Background

Perhaps you've stumbled upon this blog by accident, or came to it by way of the Variety blurb, or a friend of a friend mentioned it, or you've always read my other blog and thought you'd give this one a chance. Or you Google searched, as one person recently did, "judds odd on oprah," and wound up here.

No matter. I welcome all the huddled masses to Watching Oprah. And now that we've made it through the first week, and are ready to begin the second, I feel like this is as good a time as any to let you know just exactly who you're dealing with here.

Hi. I'm Erin. I'm 30 years old (just typing that makes me shudder), and I live in Beaverton, Oregon. But that's a recent development. Prior to July 1, I spent eight years in Los Angeles, California, working in the entertainment industry. And no, I don't mean porn. I worked on movies (Last Samurai, Lemony Snicket) and even did a season on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Oh, I'm actually in Lemony Snicket. Seriously. Check out this screen capture from the trailer:

That chick sweeping on the far left of the screen? Yours truly. For the record, I am not an actress. I worked in the costume department on that film, and they thought it would be fun to dress me up and put me in a scene. So, now I can say I've starred with Jim Carrey and -- much better -- Meryl Streep.

But I left Los Angeles. And not really under the best circumstances. I'm not at all proud of my behavior in the lead-up to my departure, or even in a lot of my behavior since. But I'm working on myself, and I think I'm getting to a better place, emotionally and mentally speaking. Leaving L.A. was the right thing to do; I just should have picked a better way to do it.

So, even though I don't deserve it, I've got a new life up here in the Pacific Northwest. And it's going well. Most of the time. I have the love of a good woman. Her name is Katie. We both have the love of a precious boy. His name is Merritt. He's Katie's son, and he's just a little over eleven months old right now. You can read a little about him here. Merritt is Katie's from a previous relationship, and Merritt's father is still very much in the picture. We currently have an every-other-week custody agreement, which is great every other week when we have Merritt, and not so great every other week we don't. Don't go judging, thinking we're somehow trashy or weird for having a unique family. Sometimes things just work out that way. And the most important thing is that everyone is putting that little boy first, no matter what.

What I really want you to understand is why I'm writing about Oprah (the show, along with Oprah, the non-italicized version). It is not, as you might have gathered by reading previous posts, because I am a religious follower of the woman's show/lifestyle/world domination. I, in fact, have always been that person who makes fun of Oprah constantly. And I think I always will be. It's not that I don't think that she's a good person overall; I just think maybe she's lost touch with real people over the years. In a sense, it's not really her fault. I've been around enough celebrities to know that when people are constantly telling you "yes," it's hard not to start to believe that you deserve everything you want. And it's even harder to understand why not everyone is falling all over themselves to make your every desire a reality.



I guess you could say I have a bit of an axe to grind with Oprah. I know she does a lot of good in the world, but I also know that sometimes she makes me roll my eyes so hard that I'm legitimately afraid they might fall out of my head. So, yeah, I am not what you would call the world's biggest Oprah fan.

Here are the moments from the show that I can remember seeing over the years:

• Oprah had the cast of Steel Magnolias on, and someone in the audience asked Julia Roberts if this was her first movie. Roberts said, "it's my fifth." I was nine years old when that movie came out, but I distinctly remember knowing enough to feel slightly embarrassed for Roberts in that moment.

• There was some sort of show about kidnapping or something. The only thing I remember is Oprah reminding all the children out there to never let any potential kidnapper take them to a second location. I was very young when this aired (Katie remembers it, too, so I guess parents made their kids watch that one), and I guess I should credit Oprah with giving me that knowledge. I would say it saved my life, but no one ever attempted to kidnap me. So, actually, thanks for nothing, Oprah.

• Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres. This was long before I worked for Ellen, but I remember having this episode on tape, and watching it more than once. Gee, I wonder why.

• Tom Hanks was on, and Oprah asked him if he could call Rita Wilson right then. Tom pulled out his cell phone, and Oprah marveled at how tiny and wonderful it was. It was a Motorola StarTAC. Remember those? Tiny, indeed.

Other than those episodes, and a couple with the Judd women, I don't remember ever sitting down to watch a full episode of Oprah. I have, since I have a thirst for pop culture knowledge, absorbed a lot of knowledge about the show and the woman over the years. So it's not like you're getting the perspective of an Amish person who just learned how to turn on a television, then a computer, and then decided to start watching Oprah.

Yes. That's it. I'm somewhere between an Amish person and the ultimate Oprah fan. So, really, I have no idea how we got to this point.

All I know is, a couple of weeks ago, Katie happened to flip to a repeat episode of the show, and I joked that I should watch every episode of the final season. I forgot about that joke until Monday, September 13, when the show premiered. Suddenly, I thought that watching the show every day would be quite a challenge, but writing about it would prove to be an even bigger challenge. And one I should take on, if only to prove to myself that I can.

Before I knew it, I had purchased the domain name, chosen a layout, and gotten to work. Katie didn't know what hit her, as evidenced by her own post on the subject. And then I watched the first episode, and I immediately wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into; 130 episodes is a lot of Oprah. A LOT.

But so far, it's been sort of enjoyable. Yes, I have yelled at my television more than once in the last week, and I know it will happen 100 more times just in the next five shows. I don't know if I'll get to the point at the end of this where I write that I've come to love and appreciate Oprah, and maybe even admire her. But that's Katie's theory on the matter, and she's already on the record as thinking Oprah is my "hero."

What I have to focus on right now is the show. One at a time, for 125 more episodes. The goal is to try to make each post just a little different from every other before it. I don't want to write recaps of every episode from beginning to end. Sometimes I'll have a lot to say about a show, and sometimes I might have very little to say. Sometimes I'll be funny, and sometimes I will attempt to be funny and fail miserably. And sometimes Oprah will do a show about, I don't know, blind orphaned puppies with AIDS, and I'll be too distraught to even write a word.

I think I might have to learn exactly how to write out what my sobs sound like.

Damn it. Oprah is making me want to learn something. Is this already the beginning of the end?

Gotta go. It's 4:36. Oprah's on.