Seriously... I'm Kidding (6 page)

Lately it seems that every magazine has a poll, every tabloid has a poll, every Internet site, every bedroom in my house. That’s a different kind of pole, but I’m just sharing with you. And I have to say—I’m not sure that all these polls are totally necessary. A lot of them ask the same questions. Which couple is cuter? Do you like her dress? Do you like his shirt? Who wore it better? Are they too skinny, too fat, too pretty, too ugly, too tall, too short, too hairy, not hairy enough?

Many of them ask questions that not only seem unnecessary but, to use a technical term, are also bonkers. I won’t say the name of the magazine (it sounds like “Pin Style”) I stole from my dentist’s office but there was a poll in it that asked readers, “How far will you take the season’s hot shade of green?” Thirty-nine percent of people said “All the way,” 37 percent said “Halfway,” and 24 percent said “Just a hint.”

Now, here’s my first question: What?! How far will you take the season’s hot shade of green? What does that mean? What does it mean to take green “all the way”? Like, to the prom? Are you going to settle down and have children with the color green? And look how close it is between “All the way” and “Halfway.” There’s only a 2 percent difference. I’m surprised we didn’t hear about that on the evening news.

I read another poll in a different magazine that I cannot and will not name even if you beg me to. (It sounds a lot like “Clamor.”) It asked readers, “Hot pink dress—is it a do or a don’t?” Now here’s my question about this poll: Who cares? If you want to wear a pink dress, wear a pink dress. It doesn’t matter what other people think. One hundred percent of the people polled could say a pink dress is a “do” and guess what? I still ain’t wearing one.

I’ve been in these magazines and it’s always an awkward thing to open one up and see yourself compared to a bunch of random people. It’s like, “Who wore it better? Ellen or Heidi Klum?” And obviously when you put the two of us side by side, it’s just not fair to Heidi.

They go after everyone in those polls. I actually think if Jesus were alive today, there would be polls about him in
Us Weekly
. “Who wore this flowy gown better? Jesus or J. Lo?” “Jesus’s sandals—hot to trot or heavens no?” “Do you think Jesus should cut his hair?” Fifty-four percent of readers say yes, Jesus should cut his hair. And of course that would be followed by “Should Jesus cut his hair into a mullet or buzz cut?”

All these polls do is make everyone so judgmental. And I don’t believe in judgment. Unless it’s judgment of judgment. I don’t think someone has to “wear something better” or have a better hairstyle. That’s why the word “different” exists in our language. (I don’t know why the word “mustache” exists, though. Can’t we just call it lip hair?)

We all spend so much time comparing ourselves to each other. Everyone is running around trying to keep up with the Joneses. Who are the Joneses anyway? Why are we trying to keep up with them? I’m sure they’re not perfect. We don’t need to keep up with them. It’s hard enough to keep up with the Kardashians.

And people compare everything. It’s not just clothing. It’s who has a bigger house, who drives a faster car, who has a better job. People compare their bodies to other people, and not only that, they compare what’s on their bodies. Have you ever gotten a bruise or a scratch or a paper cut and shown someone else what happened? People immediately start stripping off their clothing to compare injuries.

I once went into work and showed some producers a little bruise I got. The next thing I knew it was like
Girls Gone Wild
in my office. People were lifting up their shirts, rolling up their pants. Socks were coming off. “You think that’s bad—I walked into a tree yesterday!” “I banged my hip on a car door!” “I sat on a fork!” Don’t need to see it.

People were showing me scars and beauty marks that were not at all beautiful. I’m gonna tell you all right now—even if your beauty mark is in the shape of a prize ribbon, I don’t need to see it. (Same goes for stretch marks, ladies. When you say “Look what my kids did to me,” I expect to see gum in your hair, not your whole midsection. And no, I will not rub cocoa butter on it.)

Anyway, all I’m saying is I don’t see the sense in comparing ourselves to other people all the time. It’s not about being better than anyone else or having nicer things or bigger fork marks on your behind.

I personally like being unique. I like being my own person with my own style and my own opinions and my own toothbrush. I think it’s so much better to stand out in some way and to set yourself apart from the masses. It would be so boring to look out into the world and see hundreds of people who look and think exactly like me. If I wanted that, I could just sit in front of a mirror and admire my own reflection all day. That’s already how I spend my mornings. I don’t need to spend all of my time doing that.

And who’s to say what’s better or worse anyway? Who’s to even say what’s normal or average? We’re all different people and we’re allowed to be different from one another. If someone ever says you’re weird, say thank you. And then curtsy. No, don’t curtsy. That might be too weird. Bow. And tip your imaginary hat. That’ll show them.

Haiku

Haiku sounds like I’m

Saying hi to someone named

Ku. Hi, Ku. Hello.

Stretching

T
here’s one thing that should be essential to everyone’s daily routine. I’m sorry, two things: watching my talk show and stretching. Feel free to stretch while you watch my talk show, if you think it’s possible to take your eyes off me for even a second.

Stretching can apply to so many different areas of our lives. Not only should we literally stretch our bodies so that things are less likely to snap off, we should also stretch our minds. I think it’s so important to keep our minds active and to constantly be learning new things. We shouldn’t just stop at high school. I mean, technically I did. But you understand what I’m saying.

