O.K. So. Everyone knows that Rosie O’Donnell blogs, right? Everyone has heard tell about her weird blogging style that often involves what some might refer to as “poems” (e.g., “a book is not a blog/a book has very few strict rules/so does singing/and comedy too/you never know to…what?”), right? Well, you may have heard that Rosie blogs, but have you ever actually visited said blog? Because…well…um…a visit to the R Blog is definitely worth the trip. And I say that with a completely straight face.
It’s easy to laugh at the bad poetry and to wonder aloud at that insane photo of her daughter dressed up in ammunition and to scratch your head at her video postings (in a recent one she casually mentions a red spot on her face as being the result of her trying to dislodge an ingrown hair with a thumbtack). What is not easy, however —and what makes this blog so interesting to me—is trying to separate Rosie from her celebrity. I mean, as a general rule, blogs reveal the most personal, useless, boring shit about random people. People confess; they show their best sides and their worst sides; they are who they are probably because they are—or think they are—writing for their own eyes only. No one ever cares about the weird things people disclose about themselves on their blogs. That’s life: People are weird or crazy or both. Period. Blah blah blah blaaaaahhgggg.
Now, Rosie’s blog is rife with the intimacy that you see on every other blog in the universe and rife with the stuff that no one cares about—the dirty details of life. But the things on Rosie’s blog that could elicit the response from me of “ho-hum-just-another-weird-person” if anyone else were responsible for the posts, instead make me think, “Man, that Rosie O’Donnell is one weird chick. How in God’s name did she get to where she is?” Thing is, this woman is completely uninhibited by her celebrity when it comes to blogging: Girlfriend does not give one shit. And while this is not a thought that I am remotely proud to admit about myself, Rosie’s forthcomingness makes me distinctly uncomfortable. Apparently celebrities are not allowed to have ingrown hairs and, apparently, celebrities are not allowed to be exactly like me.