Day 6, Valerie

You know what's a sign that someone's not really a reader? When they say if they were stranded on a desert island they'd bring "a big book, like the Bible or the dictionary, since I had all the time in the world to read."

Next year, I vote they cancel the bachelor and instead film a show where they 25 women step out of the limo only to find themselves on a desert island with only the three possessions they said they would bring in answer to what is easily the best question on the screening questionnaire. 

First girl to resort to using the "flint" they all seemed so eager to bring to light the only firewood available - the Holy Bible - gets the final rose!

Day 7, Lucy

    

........And if Clare here isn't up to the task, then I'm pretty sure Lucy will be queuing up behind her, chomping at the bit to take over as this year's villain. Seriously, I don't want to get too excited here only to be letdown yet again by an annoying but really-not-that-bad Tierra or a surprisingly actually pretty reasonable James, but Lucy's interview leads me to believe that she might have Courtney-like potential.

In the years since Courtney's reign, we've had a series of watered down villains that made me think, indeed, fear, that perhaps Courtney was that once in a lifetime sort of player, the Michael Jordan or the Gordon Bombay (of coaching  preteens and starring in amazing sports movies not of playing hockey, obviously). But maybe I've been looking at it all wrong. Maybe Courtney was more like a Roger Bannister and now that she's broken down barriers (also known as "human decency"), we'll get to see her record shattered time after time, as appalling human being after appalling human being assumes the scapegoat's throne.

And if Courtney was Roger Bannister, then Lucy her maybe, just may be Usain Bolt. She hasn't outrun any buses yet (or whatever the metaphorical equivalent would be...maybe stabbing someone in the face?). But in the five sentences that made up her interview, she did manage to slip in that she organized a fully nude dance party, snottily inquire as to why she would ever want to be anyone other than herself, and casually name drop that she and Kate Upton just happen to be best friends. I'm not yet willing to declare her the evilest woman in the world, but if she showed up on night one wearing gold cleats, well, I'd probably be willing to let it slide.

Day 8, Clare

Okay, I'm legitimately pretty excited about Clare. Having seen zero promos, she's definitely my early pick to be either the villain or absolutely nutso (and if we're lucky, maybe both!). 

Now, I assume that Clare, like any savvy reality show contestant is hording her deep personal tragedies so that she can appropriately dole out really the only currency these women bring to the show (either that or she's planning to dive into them Scrooge McDuck-style once she fills her vault). But even her interview hints at more than a little bit of damage. 

Clare talks about how she's never gone on vacation because she's never been in a relationship in which she could go on one and she bemoans how she's not romantic because she's never experienced romance.  She also calls herself "successful."  Not successful. "Successful." The quotation marks are hers, not mine. 

If Clare were just bringing what I envision to be a highly critical and disapproving mother and a whole host of burly, roid-ragey exes as her baggage for the show, I'd say we'd found ourselves a new AshLee, but Clare goes further than that, making me think we've found a Michelle Money-style "nobody understands me" villain rather than a "please save me from my sad, sad life....or else" wack-job. Because when asked who she admires most, Clare answers:

"I admire the nobodies of the world that lead selfless lives."

And if you can insult the people you admire most in the world, then lady, I'd say you have potential to reap all sorts of havoc. 

Day 9, The Return of Old Friends

The reappearance of contestants past to be a growing trend in Bachelor-land, though with Kacie B. last year, it was really more like the return of three old friends....

Day 10, Nikki

See, Sharleen. Take note. Not only does Nikki manage to work in the fact that her parents are still married after 28 loving, blissful, and probably genetic years of marriage (because that's a thing, right?), but she also hints at her love of drunk dancing. Now, I'm just a little bit out of practice in my Petite-Peppy-Blonde-Nurse to English translation, but I'm pretty sure that's code for "Willing to have sex with you." No impressive resume or love of foreign magical realist authors needed, Sharleen. Nikki came to play!

Day 11, Sharleen

Sharleen here has runner-up written all over her. She spells her name in a nutty way, she's from Canada, and she has a career and a reading and movie list that are seemingly out of place among those of the standard Bachelor contestants. Sharleen seems unlikely to be a winner because she admits to not being a risk-taker (a cardinal sin only a few Hail Mary's below having divorced parents on the Bachelor registry), she talks about her mother's strength rather than her parents undying love for each other in the context of who she admires, and she admits to feeling somewhat uncomfortable receiving others' applause (a humble-brag given her job as an opera singer, but she's going to have to emphasize the latter over the former if she wants to meet with much success). Add all this together with the fact that, best as I can tell, she is not now nor has she ever been a model, and it's pretty clear that she's not, in the near future, going to be massively unbalanced by a Neil Lane atrocity weighing down her left hand. But her ethnic ambiguity and the fact that her profile shows an acknowledgement of the existence of grammar has me all set to root for her as the Bachelorette in 2014!

