SLOOT! . . .

The unthinkable has happened: I have turned back into a huge Olympics sloot.

Yes, I watched the Opening Ceremonies last night. NBC advertised it as starting at 8pm. NO, NO, NO, my friends. Their bizarro telecast of all things cliche and sappy began at 8pm. The actual coverage of the ceremony (which, incidentally, was long since OVER by the time prime-time rolled around on the East Coast) started at 9pm, but I'm the big bonehead who didn't figure this out until it was too late, so I was stuck watching ridiculous interviews with Bode Miller who is just as sullen as sullen can be and Michelle Kwan who now is supposedly going to quit the Olympics because of injuries and I just think that's too sad. Because I'm an Olympics sloot.

So finally, 9pm rolls around ... and I can't help but determine to attend an Opening Ceremony one of these days, because no matter how grand and expensive and culturally significant and well-planned these things are, they just look dumb on television. I think the ubiquitous close-up camera shots and trite voice-over commentaries just ruin everything for everyone. I don't need or want to see every dancer flub every step, and I don't need or want Bob Costas explaining the symbolic importance of dancers wearing cow-spotted costumes. I want my imagination to take flight and I want the child in me to be stunned at the visual cohesiveness of what I'm seeing. This, I believe, can only be achieved if I'm actually in the stadium itself, seeing with my own blurry eyes and hearing with my own non-commentated ears.

I was bored. Sorry. I hate to say it, but I was. Still ... isn't it amazing that heartstrings can be pulled, even through boredom? When those Olympic rings went up white and transformed into the five colors of the world ... alright, alright, I teared up. I always do. It's just what I do -- the Olympics begin, and I start to cry. Even in this jaded, terrorized, politicized and polarized world, does it not mean anything anymore that human beings of all manner of differences can come together for two weeks of peace and pure competition (French ice-dancing judges notwithstanding)? It still means something to me.

I stuck around long enough to see the two Koreas march in as a united team. Buzz has it that in upcoming summer games, North Korea and South Korea will even compete as one country. The prospect both frightens and thrills me. What a perfect underscore to the concept of the Olympic Games.

Then I had to turn it off. I'm sick, after all, and my fog-filled brain can handle only so much visual stimulation. I didn't even watch the torch being lit, because ... well, it already happened and I already read about it in online news. Damn the Internet.

So now, I find myself eagerly awaiting the chance to watch some of this competition. Speed skating, downhill skiing, and yes of course, ice skating. Oh, gotta love that ice skating competition. I wish C.o.S. was here so we could judge the competitors together ... but I don't think our standards would be the same as those for international competition: "Her outfit was horrendous!" "What was that expression of straining on her face when she did that jump?" "Are his pants too tight?" "And what is WITH the overload of sequins?"