Dear Remington Steele

I watched part of that Disney movie Oceans the other night.

I am not what one would call a nature lover. I am barely a nature acknowledger, frankly. And anything about nature that I do like is because of something else. For example, I like purple flowers because of the line from The Color Purple that goes, "I think it pisses God off if you walk past the color purple without noticing." Weeping willows are my favorite kinds of tress, mostly because that is their name. I enjoy the sunshine because it affords me the opportunity to wear sweet pairs of sunglasses.

But I know that earth, the animals, flora and fauna, are all incredible and beyond my comprehension in their capability and beauty.

I am allergic to life and so I often use that as my excuse as to hating outside, but lots of humans are allergy-ridden and they just drug themselves up and head outdoors. I drug myself up and take a nap.

Remember how people used to email each other? Remember how some of those emails would be all, "fill out this 14-page questionnaire about me so I can feel that we aren't as close as I thought because I would never respond to some of these questions with the answers that you provided?" Once, my sister gave an answer that was spot on. The question was: what is this person's (in my case, me, Sherry) favorite thing to do outside? My sister wrote: go back inside. No greater truth has ever been spoken. Well, there has, but in relation to me and what lies beyond the four walls of my domicile, this was all kinds of mad truth, homey. (Homie? I think it should be homey. Whatever.)

Lately, though, I have been feeling like I want to understand nature better. Not because I desire to be a part of it, but because I want a better understanding of the person behind it all. I know that everyone believes in evolution and that if you think God made all of the things that makes you a religious fanatic who rejects science and thinks the whole, 'earth is flat' idea had promise, and won't read anything but the bible, and refuses music and spirits. But honestly? That's not my gig. I love me some books and some spirits and I think God made the earth and all of the nature times. My strongest reason to believe it is because I have yet to come across anything that wasn't made by someone. Why would earth be different?

Usually, when you love a song or a book or a movie, your curiosity about the person who wrote it or starred in it grows. I don't love outside - except for maybe, stars - yet I do have a feeling of wanting to know better who is behind all of the stuff. So I am trying to support knowing about earth and what not.

So I watched a portion of this Disney movie, Oceans. I am a novice after all, so I didn't want to jump all in National Geographic style and give up too quickly. Also, the movie would be narrated by Pierce Brosnan! He was James Bond and before that, he was Remington Steele! And I loved him. Also he was in that surprisingly good movie, Ghost Writer. All of these eggs appeared sunny-side up.

Lots of my ideas are wrong.

First, I had to spend 10 minutes just getting to the menu to start the DVD because Disney is the birth mother of roughly 7, 342 ads, theme parks, trailers, and Blu-Ray propaganda pieces. Second, after 25 minutes of what was, in truth, gorgeous shots of the wonders of ocean life, I had learned, like, nothing. Lit-trally only one thing did I learn: whales sleep upside down. The shot of that was astounding and made me think, that is a lot of blood to have rush to your head. Other than that, nada.

The movie continued for another hour, but I gave up. I was tired and Pierce's talking of nothing started to grate. I don't know how the movie ends but I am pretty sure there are still oceans. And the 60th anniversary edition of Lady and the Tramp will be released on Blu-Ray for a limited time in 2012.

I am not giving up on my quest to understand the earth. I just think I should maybe try, like a book, or something.