Day 12, The Death of the Spanish Language

For Christmas this year, since you've all been very good, I've gotten you a history lesson. Most scholars believe that the death of Latin can be traced, not to a single catastrophic event, but instead to its slow evolution over time into dialects, eventually morphing into the distinct but related romance languages we know today. However, most scholars are wrong. One brave man, Professor Kristoff Harriseine, has a different theory, and one I think that we can learn much from today. Harriseine posits that the death of Latin can, in fact, be traced back to one brave gladiator's stint in the Coliseum.

Not much is known about gladiator Alexus Michelus, though historians believe him to be a well-built and most likely illiterate man who revolutionized the bloody entertainment by making out with each of his opponents before slitting their throats. Alexus, a native Latin speaker, became quite popular with his opponents, many of whom were foreign, and increasingly, they tried to woo him by speaking his language. And even for a man who came home every night covered in the blood of those he had slain, it was pretty brutal. So horrified was the populace by the atrocious pronunciation, offensive mistakes, and just overall unbearable-ness of it all, that they came together as an empire and vowed never to speak Latin again.

And that's pretty much what's about to happen to Spanish.

Day 13, The Mystery: The Drama

It might not seem like the most natural theme for Christmas Eve, but in many ways, this magical night spent waiting eagerly for presents, blissfully unaware that the giant box with your name on it contains a humidifier or disappointed-scented bath beads is parallel to where we are right now in relation to The Bachelor drama. Because right now, the formulaic, predictable-ness that Chris Harrison will inevitably refer to as "The Most Dramatic Season Ever," still has the potential to be just that. Villains could still be evil rather than just carefully edited and misunderstood. Betrayals could still involve selling state secrets to the Russians rather than refusing to say "Good morning" in the hallway. 

There are two camps of Bachelor viewers: those that believe that the show is a vehicle for true love and want to watch this year's great romance unfold, and those who really just want to make fun of a group of catty girls with raccoon eyes. Believe it or not, I fall somewhere in the middle of the two camps. Yes, I always root for a truly ridiculous, if not super evil, villain, but I never want that person to actually win. And there's nothing worse to me than drama for the sake of drama (well...maybe that episode after hometown dates where there are three pretty generic dates and nobody interacts and there's entirely too much soul-searching for my liking). Which is why, at this point in the year, I am at my most hopeful that we'll get, not only someone truly villainous, but also someone who hopefully brings  own twist. Someone who not only says mean things about the other girls, but also puts rat poison in their coffee (okay, not really - but the show's pressure to escalate each year does make murderous psychopath a likely eventuality). Someone who not only isn't there to make friends, but is in fact there to make nemeses (nemesises?). Someone who is looking for that final rose, not just because it will be a boon to her modeling career, but because it is the last ingredient she needs to design a technically-advanced but massively evil machine that will rid the world of fancy coffee drinks and puppies. I'm not looking to see this girl win, but wouldn't it be nice to have a villain for once whose major crime goes beyond just being the girl who nobody likes. 

Day 14, Amy L

Despite the excess of blue space, I wanted to put Amy L's full bio picture in here because, well, that is a shirt!  (Also, all things being equal, it's a pretty soothing blue),

I know I spend the better portion of this advent calendar mocking the contestant's interview responses, but part of the blame here has to be placed on ABC. They asked some awfully dumb questions. They include probing queries such as "Do you like being the center of attention or do you prefer being more mysterious and why?" and "Hot spot clubs or low-key bars?," and questions that there's clearly a right answer to, honesty be damned, like "What do you hope to get out of participating in this show?"

And I appreciate that Amy L., here, treated the interview with all the respect it deserves, answering:
If you wanted to approach a man you had never met before, how would you go about it?

With:
Walk up to them...how else?

Full points for sass Amy L., which puts you well out in front of this competition in my book.  However, next time perhaps you can strive for a bit more creativity. Your shirt alone suggests some very intriguing possibilities involving flamenco dancing and matador capes.

Day 15, Chantel

What!?! Someone else's favorite movie is Home Alone 2? How can that possibly be a real thing?

