member of the household. They are the most wiggly, expressive eyebrows you’ve ever seen. The arch that she can make them do is scary. When she raises one of those eyebrows, which is frequently, she can put somebody’s eye out. I found one Starting Over message board that had a whole thread dedicated to just banter about Lori’s eyebrows. Crazy.

There’s Cassie, the last remaining member of the original 6. Her goal was to go to college and become an archaeologist. She had no money because she is a foster child. She had no support because she is a foster child. She has no ambition because she is a foster child. Ask her about being a foster child. Or don’t. She’ll tell you all about it anyway.

Cassie has been on the show since the beginning, I think 7 weeks. She’s raised $28,000 and gotten herself accepted to a University in Chicago. She has a dorm room secured, and I think she’s moving out tomorrow or the next day. They never actually tell you you’re graduating till the day you do, but you can tell when it’s imminent.

She held fund-raisers to pay for her schooling (it was all very weird) and had a raffle, where she cooked dinner for whoever won. She stopped people on the street and sold them raffle tickets for $10 a pop. Hey, whatever works. All I’m sayin’ is you wouldn’t have got ten cents without a camera crew following you around.

Tomorrow looks fun. The ladies are driving around town and Cassie is hanging out the window screaming at other drivers. “You gotta turn LEFT, lady - its left turn ONLY!”

And briefly, without any character assessment or explanation - is what is going on in the house right now.

Kimberlyn has been in bed for 2 days, ever since the boot camp incident. Though it looks like tomorrow she is awake for a driving lesson.
Teresa looks to be resting on her laurels for a day or two after flushing all her negativity down the toy toilet (look kids - it's a bank!) that the life coaches have provided.
Audrey has a crush on her mentor, Billy Bob something - the country music star that is going to get her noticed.
New girl - can't remember her name...Brenda? Nothing going on with her. She's settling in after just moving in yesterday.

Well that about catches us all up. I hope you're so compelled to follow along that you are setting your VCR's and Tivos right now. You might as well join me. You're going to hear all about it anyway!!