Billings Watch

It's been a long time since I've taken advantage of one of the most generous benefactors the Twin Cities mainstream media has to offer to aspiring bloggers. I speak of Laura Billings, who actually gets paid by the Saint Paul Pioneer Press to comment on the minutia of her personal life. Whether it's her poor dental hygeine, her penchant for clipping her kids pictures, or her underwear preference, you can always count on her to provide unsolicited insight into her private life.

Could Laura be brain damaged? This is a question that should be taken seriously. Evidince in favor of this theory abounds. She married Nick Coleman, who literally is old enough to be her father and who posesses charm and warmth of a catfish. Even stronger evidence comes from her own words:

It is not often that I feel much kinship with Ariel Sharon. . .

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that Billings didn't write this as an admission that she's severely brain damaged. Instead, she wrote it in a December 29 column, before his massive stroke. The subject of the column? She's depressed because she is fat.

Some quotes:

This year, after the birth of a baby and way too much Halloween candy, that number includes me. The diet starts officially in January, and while I could get a jump-start on it by bringing that telltale bag of carrots to my desk, instead I am following the Ariel Sharon plan and eating just as much as I possibly can before the cease-fire at midnight Dec. 31. And I'm not the only one drinking half-and-half out of the carton this week.

She goes on to detail the disgusting gluttinous habits of some of her friends and possibly her husband before returning to more of her own indiscretions.

I myself made a complicated heavy cream sauce recipe for the bread pudding that I never could get to thicken properly. Fortunately, the many imperfect versions that preceded it proved to be excellent for dipping doughnuts, pouring into my coffee and sipping straight from the pan.

Pan or trough?

If she's not brain damaged, maybe she has a mental disorder. Overeating can be related to serious mental disorders. Let's check some other columns for evidence of more mental problems. On a January 15 column on disgraced author James Frey she defends him by admitting she's a compulsive liar herself. The title of the column:

The truth is that we all tell lies

This column reveals much related to her mental state and it isn't what one would call healthy. More excerpts:

The truth is, human beings love to lie, particularly if it will improve our chances of looking good in a group, finding love, ending up on television or making money. (See also: your resume.)

Of course, when your husband's step-mother is running your newspaper, one may not need to embellish your resume to get hired, but we get the point: Laura can't stop lying (or eating as we just learned).

What's more, Laura can't handle the truth:

What's more, we love to be lied to — just a little.

Laura doesn't specify what lies she considers to be little. I'm only ten years older than you? I'm not married? I had to go to the strip club to get fodder for my column?

In any event, it looks like Laura needs help. As do the powers that keep this drek in the capital city's newspaper.