Minor diva

I’m used to living in the lap of luxury. For example, whenever it dips below 32 degrees Farenheit, I make Mr. B brave the taiga outside the house to warm up the car for ten minutes before I can get in, because what am I, a peasant? He also peels my pomagranates, because what am I, good with tropical fruit?

But usually, I rein it in because I have to live in society with other people, and I don’t want them to know that I live like Mariah Carey. For whatever reason, people aren’t too keen on women who think Gucci gowns are bathing suits.

But I never in my wildest expected anything like the attention my post about Sochi got last week. I should say that I’m amazed by how many people read my writing and cared enough to pass it on. But the unfortunate truth is that now I’m obligated to become even more high-maintenance.

When you become an internet celebrity with over 5,000 distinct people (not counting all of the times you refresh your page to see your stats) visiting to your blog for a couple of days, you have to carry yourself a certain way.

You’re no longer blogging about Nutella and the time you almost got shanked in Jerusalem. You are an icon. A commentator. The People demand your opinion.  You are basically Enjolras.

Well, I’m not really sure anyone expects me to know anything and they are probably actually praying that I don’t write any more about Russian toilets. But, like all celebrities, I now feel the need to share my thoughts on political events I don’t completely understand the nuances of with the world.

For instance, I am dying to bust out my “Meditations on a Ukranian Revolution” thinkpiece. Do I know anything about Ukraine? I know that Mr. B and I accidentally tried to go to a Ukranian restaurant during Orthodox Christmas last year in jeans when everyone inside was wearing Armani. I’ve also watched a lot of Mila Jovovich films.  I’m ready to write.

I can’t do that until I’m in the proper headspace for being a celebrity, and the only way I can do that is to live like one. So, I started changing my image where it matters the most: closest to home.

I called my mom over Skype. “Mom,” I said into the rectangle. “Wil Wheaton reblogged me so now I’m famous. Feel free to tell your work friends that your daughter is a celebrity.”

“Who’s Wil Wheaton?” my mom said.

“Are they paying you,” my dad yelled menacingly in the background. “Are they paying you?” He came into the frame. Their iPad was positioned so I could only see his stomach.

“Who? Who’s paying me?”

“The people reading your blog. They should pay for the priviledge to read your writing! I always knew my daughter would be a writer. It’s your mom that wouldn’t let you major in English in college,” my dad’s stomach said.

“No, they’re not paying me, Dad. It’s my blog.”

“Well, then that’s no good,” the stomach said. “Call it off.”

“Call what off?”

“The whole thing. Also, I found that your post had a few factual inconsistencies about Russia that I was extremely unhappy with. For example-”

“Sorry Dad, gotta go, major media are calling.”

“Wait, don’t hang up. Who’s Wil Wheaton,” my mom asked again, back in the frame.

I hung up Skype. This was not going the way I planned. Time for another strategy.

“I’m famous now,” I said to Mr. B, approaching him as regally as I could given that I was wearing sweatpants for the second day in a row.

“Not now, I’m watching tv” he said. He had already spent a great deal of Friday helping me stabilize my server after my site went down and was relaxing after work. But I was a celebrity now, and that meant constant sacrifice.

“Hey, I need you to pay attention,” I said.

“Mmhmmm,” Mr. B said, making the noise that means he acknowledges my presence and the fact that I said something, but not always what I said. He makes this noise often when I’m bothering him.

Mr. B was watching his beloved Shameless.   Carl was in the process of breaking Frank’s leg by duct-taping weights to his arms, torso and legs and jumping off a stepladder onto Frank while Frank was high on stolen Percocet so Frank could get insurance money for liver surgery to cure his alcohol-induced cirrhosis.

This was a key scene. I would have to wait.

I stalked away to watch my blog hits. I had 5,689 hits and that number was growing by at least ten hits every hour. Traffic was rushing. I was a damn big deal, and I was not getting any respect.

I tried the last resort. We were slated to go out to dinner with friends later that night. “Hey,” I texted my friend before we left. “Can you please reserve us a VIP booth? Wil Wheaton reblogged me, so you’ll need to put a sign on it, “Reserved for Pulitzer-slated blogger and man-date.”

My friend didn’t respond.

I paused, my finger hovering over “Send.”

“I’ll also be briging my own silverware. I don’t think this restaurant’s is up to par,” I added.

Silence.

You know, all this time I’ve been making fun of celebrities and how egotistical and vacuous they are, but I’m starting to see where they’re coming from when they throw a fit that the M&Ms in their dressing rooms aren’t sorted by color.

We are precious, important contributors to society who need to be cherished and fed with the milk of human kindness. Oh, and actual milk. By which I mean a $275 shot of port wine that is designed to be sprayed by a man into your mouth as you eat the gold-leaf encrusted brownie it goes with.

There’s a lot of things us celebrities count among our passions . World peace. Income inequality. Russian toilets. The world is big and full of problems that vex us, and we, like Atlas, are exhausted by the burden of being the ones to carry humanity’s troubles on our shoulders. Or in our WordPress blogs.

The least you could do is mist port at us from a $175 atomizer.