Day 16, Alexis

Alexis, here is an enigma to me because of the mixed signals I'm reading in her interview. On the one hand, she's cited the Bible as her favorite book, which....look, I don't have a problem with people being religious, but the Bible's not exactly an interesting read. There's all kinds of begatings upon begatings, and, while we care deeply about that sort of thing if the un-begat first begat is a Kardashian, when you through in a bunch of Boazes and Malachis and Nebuchadnezzars it loses a little bit of its U.S. Weekly-worth charm. So when you say that the Bible's your favorite book, it's not because you really like reading the Bible. It's because you're signalling that you're religious. It's the equivalent of saying Curious George is your favorite book so that people know you like children, or saying Gravity's Rainbow is your favorite book just to make sure that everyone knows that you're a pretentious dillhole (Clearly, if you wanted to signal you were a pretentious douchebag instead, you would have to go with Finnegan's Wake). There's nothing wrong with her answer and I'm sure it's achieved her intent, it's just the work of a woman who's being a bit crafty with her answers to some very straightforward questions.

On the other hand, other parts of her bio lead me to believe that Alexis doesn't have a manipulative bone in her body and certainly doesn't think she has anything to prove. Because let's face it, no one would admit that Home Alone 2 (or indeed any Macaulay Culkin or other Yuletide hijinks-related sequel) is there favorite movie if they were looking to impress.  

Day 17, Women Forced to Live Up to Impossibly High Standards

So I have to admit that I don't really know much about Juan Pablo's ex, Carla Rodriguez (although clearly I do know her name which, perhaps is already too much). It's possible that she's the most heinous individual in all the world. It's possible that when she and Juan Pablo were dating she secretly had a boyfriend back home. It's possible that her skin only looks so flawless because she drains the life force from puppies. It's possible that she's the creator of Bachelor Pad.

But even if she is the brains behind the rhythmic gymnastics competition, the ice cream sundae relay race, and that horrible Newly Wed-style game where the point is basically just to make everybody feel bad, it's hard to argue one undeniable fact. Carla Rodriguez is a pretty damn beautiful woman.

I know The Bachelor is purportedly about something deeper than beauty. It's about "connections" and "journeys," about "feeling like you're marrying your best friend" and "walking the fine line between pretty slutty but not too slutty." But really, if we're being honest, it doesn't hurt to be hot, and when it comes to being pretty, these ladies have pretty  big  petite and stylish shoes to fill.

Day 18, Christy

Whenever contestants on the show talk about how much they've learned about themselves through the process (nay, Journey!), I always inwardly cringe. It's not that I'm against self-discovery per se, I just think there are healthier ways of achieving it. 

However, Christy here, describes herself as "Loyal, Street Smart, and Always thinking of others before [her]self." And I just can't wait until The Bachelor teaches her which one of those things she actually is.  

Day 19, Lessons in Geography

I've never exactly been much of a geography whiz, so it's no wonder that the program has so much to teach be about geography. It all started when we learned that Scotland was actually in Croatia during Emily's season, and I just haven't stopped learning since.

This years Bachelorettes-to-be, for example, have already taught me that:

- There is a U.S. City named Forty Fort (Okay, I get that it's probably the number 40, followed by the word Fort, but thinking of it as a fun nickname, like "Sporty" Spice or DJ "Jazzy" Jeff is really making me giggle)
- Arizona has a ton of hot air balloons
- You get to be Southern by the Grace of God. Not sure what that means for the rest of us. Did God just choose to ignore us or are we Northern by the Annoyance of God or Norwegian by God's Love of Big Band Music or Scientologist by His Mild Indigestion.

Day 20, Kelly

Apparently, Kelly here's most embarrassing moment was when she was in high school and got super excited about winning Homecoming Queen before realizing they had called another girl who shared her same name.

The only thing I find even remotely surprising about this story is that ABC didn't go out and find another Kelly for this year's season of the show, just to force the poor girl to relive that trauma over and over.

Day 21, Ridiculous Jobs

Juan Pablo really set the bar high on this one, not because he was a soccer player, but because he made it through a whole season in which they only referred to his former occupation. From my understanding, he has a job (some sort of club promoter, I think), but essentially the Bachelor/ette franchise decided that he piqued, that he should only be allowed to live in his glory days as a professional athlete, that perhaps they shouldn't mention that his real career is reality show aspirant....

Anyway, employed or not, Juan Pablo has the pretty standard cadre of occupations to select from this year.  They include:

The Typical
As in any year, Juan Pablo's coterie has its fair share of teachers and nurses, personal trainers and hair stylists, and plenty of sales/accounts/marketing managers/directors/grand poobahs. These girls are a double edged swords as they're more likely to commit to moving if the win they show, but also more likely to leave halfway through the taping on account of, you know, having stuff to do.