There are a lot of different ways to keep our minds active. A lot of people do crossword puzzles. Those are great for stimulating your brain. And other people love doing those really complicated and confusing puzzles where you have to place all the numbers and they have to add up. What’s that called? Oh yeah, math.

I like to stretch my mind by reading and writing and watching educational TV shows like
The Bachelor
to learn the complex mating rituals of heterosexuals.

Portia recently decided to learn something new. She taught herself how to cook. She didn’t take any lessons or classes or anything. She just figured it out on her own. And I know what you’re thinking—uh-oh. But she’s really good at it. Cooking isn’t an easy skill to learn. It can be very dangerous. There’s fire, there’s steam, there are sharp, sharp knives. Portia is down to three fingers but she never gave up and that’s why I love her.

I think it’s great that she started to cook. Mostly because I can’t. And it’s nice to have one person in the relationship who cooks because that way we can share responsibilities in the kitchen, like a lot of couples do. Portia cooks and I clean. Just kidding. I don’t clean. That’s gross.

But I do think it’s great that she was so excited to learn something new. I recommend it to everybody. Learn a new instrument. Learn to paint. Learn puppetry. Or you can just learn new facts. I can teach you a few things right now that you might not know. First of all, did you know that a snail can sleep for three years? That’s why they move so slowly when they’re awake. They’re groggy. Did you know that raccoons have such nimble fingers they can not only open garbage can lids and turn doorknobs, they can untie shoelaces? Now you know why they’re so good at putting on eyeliner.

Doesn’t it feel nice to stretch your mind a little bit? Now that you’ve done that, it’s time to move on to your body. Yoga is a great way to stretch your body. I try to do it every morning because it’s a great way to start the day. It gives me a lot of energy and now that I’ve been doing it for a while I’m pretty good at it. My downward dog is so excellent, I can’t show it on daytime television.

There are all different kinds of yoga. There’s power yoga. There’s Bikram yoga, which makes you sweat a lot because it’s done in very hot rooms. You can always tell who does Bikram yoga because they’re stinky. But all yoga is based on Hatha yoga, which is what I do, and Hatha yoga is based on watching animals stretch in nature. I know what you’re thinking. “Ellen, I’ve seen my dog stretch out in certain ways to clean himself and I don’t want to do that.” That’s not the part yoga focuses on.

The word “yoga” literally means “uniting,” because when you’re doing it you’re uniting your mind and your body. You can tell this almost immediately because your mind will be thinking, “Ouch, that hurts,” and your body will say, “I know.” And your mind will think, “You have to get out of this position.” And your body will say, “I agree with you, but I can’t right now. I think I’m stuck.”

Another thing that is great for stretching out your mind and body is meditation. It helps improve your memory and it increases blood flow. It forces you to calm down and relax. There are a lot of different ways to meditate. You can do it by yourself, or you can do it with other people. I’m still talking about meditation. You can do it anywhere. All you have to do is close your eyes. So you probably shouldn’t do it while you’re driving or operating heavy machinery, but otherwise you’re good to go.

Meditation requires a lot of focus and sometimes it is easy to get distracted. I’ve tried taking classes because I think it’s easier to meditate with other people. Being surrounded by good energy helps me focus and find positivity and happiness. But even then, I always want to open my eyes. Especially because there’s incense burning and I always think the room is on fire. So instead of focusing on my inner joy, I focus on trying to remember where the closest exits are. At some point, I do tend to open my eyes for a second just to see if the room’s on fire. Of course it isn’t but when my eyes are open I see two other people with their eyes open and I wonder how long they’ve had them open. Then I notice the giant gong and I think, “I wonder what happened to
The Gong Show
.” Chuck Barris hosted that show. What about that other Chuck? Not Chuck Barry. Chuck Woolery. He hosted the
Love Connection
. He did “two and two.” I wonder who came up with that. Did he? Was it a producer? Did he not know there was a number called “four”? That makes me start thinking about the number four. It’s interesting that “four” is spelled f-o-u-r but “forty” is spelled f-o-r-t-y. Then of course I immediately think about building a couch fort. Maybe I should build a couch fort on the set of my show and have my guests talk to me inside the fort. That would be fun and entertaining and we should probably do it in our pajamas.

Once I realize that my mind has started to wander I stop and try to do what I’m supposed to do when that happens—focus on the third eye. Guess what? That makes me think about how great it would be to have a third eye. Would I want it on my forehead or on the back of my head? Maybe on the top of my head. No, ’cause of rain. What if my lips were eyes? Then I’d get a lot more crumbs in my eyes, but I’d be able to get a really good look at what I’m eating. Just as I’m designing a pair of sunglasses in my head for my lip-eyes, the teacher hits the gong and I jump. I almost yell, “Oh my God!” but because I’m smart I yell, “Ohmmmmm!” I’m the only one chanting, but the class just thinks I’m really into meditation. The ohm actually calms me down so I leave feeling great. I’m peaceful, relaxed, and in a great mood. And now you see why it’s so great to meditate.

Not to mention how much I think my memory has improved. It used to be terrible. I was never very good at remembering people—even people I had met before and even people who had been a guest on my show. I could spend an entire night at a fancy Hollywood party talking to someone and when Portia would ask, “Who did you talk to?” I would have to shrug and say, “It was either Marcia Cross or Zac Efron.”