America’s Next Top Model is Danielle. Not Joanie. My Joanie.
I’m so disappointed.
When I was 10 or 11, one of the neighborhood’s stray cats had a litter of stillborn kittens in our back yard. The mother was so weak she couldn’t even completely birth the final kitten; my dad had to remove the rest of it from her exhausted body. He placed all the dead kittens he could find in a garbage bag in our back yard. All of us cried our eyes out.
Later that evening, we heard a faint “Mew!” coming from the back yard. Had we missed a kitten somewhere? One that had survived? We got out flashlights and combed the yard, but the mewing was so faint and intermittent it made the search difficult. Finally, we realized the sound was coming from the garbage bag. One of the kittens hadn’t been dead! We pulled the tiny, brave, strong-willed survivor from its grave, made up a warm box for it, bought some kitten formula and a feeding tube, and nursed it. We were certain that it would pull through. But a few days later it finally gave up the ghost. And we all cried our eyes out again. Loss is always harder the second time.
In a way, this is how I feel about Joanie. I had given up on her; indeed, I previously predicted she would be the first to be eliminated. But through sheer force of will she persevered, she rallied, she soared! She fought her way out of the garbage bag into which I had carelessly tossed her. She won my heart, and I honestly thought she was going make it.
Ooooo, look. “American Idol” is on!
