The Mysterious Power of Green Suede 

So it turns out I’m wrong about everything, according to folks commenting on last week’s recap. I should call my husband/partner/whatever my “husband” and stop trying to be clever about it. I should stop telling men to give up wearing shorts. And I should not suggest that Iowa is regressive. In my defense, I was too lazy to look up the fact that apparently there’s some kind of gay marriage test case going on there right now. Anyway, thank you, comment-leaving person. Go, Iowa! Get gayer! 

As for the shorts, I confess that I own one pair. OK, two. One pair are these Adidas running shorts made of this really thin tech-y material that I sometimes wear when I’m walking in the morning but not often because, holy scrotum, they are not supportive. Also, I have this pair of plaid ones I got at Target. Because I was in Texas when I bought them and it was last August. Have you ever been in Texas in August? All your life rules for yourself will go out the window. You don’t drink? You’ll be chugging those gnarly Sofia sparkling wines in the can while driving. Think smoking is dirty and unhealthy? You’ll mug the nearest middle school kid for her Newports. Heat like that sautés your soul. Nothing makes sense to you after you’ve been out in it. So you wind up wearing shorts. 

And this whole thing about the show leaving Bravo for … who, Lifetime, is it? You can see how much attention I’ve been paying, but someone has. And they’re pissed. People are leaking incorrect results for the season on Wikipedia (they say that Suede gets the boot this week and that Wesley wins. Wrong), Bravo’s posting episode synopses on its site, basically throwing spoilers at faithful viewers for apparently no other reason than spite, and there’s still no opening intro/credits bit. Did it take Bravo this long to get an intro together last season? Because it’s the second episode already, and while this week’s spiel is a tiny bit longer, that’s only because you hear Heidi’s voice telling you what you already know, that the winner gets this and that and money and yeahyeahyeah. Maybe the whole show is going to disintegrate before our eyes before November even rolls around. 

And the action begins. Suede wakes up and begins talking about Suede. “Any decision that’s not Suede going home is the right decision.” 

I guess I don’t need to add “says Suede” to the end of the preceding sentence, do I? Furthermore, happily for me, the show is on Suede’s ass about it this episode. Other designers begin mocking him for his stupid little affectation. That means I can focus on something else. His awful hair, perhaps. 

Cut to the women’s quarters of Atlas. Stella is honking on and on in her tough New York dialect about some breakfast drink that contains spirulina and wheat grass powder or something. “I’m not a cow. I don’t like grehhh-aaaassss!” she announces. Well, I could have told you that. She probably prefers to chug down a six of Rolling Rock and then break the glass up and chew on the shards. But then again, something else about her yells 12-step sobriety pretty aggressively, but that’s just me speculating. Maybe I’m only assigning Jeffrey Christ attributes to her. Anyway, she’s a jackhammer-loud, concrete scarecrow, a rock ’n’ roll warrior from the asphalt jungle. And suddenly I’m liking her. It helps if you can like someone on this show. And I don’t yet. So for now I choose Stella. 

We’re already at the runway. Here comes Heidi. She glides out in a mutedly shiny, deep gray T-shirt and skinny pants, like a monochromatic pewter blade of tall grass. Why is it that when I look at her I get all tingly? Why does the sound of her voice hit me in the I’m-eating-some-lemon-cake spot? Do any of you non-attracted-to-women people feel that way too? Is it just TV doing it to me? I have actual feelings for this woman. Housemate Xtreem Aaron expressed the same thing to me this week. “I adore her,” he said. I just nodded and said, “Yeah … I know …” and then we both stood there, gnawing on slices of pepperoni pizza, lost in fantasies of being near Heidi Klum if only for a moment in time.