Brangelina.

There are many people who roll their eyes when I start talking about my excessive useless information about famous people. And many people join in on the conversation, contributing their facts from Perez Hilton.com, US Weekly, People, etc. One time in a Bible study, someone pointed out that those magazines were gossip magazines and that it was sinful. For some reason, I SINCERELY did not know that they were slandering gossip magazines, and I was astonished that I was sinning whilst reading my mags, or rags if you will. I just read them while I work out at the Y, because it passes the time. Fluff is much easier to read than depth when your forcing yourself to practically have a heart attack on some ridiculous machine called "the wave" or "eliptical" (I'm not insulting these machines, I use them, but just think about it: when were "exercise machines" invented? maybe around the same time as McDonalds, perhaps. I am also not insulting because I am a HUGE fan of McDonalds and yes i have seen Supersize Me. There's nothing like a double cheeseburger sans onions add mayo, fries and a coke.) So anyway, I had a life-changing day in New Orleans over Christmas that has changed my reading patterns of Trashy Mags. In fact, just yesterday I was tempted with 4 different People Magazines, none that I had read, and I wasn't really that interested. So here it is.

I went to a Presbyterian Church in New Orleans when I moved from Minnesota to New Orleans for three months in the summer. The minister, Ray, had a daughter named Rachel. My sister told her I was a mermaid and she believed her so she thought I was really cool. So I've started to just take her out for the morning whenever I am in town. Over Christmas, I picked her up and we stopped by CC's, a delish coffee house in nola. She was assembling an advent gingerbread house that my mom gave her and I was sipping on my coffee while helping her. All the sudden, people started buzzing. I overheard the words Brad and Angelina. They have a house in the french quarter so there's always spottings. I overheard the baristas "Brad and Angelina are down at Pippen Lane. They've locked the doors and the paparazzi are outside." Pippen Lane is a children's store for rich children that is two doors down from CCs. So I immediately grabbed Rachel's hand and my fake Coach purse (thanks Aunt Libby) and we went to see Brangelina. I've never seen paparazzi before, but there they were, just standing outside waiting. I peeked in the front window and some guard said "they don't want you peeking in." Rachel peeked in too, and I guess the store owner saw us peeking in so, from inside, she motioned for us to come in. I went to the side door and the guard unlocked the door for us. The woman inside said, "are you shopping today?" I said "Yes. Yes we are." I guess she noticed the Coach purse, and the 4 year old in my hand. So we walked in and I whispered "Rachel, what size are you?" She whispered back her size and I just looked for them. My heart was pounding so hard, I don't know why now but I was THRILLED. And then I saw them. Brad and Angelina. No kids, just shopping. And they were short. I expected them to be tall. And they wore sunglasses. I thought that was kind of rock-star ish. So Rachel and I walked past them and Brad said something about bunny ears and she muttered something and they both sounded show-off-y to me. We walked in the back room and there was a huge dollhouse, tigers, and train tables. I sat down in the dollhouse with Rachel and whispered, "Rachel, these are two of the most famous people in all of the entire world!!" She looked outside of the playhouse and whispered back, without missing a beat "We have the same train table at our church." We both started laughing, for different reasons of course. And then we walked out. And the paparazzi said, "did you see them?" and they seemed to be excited for me. As I write this, I just sort of feel like it's all really disgusting now. I mean it was fun and a good story, but what kind of life is that? How can someone that famous even know what humility means? I struggle with pride, for crying out loud! How hard is it for a famous person to know humility? And even harder to know Jesus? That verse "it's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel to enter through the eye of a needle." makes a lot more sense.

And now I'm sitting on a couch with a 2 year old raking my hair (she thinks she's brushing it) and she's just laughing like crazy. I read this quote on a starbucks card yesterday that talked about childhood as spinning for a living and smelling like cake-breath. Adulthood= coffe breath and meaningless jobs for a living. I don't know who's better off: Brangelina, or Pax, Maddox, Shiloh and Zaharah? Hmm.