I feel as if my life has become very boring lately. It could be a summer thing, and I have absolutely no desire to go out and do anything interesting while the sun is up. Or it could be that work has been crazy and when I get home, I'm exhausted and would rather stay in, read, and eat Spaghetti-Os. It could also be because I just moved into a new house and a lot of my life is still in boxes … including most of my kitchen utensils, hence the Spaghetti-Os.
The other thing that has be questioning my once robust ambition to go out, have fun, and be social, was this whole "ice bucket challenge" phenomenon. A few days ago, I had a friend call me up and ask if I wanted to get a beer … I was like, "nah, I'd rather stay in and watch Benedict Cumberbatch get ice water thrown in his face, over and over again in gif format." It was also a good distraction from all the unpacking I still have to do … a very nice distraction indeed.
And there are so many … my favorite was Chris Pratt's challenge, who drank a bottle of Smirnoff Ice before someone dumped ice water on his head. Oh, Star-Lord, how I love you.
And Drew Brees had a pretty good one … he did it "slip n slide" style … because he's cool like that.
But after you get past all the celebrities in clingy wet t-shirts, you have to find yourself asking … why?
Like a few weeks ago with the whole #ImSoNewOrleans tag on Twitter, it starts out kind of cool, but then starts to descend dramatically when the mainstream catches onto it, and it suddenly becomes uncool.
You look a a standard Facebook feed right now, and there's at least one back-lash post to counteract a good ice bucket challenge … things like, "you don't need to dump water on your head, JUST DONATE" … or, something about water conservation, and okay, if you live in an area with a drought, that's valid … but have you seen some of these celebrities do their challenges? I loved Tom Hiddleston's as much as the next girl, but it looked like he put three pieces of ice in his bucket. That's not going to drain the water supply.
The other thing is … sure, you could just donate, but this is about AWARENESS. And since the beginning of this whole thing, the ALS foundation has raised 80 MILLION dollars, where as during the same period last year, they raised 2.5 million. So, something is working.
Another part of the equation is that it's just fun. Hell, Steve Gleason did his challenge naked ("because everything is better when you're naked", he said), and if he was into it, then it's cool in my book, as Team Gleason is extremely important to us New Orleanians. Also, it's just so fascinating to me how social media trends can essentially bring the whole world together in ways that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Sometimes it's important to just laugh a little bit and not take life too seriously. Yes, ALS is a terrible terrible disease, I had an aunt that passed away a few years ago from it … and I really think she would have loved this whole thing. It's important to be positive and put good vibes out there … I think something fun like the ice bucket challenge, definitely puts good vibes out into the world, when right now so much is negative … I mean, watching CNN the past few weeks has been pretty damn depressing.
The only thing I would have liked to see more out of all the celebrity videos, was a mention of an ALS charity to donate to, instead of just nominating someone else, as many of them didn't do it.
And I'm still waiting on Jimmy Graham's.
But in the meantime, I did get nominated by my husband … who enjoyed dumping ice water on my head a little too much.
Quite honestly, doing an ice bucket challenge in New Orleans in late August, isn't much of a challenge … it was actually pretty damn refreshing … but the ice was still quite a shock.
In return, I nominate fellow blogger Eve Crawford Peyton and my brother John. You've been challenged!
And I'll be donating to Team Gleason, once again HERE is the link.
