S8 Episode 14: “I Do Give a Sh*t, Which May be the Problem.”

Ramona is a good friend. She’s good at being a friend, she’s a good friend to people who are her friends. She’s the kind of friend you want in your reality foxhole when martini glasses start flying. She might not have the best listening skills but her heart is in the right place even if that place is sometimes Oz with monkeys flying around and she’s the Tin Man, with a healthy dose of scarecrow.

She’s a good friend to Sonja, by the way. Rarely do we do plan or film anything where Ramona doesn’t insist, off-camera, that Sonja be included. She doesn’t do it for show, or to seem like a good friend on camera. It’s genuine. She’s a really good friend. (See above.) And I’ve always had fun with Sonja, except on some occasions where too much alcohol goes around. We’ve been in situations where it’s fine, and then in some that are unsettling. Whatever. Fine.

But I don’t understand why she’s so angry with Ramona now. I guess we’ll hear her explanation at the reunion.

We inherit the family we’re born into and create the family we need. We have family and we have framily. Bethenny and I are framily, and I couldn't be more proud of her if I were her real sister.

If we were biological sisters, I’d be the older one and while I think I’d be a sweet loving big sister, I bet she’d probably have annoyed me, too. I might have quietly resented her sudden appearance in my young life, upstaging my gig and stealing the attention from our parents. I might have snuck into her room late at night, glowered down at her in her crib with ill thoughts, and hid her favorite doll. She might have been one of those tag along kid sisters who always get to do the things the older one had to fight for – like stay out late or take the car to the mall. We might have been passively cruel and competitive with each other. But we skipped all that childhood dysfunction and landed right where we are now: ”Hey, you’ve done something interesting with your life. So have I. We share the same values, work ethic, and shoe size. Let’s be friends.”

Doesn’t it seem that each season there’s always a troublemaker? This year it’s apparently Dorinda. I do find it amusing, each episode, to watch Dorinda impart her great wisdom with a twist and three olives. Telling others, for instance, that she can somehow magically know what I’ve said when no one was watching. She’s a wise-cracking, old-school martini-swilling sage. I can’t wait to hear what she’s got for us next.

I’ve enjoyed some of her isms. I even say, back that shit up, sometimes. In real life. And it makes me smile. But this year it seems she views every question with suspicion. She works every tiny thought one of us has into a nefarious chess game, one where I, for instance, surgically and neatly “slice and dice,” to quote her boyfriend. Ha ha. That’s me. I’m a slicer. I’m slicing and dicing from here to Sushi Roxx, leaving a trail of mirepoix in my wake Eric Ripert would die for.

Trust me, I’m not plotting. I can barely keep up with who’s mad at whom. Do you think D. honestly believes she has everyone’s happiness at heart and the rest of us are just lousy jerks, prying into private issues about boyfriends or family or health, ON A REALITY SHOW? I sort of think she does.

You know what? It’s television. We need to have dialogue, someone has to talk, we have to say something. But I am 100%. I’ve always been 100%. I don’t grandstand for the cameras. I don’t have fake outrage or indignation. No tricks, no screaming or throwing my leg on the floor for drama. I ask questions. I try to elicit conversation, hopefully something sort of interesting, or kind of funny. I ask the same kinds of questions I would ask any other friend. Only difference is they don’t twist into something else just for the sake of being mad at someone.

“You’re talking behind my back” is so old school Housewife 101 drama, I wrote about in the first episode of my first season. It seems the students of the show who are now on the show love to raise this one. It's a guaranteed drama, camera-time maker. It’s hilarious. I’m not talking about anyone behind their back. I barely speak in front of their backs, since most often others are talking, talking, talking.

This one particular rule makes me laugh and laugh and then laugh again. Apparently, according to the Housewife Commandments, you can only speak of a person when they are sitting directly in front of you. In front. Their back cannot be visible at all. No cut-out, no subtle little flash of back, no turning around to pick up the thing you dropped. No. Back that sh*t up. All front.

However, of course, this makes no sense. No one in any friend group anywhere in the world does that, including some small countries we don’t even know about who I bet have outlawed backs. We all discuss each other when sometimes someone isn’t there. Luann talks about me when I’m not there, I talk about Bethenny when she isn’t there, Dorinda talks about Ramona when she’s not there. It’s normal to discuss your friends with mutual friends if you are concerned about them. Say, if they are drinking or taking pills or doing really odd shit. Not everyone can be everywhere all the time. It’s not talking sh*t when you ask a mutual friend about another. You know who we don’t talk about? Behind their backs? The people we don’t care about. The ones who aren’t our friends. The people we don’t care enough about to ask about. Why this group can’t grasp that is beyond me.

Let’s see, what else. Oh, this dumb Luann thing. Luann and I are fine. We’re not going to be close friends. So what? This isn’t the first social circle I’ve been in where I wasn’t every single person’s best friend, jumping at the chance to go on vacation together. Simply said, my friendship with Luann couldn’t withstand the assault. It was collateral damage. Fine. The good news is we all don’t have to be great friends. It’s really okay.

I’ve been saying this since Bethenny’s BBQ. You don’t always get to hear it, but everyone else in the group has. Yet they keep asking me about it. Right, it’s television, and we need dialogue. Got it.

Luann doesn’t have to “give a shit about Carole.” I don’t expect everyone to give a shit about me. Or like me. Or even be nice to me. If it happens a couple times a year, I’m good. It’s all okay. Luann and I aren’t close, but I actually do give a shit about her, and I suspect that the feeling is mutual, and Luann just said that for dramatic effect. You don’t have to be besties to sincerely wish the best for someone. Everyone’s good. We’re all good.

Jules found her voice? That’s cute. Funny how these women always find their voice in a public restaurant or party. It’s embarrassing.  I tire, really fast, of sitting in restaurants while someone screams and bystanders rightfully gawk in disbelief.

I love my hair this whole episode. I’ve never loved my hair for an entire episode. That's about as deep as this show goes for me this week.