For Lent, I gave up reading celebrity tabloids, and the things of celebrity nature. It had become an addiction! If I didn’t know what Lindsay Lohan had allegedly done the night before, I felt lost. After checking the CBC and BBC web sites online every morning, I read People.com and MSN celebs. I don’t know what the draw was specifically, but I have a hunch it had something to do with my desire to BE a celebrity. “Maybe if I too wear spandex pants and UGG boots while shopping at Chanel on Sunset, I will be famous….” OK, that was extreme, but part of it. I needed to hear who’s marriages were falling apart, how pregnant Angelina Jolie was, and what Nicky Hilton was wearing at the Chateau Marmont.
I started giving up things for Lent last year, because every other year’s vow to give up chocolate lasted about 3 days on average. And no one’s life is made better by giving up chocolate. The paper said it helps cure cancer! Last year I gave up red meat. I didn’t notice much of a difference, but I did become aware of how much I typically eat. When thinking of things to give up this year, I didn’t want to include anything that may affect my health while training for the run in May. So I thought, hmmm… giving up celebrities would be hard…
Almost 40 days later, I haven’t visited People.com (which I now hear you have to pay for anyway) and I have stopped reading the Metro before the celeb gossip section at the end. But I did need something to fill my space with. I think Oprah said that once…to beat an addiction you need something to fill its place. That’s where this comes in.
I started reading blogs of writers and creative minds I admired. (Jason Mraz and Zach Braff started it off) Then I started reading what people had to say about international events, and I got turned onto a beautifully written blog by a woman living in Baghdad. (It’s called Baghdad Burning for anyone who’s interested). I know it’s a little voyeuristic, reading about people’s lives from their on-line diaries, but I really do like learning about what’s going on in different places of the world without the aid of a newspaper. It’s so much more intimate to find out about the slums of India and the wonders of the Netherlands through other people’s eyes.I felt guilty for taking all that information and experience for myself without giving something back. Lent..I’m a Catholic..guilt isn’t too far behind! Lent’s supposed to be about sacrifice of some sort, and morality, blah blah so it only made sense I gave something back. Luckily, I am a writer by habit and doing this is fun. But here is my contribution