TV

It's been a quiet week at Lake Wob... er, JLPFL headquarters. I spent most of the week bothering the girlfriend while she finished up the last bits of her 2nd year of medical school (leading up to a month of feverish studying for the epic USMLE Step 1 exam this summer). Good luck babe!

Besides some office work (with several swim breaks), designing and ordering 2 new promo cards to coincide with the launch of Redux's revamped website (finally!), and a quick assignment on Wednesday for Every Day... I mostly used the week to explore a great new way to waste time (I prefer to think of it as exercising my hand/eye coordination).

If this was a Garrison Keillor dispatch, then the most important recent news would no doubt be the purchase of a television for the house. The girlfriend and I have been living TV-free together for 2 years, and I have lived without one for several years before that, so the new installation (just a small flat screen in our bedroom) is something of a revelation. As a new owner and viewer it is my duty to say how great and terrible the box is... though we haven't been watching that much. Mostly we watch a show here and there before bed (reruns of Seinfeld or something in the food/home design categories).

Ultimately my reason for having TV is to have a simple way to turn my brain off and bask in the glow of artificial dumbness. Being freelance is great, but I can't turn it off and have a hard time taking my mind away from it. Taking a walk or reading a book doesn't help much (though both are great). A little bit of TV seems to be just the ticket.

The obvious risk is that my moron break turns into the full-time job, or worse (for Judy) that I am somehow reborn as a devoted sports fan with a schedule of games that I must see (which would probably mean that we NEED Tivo, of which my Mom has already told us we can't possibly live without it). Luckily cable television, in the years that I've not been watching, has amped up the insanely stupid factor way past 11... so that its almost impossible to keep watching beyond an hour.

During college I spent so much of my time getting into passionate debates with over-caffeinated friends at our favorite coffee shop, lining up to see independent films that were stimulating and challenging, and reading important and rich literature. Now I rarely want any of those things, and I really expected it to go the other way since I am still without children, pets, or an official wife. Judy and I do check out art shows from time to time (we'll be at Second Saturday tonight in the Wynwood Arts District, our old stomping grounds), but more and more I don't want to be challenged by media... I want to be entertained. I want to turn off and be transported. I want Harry Potter!

This is depressing to think about... maybe I should try to find "Spies Like Us" somewhere on the tube (I already saw bits of it twice this week).

« Go to previous entry | Home | Go to next entry »

© 2006-2008 John Loomis. All Rights Reserved.