Today was my first day back at work after an 11-day vacation.  Actually it was 7 days, then I went in for one day, and then I was off for three.  Excepting my encounter with Grandma Airplane aka The God Warrior Redux, I basically had a lot of time off.

It. Was. Awesome.  I’m a planner by nature, just not when I’m on vacation.  When I’m on vacation, I don’t do anything.  Like, hardly at all.  I’ll go to the store or maybe go on a single outing, but mostly I sit around in my fat pants and think of ways not to leave the house.  On this particular vacation, I went to Fast Eddie’s on Tuesday, but beyond that I did a lot of being lazy.

I mean, obviously there was Netflix.  I can’t believe I ever scorned Netflix.  I can’t believe I waited so long (two whole weeks) to allow Graham to sync it to my Wii and my wifi network.  It is the most wonderful source of entertainment I have ever brought into my home, and I am including that thing I bought from GoodVibes that came in an unmarked box.

Now that all of The X-Files and Intervention have been added to Netflix Instant, I’ve spent most days in a paranoid,  melancholy, spookily deranged mood.  So, you know, the usual awesome.  I also started watching Californication.  Very good show so far (I’m almost done with season 1), not least because the words coming out of Hank Moody’s mouth are strikingly like my own.

I started thinking about how David Duchovny went to rehab for sex addiction, and how at the time, everyone was saying that it couldn’t possibly be good for him to play a sex addict on TV.  Well, first of all, and this may be because I’m not too far into the show, but I don’t think he’s a sex addict at all.  Second of all, it’s fucking fiction, okay, it’s a TV show, and unless he’s allowed to actually jerk off in real life in front of a Showtime-owned camera, I don’t think the role he plays on Californication affects his real life sex addiction (if it exists, because maybe he just cheated on his wife a few times).  Third, and I say this as a true fan of Dlisted and anything offensive Kathy Griffin says about other famous people, I don’t think Fox Mulder’s sex addiction is anyone else’s business.

But how is sex addiction from drug rehab, which Lindsay Lohan treats like her own personal spa?  Or how is knowing David Duchovny is a sex addict different from knowing Charlie Sheen is a pervert coke fiend maniac who beats up hookers?  Well, it’s not a lot different.  Except in the cases of Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen (and a lot of other famous people who go to rehab), they’re in there because they are public figures who broke the law spectacularly and didn’t (or at least not for long) go to jail for it.

Lindsay Lohan getting into a Mexican cagematch with Charlie Sheen and first prize is a prostitute filled with smack?  Somebody call Perez Hilton.  Someone having marital troubles and having to admit to the world that he looks at porn?  Not so much.

This is not to say that I’m not a fan of other people’s marital troubles, though.  I love celebrity divorces.  These are everyone’s business because a) marriage certificates are public record, and b) I will never not find it amusing that the hottest, most desirable people in the world are still awful in private and someone, somewhere, will always be tired of putting up with their shit.

The only thing that makes me mad about celebrity divorces are the publicist statements.  Take the recent Ryan Reynolds/Scarlett Johansson statement:

“After long and careful consideration on both our parts, we’ve decided to end our marriage. We entered our relationship with love and it’s with love and kindness we leave it. While privacy isn’t expected, it’s certainly appreciated.”

Bitch, please.  “After long and careful consideration.”  Right.  You fools don’t know what long consideration is, at least not to someone much poorer and dependent than you.  Also, “it’s with love and kindness that we leave it”?  That is CRAZY.  Anyone who’s given actual long and careful consideration to getting divorced knows that nobody leaves that situation with love and kindness.  By the time two normal people divorce, they’ve already committed to losing unimaginable amounts of time and money on the process just so they can be rid of this person.  I felt no love or kindness when I got divorced.  All I felt was an overwhelming desire to punch that bastard in the face.  (This desire has not, as of yet, diminished.)

Which brings me to my next brain dump: smudging.  The New York Times says that in order to rid new apartments of negative energy prior to moving in, many tenants with too much bloody money are hiring smudgers to cleanse the home.  Not content to burn a stick of sage like a regular half-assed hippie, smudgers can charge upwards of $1000 (not based on size, but on the amount of bad energy) to get rid of the bad shit.  Bad shit can be what’s left over after the previous tenants divorced in the apartment, after someone died there, or if you think the place might be haunted.

I mean, for god’s sake.  I don’t need to hire some hippie idiot to wave crystals all over my new house.  I was Catholic, shit doesn’t work that way.  You think your house is haunted and the Church doesn’t do exorcisms anymore?  You walk into that house and tell the ghosts you own this place now.  Unless they’re helping with the mortgage, they can get the fuck out.  End of story.  Some people got divorced in your new apartment?  Big fucking deal.  Fix the hinges of all the slammed doors and invite your slutty friends over for Ecstasy and cocktails.  Problem solved.

Or you could just throw a party in your van, which the New York Times also says is cool again.  Due to marketing efforts by the major van manufacturers (wouldn’t that be great to see on someone’s Facebook as their occupation?), minivans are enjoying a resurgence because they’re not just for depressed stay-at-home moms anymore.  While I admit to liking the Toyota Sienna commercials because they call it a “Swagger Wagon,” I’m not getting on with the van thing.  Especially since the Dodge Grand Caravan is being remarketed to younger dudes as a “man van.”

Look, van marketers.  You’re not getting it.  No young dude in his right mind wants your “man van.”  This is because the only acceptable “man van” is a nearly windowless late 1970s model with a single tinted bubble dome near the back end, a busty Viking princess straddling a tiger with a boner airbrushed on the side, and shag carpeting covering the floor and walls on the interior.  No woman in her right mind wants either van, actually, but at least she knows a guy means business when his van has scabies.