Saturday, October 2, 2010

Going Cold Turkey

Recently I rented my friend Mich's spare bedroom. We decided to try co-habitating on a trial basis for 3 weeks and if it worked out I'd formally move in (& start paying rent) on October 1st. Mich doesn't believe in watching television and is a vegetarian. I, of course, have the TV on constantly and eat pretty much anything that is no longer moving. Is there any hope?

There was a computer outlet in my room BUT my monitor broke during the move and so there I was with no computer. There was also no TV signal. We went to Time Warner and ordered TV reception, a DVR for me and to have a computer line run into my room. We didn't schedule it until October 1st though.

Going without TV was extremely strange at first. There was a TV in the living room but it was only connected to a DVD box. How would I survive without my daily General Hospital fix? How could I get by with no Duggars or Gosselins and without knowing how Florence Henderson was doing on Dancing With the Stars?

As I went through withdrawal, I could only watch what Mich rented from Netflix or had in her limited DVD collection. She had a lot of feel good movies and the last 5 seasons of Frasier. I occasionally popped something in to relax by. But to my surprise, once I got over the habit of having background TV noise on, I really didn't give much thought to any of the shows I'd previously thought I couldn't live without. Samantha Brown and Anthony Bourdain had to get by without me. I confess that one day during my lunch hour I pulled up a synopsis of what had happened episode by episode on General Hospital in my absence. I was pleased to learn that the show was pretty much as I'd left it and I wasn't much interested in what had happened since I'd last watched.

On the other hand, not having a computer really hurt! I felt so disconnected from everyone - no daily Facebook fixes, no friend's blogs. I couldn't check my personal email from work as there is a strong firewall in place at school sites. Once in a while after work I'd steal a few minutes at someone else's computer - my daughter's or Mich's laptop. It was amazing how little time it took to catch up on facebook and deal with my email. All the extra time I had spent online in the past was spent playing games and blogging. Hmmmm, food for thought.

Mich and I had a serious chat while Juan from Time Warner was here hooking us up today. She asked me not to watch TV in the living room while she was home so that she wouldn't get sucked back in and become a couch potato again. She begged me to be her savior. I confessed that I was afraid I'd become her corruptor and warned her that within a week she will know the first names of all of the DC Housewives.

I hope it's not true though. I hope I'll retain something positive from this experience. But since it is 2 in the morning and I'm sitting here on my new (used) computer blogging while watching Holly's World on TV, I can't say for certain that any good habits have set in. Only time will tell.

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