The Questionable:
This years questionable jobs range from the possible euphemisms for high price call girls(I'm looking at you Massage Therapist), to those where, while they're likely not hookers, I remain legitimately curious as to what they do all day long. In addition to the "Science Educator" (which - I can probably piece together what she's doing with her time...but why not just say teacher?), this year includes a Mineral Coordinator and a Police Support Specialist. I also have a lot of questions for the Local News Reporter (For example, what percentage of your weekly reports include squirrels trained to water-ski?  Do you have to be high-ranking to cover those dramatic weather events that you know everyone is tuning into, but where you're at significantly higher risk of getting attacked by a palm tree? Or is that more of a low-man on the totem pole sort of job?) and, though I will probably live to regret it after the third episode in which she talks about how inspiring the elderly are, I am currently very intrigued by the Nursing Home Owner.

The Probably Shouldn't Be on this Show
There's always a few of them. And this year, there's an Assistant District Attorney, an Opera Singer, and a Music Composer (not to be confused with all those other kinds of composers...like....I don't know...Mulligatawny soup composers...?) who it just seems like should be off, maybe being good at things and, you know, working?

The Hey, that's not a Real Job
You know who you are "Dog Lover" and "Free Spirit."  I demand honesty! Or at least a peek at your W-2

The One:
Though many of these women are impressive and most of these women are employed, their resumes are all rendered meaningless, when up against the one. The one woman, who like Juan Pablo, has already piqued in her career. Whose past life as an athlete (of sorts...if you squint real hard) will be the one thing that defines her, not just on this season of the Bachelor, but in LIFE. Juan Pablo, look no further, your dream girl, your soul mate, your Former NBA Dancer is here!

Day 22, Amy J

It was a tough battle, but I think Amy J. here is my pick for most crazy-eyed girl of the year! And let me just say, lest you doubt the merit of my metrics, the last girl to win this honor was AshLee from Sean's season, and we all know how that turned out...

Day 23, Andi

So, Andi is my pick for the pithily named Desiree Hartsock Memorial IYHTSIAYTIPNT* award. She's very pretty, is an assistant district attorney, and I'm sure is otherwise accomplished as a human being; however, she goes just a little bit too far in her interview to sell us on her own particular brand of awesome.  

She talks about her world travels, shares that she once convicted a man in 8 minutes (which...I have so many questions about. Did he plead guilty? Does she mean the jury deliberated for 8 minutes before reaching a verdict or was this somehow just an 8 minute trial?  And if it's the latter, doesn't that say more about our broken legal system and overworked public defenders than it does about her personal triumph?  And if it's the former, did the trial include a jazzy dance number a la Richard Gere in Chicago?), and even her bucket list is better than your bucket list because she includes on there visiting EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.

All of this could probably be excused were it not for one glaring brag. She calls herself feisty. And while I don't have a problem with feisty-ness in general, much like "I just think differently than other people" or "I'm really funny," that's just a compliment that's much better left to be paid by someone else.

* If you have to say it about yourself then it's probably not true.

Day 24, The Mystery: The Man

What do we really know about Juan Pablo? He's a dad. He speaks Spanish. He has unreasonable expectations about the pronunciation of his name. But outside of that, his appearance on Desiree's season gave us very little to work with in terms of expectations. We go into most seasons with, at the very least, the knowledge that we are dealing with a pretty boring specimen of manhood, but with Juan Pablo, we could literally be dealing with anything. 

 He could have a work shop devoted to intricate rube-goldbergs that he will share only with the most promising of aspirants. He could be subject to an uncomfortable fetish that we never learned about because he was never within 10 yards of Desiree...or her feet. He could have the Bieber fever. We just don't know! 

And in some ways that's sort of magical. It's why I never went looking for my Christmas presents from Santa (also probably the whole Jewish thing came into play...) because sometimes the not-knowing - the thrill of the unknown and the excitement of the potentialities - is almost better than the gift. Envisioning Juan Pablo as a QVC addict or as Gregor the Grey (his alias at the yearly Magic-con he attends), is almost certainly better than the predictable, personality-less cookie cutter bachelor we're most likely going to get. But for now, I'm filled with hope. For now, the mystery allows me to believe!

The Bachelor Advent Calendar

That's right - it's back!  And with it, an image stolen from, what I assume is, the Christmas card of complete strangers! Because what better way to count down the days to what is most likely the next great American pastime (I mean, let's face it. The last few episodes of every season are roughly as boring and as interminable as any baseball game) then by reflecting upon all the delightful eventualities that are sure to come and hopeful predictions that probably will never happen (but a girl can dream!) in this upcoming season of the Bachelor.

I'll be back every day from now until the Bachelor Premier (which is basically just like Christmas if you squint real hard and pretend that Christmas is a celebration of all that is terrible about mankind) to countdown the things I'm looking forward to on this year's season and  hope you'll all join me as we gear up for (what is either vaguely embarrassing or super impressive) our 6th season of the Bachelor/ette Fantasy League!