Day 19, Nicole

So, I'll admit it. I'm prone to judging books by their covers. And when I first saw Nicole's picture, at least a part of me thought, "yikes."  Not because she's in anyway unattractive - quite the opposite. She's lovely, has beautiful porcelain skin, and doesn't appear to be too overdone - but because her smile seems to be less a product of joy and more clenching down so hard that she's at real risk of cracking a molar if the photographer doesn't "take the damn picture already."

But then I read her profile, and I have to say I'm something of a convert. She gracefully mentions Jessica Rabbit and her sex appeal while taking care to point out how very different she and Jessica are (she fails to point out how appalling like creepy that this grown woman-cum-sexpot has somehow wound up married to a rabbit, but I'll overlook that just this once). And she also drops several inalienable truths:
  1) "Wolves are badass." Yes, Nicole. Yes they are.
  2) "Being married means having a best friend you want to jump into the sack with." Kudos to you for not being afraid to acknowledge that sex is an important part of marriage on a show that can be ever so slightly prone to slut-shaming.
  3) "Having a date who is rude to 'the staff' is the worst." I can tell you from experience, Nicole, that it's probably slightly better than having a date who doesn't have staff to be rude to, but only ever so slightly, so I'll give you the points nonetheless.

Day 20, Mackenzie

So...in case her very trendy 90's name wasn't a giveaway, Mackenzie is young.  And sure, age is just a number and it's entirely possible that her life experiences have endowed her with a maturity that is well beyond her years, but, well....Mackenzie is too young.

For a simple illustration, let's take her favorite movie Mean Girls (which is somehow celebrating its 10th anniversary, and has clearstood the test of time in a way Lindsay Lohan has not). When Mean Girls came out, Chris was perhaps a year out of college, proving himself as a man and revolutionizing the family businesses with his sexy but dangerous agribusiness ideas (I assume). I imagine he probably didn't see the movie right away, busy as he was being an adult and devoting his free time to building his own house, but when he did, I'm sure he admired Tina Fey's attractive brain more than anything else. When Mackenzie saw Mean Girls on the other hand, I imagine she admired Amanda Seyfried's already developed breasts and wondered if being a big kid was really that hard. And I'm in no way calling her flat-chested or mocking her intellectual capacity - merely pointing out the rather disconcerting truth that when the movie came out, Mackenzie was literally in 5th grade.

Day 21, Learning More About Other People's Faith

Hate to ruin the miracle, but turns out, that's not blood.
It's mascara

The Bachelor has always had an interesting relationship with religious faith. Religious piety is as central to the show's hypocrisy as it likely is to its cross-country appeal. Though his last name is Soules, I'm not sure that Chris' religious affiliation or depth of faith has yet been made clear. But this certainly hasn't stopped these girls from coming out swinging right out of the gate (much as the six months hiatus from blogging has not stopped me from mixing my metaphors). The good news is, I'm already learning. Because if these girls' bios and their lists of the items they could never live without are to be believed, then nothing pairs quite as well with the Bible as a curling iron and a pound of slap.

Day 22, Ashley S,

According to her bio, Ashley S. here is a hairstylist. While it isn't exactly hard to believe that a hairstylist would somehow make her way onto The Bachelor, it is a little bit surprising to see one with hair that looks every bit as newscaster-y as mine is every time I leave the hair salon. I guess Ashley at least wins points for truth in advertising!

Day 23, Bo

 I want to be on Team Bo. After all, she's one of the few somewhat normal-sized women that has appeared on this show in years. While she loses points on the normalcy scale by being a plus-sized model (also on the Tyra Banks Scale of Jumpsuit Smize-a-Fierce-itude - Tyra's long-standing determinant of modeling potential), she's also a world-ranked surfer, so it's hard not to think she's probably pretty cool. That being said, when asked which three people she would choose to have lunch with living or dead, she answered: "Beyonce, Rihanna, and Mother Teresa. A feast so we could all get down. Food is bonding, and every woman loves food!"

I have to believe that Mother Teresa
would ask some very probing questions
about all of this.

I'm not going to argue that those women probably love food (particularly Mother Teresa who, at the very least, devoted her life to making sure other people to have it), but Bo's response certainly raises at least a couple of questions for me. For example, why is Mother Teresa listed third? Did she perhaps list Beyonce and Rihanna and then realize she had come up with a rather shallow list? Do we think it sullies Mother Teresa's memory that she is now used as a shortcut for depth or would she view that as just another component of her life of service to the (in this case, mentally) destitute? Could Bo not erase and re-order her list once she realized her error? Do they make them fill out their questionnaires in pen or is that yet another black mark against Bo in the reasonableness record book? I suppose it's at least a good reminder that questionable decision-making isn't always symptomatic of a pressing need for a cheeseburger.

Day 24, The Worst Night One Twist in Bachelor History

Over the years, this series has produced some truly terrible twists. There have been painfully staged camp outs in the desert followed by the desperate pleading of past contestants for whom two seasons of embarrassment could never be enough. There have been contestants arriving late on helicopters, horseback, and steroids. But I'm not sure anything can quite compete with the anticlimax that has been promised this year. 

(This is perhaps technically a spoiler, but one so stupid that I'm not even sure there's anything left to spoil). 15 women will arrive in their limos. And then later. 15 more women. That's right, a totally expected number of people will be arriving in zanily unexpected time intervals. 

I know I'm claiming excitement now when I'm feeling all refreshed by the months off and the disgusting amazing-ness of Bachelor in Paradise, but seriously, if this twist is a preview of the excitement to come, but mid season this blog will just be pictures of farming equipment coupled with <insert words here>.

The Bachelor Advent Calendar

Yet another year, and yet another need to count down to the mounting excitement for what is undoubtedly the most exciting holiday of the year (after Arbor Day, of course): the January premier of the Bachelor! This sweet little guy is, I'm guessing, just the first of an unprecedented number of baby farm animals that we will be treated to on the upcoming season, rivaled for screen time only by amber waves of grain, cliches about the Midwest, and, one assumes, gratuitous footage of Chris operating heavy machinery while shirtless (Despite what the warning labels recommend. You think a nipple can't get caught in a baler?).

Look out for a new post every day between tomorrow and the season premier as I countdown the things I'm looking forward to about this year's season while, perhaps exposing entirely too much about my love of flannel. I hope you'll all join me as we gear up for our 8th season of the Bachelor/ette Fantasy League!